THE nurse arrived, bringing new . She was an old woman who, for twenty years, had helped the neighbouring into the world; and she had a store of ghastly . In her mouth the terrors of birth were innumerable, and she told her stories with a art that was . Of course, in her mind, she acted for the best; Bertha was nervous, and the nurse could imagine no better way of her than to give accounts of patients who for days had been at death’s door, given up by all the doctors, and yet had finally recovered.
Bertha’s quick invention magnified the coming till, for thinking of it, she could hardly sleep. The impossibility even to conceive it rendered it more formidable; she saw before her a long, long agony, and then death. She could not bear Edward to be out of her sight.
“Why, of course you’ll get over it,” he said. “I promise you it’s nothing to make a fuss about.”
He had bred animals for years and was quite used to the process which supplied him with , mutton, and beef, for the local butchers. It was a ridiculous fuss that human beings made over a natural and ordinary phenomenon.
“Oh, I’m so afraid of the pain. I feel certain that I shan’t get over it—it’s awful. I wish I hadn’t got to go through it.”
“Good heavens,” cried the doctor, “one would think no one had ever had a baby before you.”
“Oh, don’t laugh at me. Can’t you see how frightened I am! I have a that I shall die.”
“I never knew a woman yet,” said Dr. Ramsay, “who hadn’t a presentiment that she would die, even if she had nothing worse than a finger-ache the matter with her.”
“Oh, you can laugh,” said Bertha. “I’ve got to go through it.”
Another day passed, and the nurse said the doctor must be immediately sent for. Bertha had made Edward promise to remain with her all the time.
“I think I shall have courage if I can hold your hand,” she said.
“Nonsense,” said Dr. Ramsay, when Edward told him this, “I’m not going to have a man about.”
“I thought not,” said Edward, “but I just promised, to keep her quiet.”
“If you’ll keep yourself quiet,” answered the doctor, “that’s all I shall expect.”
“Oh, you needn’t fear about me. I know all about these things—why, my dear doctor, I’ve brought a good sight more living things into the world than you have, I bet.”
Edward, calm, self-possessed, unimaginative, was the ideal person for an emergency.
“There’s no good my knocking about the house all the afternoon,” he said. “I should only mope, and if I’m wanted I can always be sent for.”
He left word that he was going to Bewlie’s Farm to see a sick cow, about which he was very anxious.
“She’s the best milker I’ve ever had. I don’t know what I should do if anything went wrong with her. She gives her so-many a day, as regular as possible. She’s brought in over and over again the money I gave for her.”
He walked along with the free and easy step which Bertha so much admired, glancing now and then at the fields which bordered the highway. He stopped to examine the beans of a rival farmer.
“That soil’s no good,” he said, shaking his head. “It don’t pay to grow beans on a patch like that.”
When he arrived at Bewlie’s Farm, Edward called for the labourer in charge of the .
“Well, how’s she going?”
“She ain’t no better, .”
“Bad job.... Has Thompson been to see her to-day?” Thompson was the .
“‘E can’t make nothin’ of it—’e thinks it’s a habscess she’s got, but I don’t put much faith in Mister Thompson: ’is father was a labourer same as me, only ’e didn’t ’ave to do with farming, bein’ a bricklayer; and wot ’is son can know about cattle is beyond me altogether.”
“Well, let’s go and look at her,” said Edward.
He strode over to the barn, followed by the labourer. The beast was in one corner, even more than is usual with cows, hanging her head and humping her back. She seemed profoundly pessimistic.
“I should have thought Thompson could do something,” said Edward.
“‘E says the butcher’s the only thing for ’er,” said the other, with great contempt.
Edward snorted indignantly. “Butcher indeed! I’d like to butcher him if I got the chance.”
He went into the , which for years had been his home; but he was a practical, sensible fellow and it brought him no memories, no particular emotion.
“Well, Mrs. Jones,” he said to the tenant’s wife. “How’s yourself?”
“Middlin’, sir. And ’ow are you and Mrs. Craddock?”
“I’m all right—the Missus is having a baby, you know.”
He in the , careless way which necessarily endeared him to the whole world.
“Bless my soul, is she indeed, sir—and I knew you when you was a boy! When d’you expect it?”
“I expect it every minute. Why, for all I know, I may be a happy father when I get back to tea.”
“You take it pretty cool, governor,” said Farmer Jones, who had known Edward in the days of his poverty.
“Me?” cried Edward, laughing. “I know all about this sort of thing, you see. Why, look at all the I’ve had—and mind you, I’ve not had an accident with a cow above twice, all the time I’ve gone in for breeding.... But I’d better be going to see how the Missus is getting on. Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Jones.”
“Now what I like about the squire,” said Mrs. Jones, “is that there’s no ‘aughtiness in ’im. ’E ain’t too proud to take a cup of tea with you, although ’e is the squire now.”
“‘E’s the best squire we’ve ’ad for thirty years,” said Farmer Jones, “and, as you say, my dear, there’s not a drop of ’aughtiness in ‘im—which is more than you can say for his missus.”
“Oh well, she’s young-like,” replied his wife. “They do say as ’ow ’e’s the master, and I dare say ’e’ll teach ’er better.”
“Trust ’im for makin’ ’is wife under; ’e’s not a man to stand nonsense from anybody.”
Edward swung along the road, whirling his stick round, whistling, and talking to the dogs that accompanied him. He was of a hopeful , and did not think it would be necessary to his best cow. He did not believe in the vet. half so much as in himself, and his firm opinion was that she would recover. He walked up the avenue of Court Leys, looking at the young elms he had planted to fill the gaps; they were pretty healthy on the whole, and he was pleased with his work.
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