Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/32

 of her shameful widowhood the evil thought came to Rachel to do with it as the baser sort were once allowed to do with the children they did not wish to rear—expose it to its death before it had touched food. But in the throes, as she thought, of its extremity, the love of the mother prevailed over the hate of the wife, and with a gush of tears she plucked the babe to her breast. Then the neighbour—a caretaker of the Cathedral—who out of pity and charity had nursed her in her dark hour, ran for the priest, that with the blessing of baptism the child might die a Christian.

The good man came, and took the little sleep-bound body from Rachel's arms, and asked her the name. She did not answer, and he asked again. Once more having no reply, he turned to the neighbour to know what the father's name had been.

"Stephen Orry," said the good woman.

"Then Stephen Stephenson," he began, dipping his fingers into the water; but at the sound of that name Rachel cried, "No, no, no."

"He has not done well by her, poor soul!" whispered the woman; "call it after her own father."

"Then Jorgen Jorgensen," the priest began again; and again Rachel cried, "No, no, no," and raised herself upon her arm.

"It has no father," she said, "and I have none. If it is to die, let it go to God's throne with the badge of no man's cruelty; and if it is to live, let it be known by no man's name save its own. Call it Jason—Jason only."

"Heaven save us! a heathen name," cried the priest. "Where did she find it?"

"My goodness me," said the woman, "that's never the name of a Christian child, love. It's the name of a ship."

"Whatever will the boy become?" said the priest. "A pagan, a Baresark? God watch him!"

Yet in the name of Jason the child was baptized, and so it was that Rachel, little knowing what she was doing in her blind passion and pain, severed her son from kith and kin. But in what she did out of the bitterness of her heart God Himself had His own great purposes.

From that hour the child increased in strength, and three days after, as the babe lay cooing at Rachel's breast, and she in her own despite was tasting the first sweet joys of maternity, the old mother of Stephen came to her again.