"No; but it is for Matabel, and we are one."

"Oh, no; it's not for Matabel."

"The hundred and fifty pounds is not for Matabel? And yet you said it was intended to make up to her for something you did not exactly explain."

"No, it is not for Matabel. Matabel might have had it, I daresay, but my old woman said she was set against that."

"Then we are to be deprived of it by her folly?" The Broom-Squire flushed purple.

"Oh, no. It is all right. It is for the child."

"For the child! That is all the same. I am the father, and will take care of the money."

"But I can't give it you."

"Have you not got it?"

"The money is all right. Sanna's hundred pounds--I know where that is, and my fifty shall go along with it. I was always fond of Matabel. But the child was only baptized to-day, and won't be old enough to enjoy it for many years."

"In the meantime it can be laid out to its advantage," urged Bideabout.

"I daresay," said Simon, "but I've nothin' to do with that, and you've nothin' to do with that."

"Then who has?"

"Iver, of course."

"Iver!" The Broom-Squire turned livid as a corpse.

"You see," pursued the host, "Sanna said as how she wouldn't make me trustee, I was too old, and I might be dead, or done something terrible foolish, before the child came of age to take it on itself, to use her very words. So she wouldn't make me trustee, but she put it all into Iver's hands to hold for the little chap. She were a won'erful shrewd woman were Sanna, and I've no doubt she was right."

"Iver trustee--for my child!"

"Yes--why not?"

The Broom-Squire stood up, and without tasting the glass of punch mixed for him, without a farewell to the landlord, went forth.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MARKHAM.

The funeral of Mrs. Verstage was conducted with all the pomp and circumstance that delight the rustic mind. Bideabout attended, and his hat was adorned with a black silk weeper that was speedily converted by Mehetabel, at his desire, into a Sunday waistcoat.

In this silk waistcoat he started on old Clutch one day for Guildford, without informing his wife or sister whither he was bound.

The child was delicate and fretful, engaging most of its mother's time and engrossing all her thought.

She had found an old cradle of oak, with a hood to it, the whole quaintly and rudely carved, the rockers ending in snakes' heads, in which several generations of Kinks had lain; in which, indeed, Jonas had spent his early infancy, and had pleaded for his mother's love and clamored for her attention. Whether with the thought of amusing the child, or merely out of the overflow of motherly love that seeks to adorn and glorify the babe, Mehetabel had picked the few late flowers that lingered on in spite of frost, some pinched chrysanthemums, a red robin that had withstood the cold, some twigs of butcher's broom with blood-red berries that had defied it, and these she had stuck about the cradle in little gimlet holes that had been drilled round the edge, probably to contain pegs that might hold down a cover, to screen out glaring sun or cutting draught.

Now, as Mehetabel rocked the cradle and knitted, singing to the sobbing child, the flowers wavered about the infant, forming a wreath of color, and freshening the air with their pure fragrance.

Each flower in itself was without much perceptible savor, yet the whole combined exhaled a healthy, clean, and invigorating waft as of summer air over a meadow.

The wreath that surrounded the child was not circular but oblong, almost as though engirding a tiny grave, but this Mehetabel did not see.

Playing the cradle with her foot, with the sun shining in at the window and streaking the foot, she sang--

"My heart is like a fountain true That flows and flows with love to you; As chirps the lark unto the tree, So chirps my pretty babe to me.

And it's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby."

But the answer was a peevish moan from the bed. The young mother stooped over the cradle.

"Oh, little lark! little lark! this is no chirp, Would you were as glad and as gay as the lark!"

Then, resuming her rocking, she sang,

"There's not a rose where'er I seek As comely as my baby's cheek.

There's not a comb of honey bee, So full of sweets as babe to me.

And it's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby."

Again she bowed over the crib, and all the rocking flowers quivered and stood still.

"Baby, darling! Why are there such poor roses in your little cheek?

I would value them above all the China roses ever grown! Look at the Red Robin, my sweet, my sweet, and become as pink as is that."

"There's not a star that shines on high Is brighter than my baby's eye.

There's not a boat upon the sea Can dance as baby does to me.

And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby."

"No silk was ever spun so fine As is the hair of baby mine.

My baby smells more sweet to me Than smells in spring the elder tree.

And it's O! sweet, sweet, and a lullaby!"

The child would not sleep.

Again the mother stayed the rocking of the cradle, and the swaying of the flowers.

She lifted the little creature from its bed carefully lest the sharp-leafed butcher's broom should scratch it. How surrounded was that crib with spikes, and they poisonous! And the red berries oozed out of the ribs of the cruel needle-armed leaves, like drops of heart's blood.

Mehetabel took her child to her bosom, and rocked her own chair, and as she rocked, the sunbeam flashed across her face, and then she was in shadow, then another flash, and again shadow, and from her face, when sunlit, a reflection of light flooded the little white dress of the babe, and illumined the tiny arm, and restless fingers laid against her bosom.

"A little fish swims in the well, So in my heart does baby dwell.

A little flower blows on the tree, My baby is the flower to me.

And It's O! sweet, sweet! and a lullaby!"