Jack Raymond

"I want to see!" Joh

"Don't worry Jack, darling," said the mother; "he's busy."

"He doesn't worry me; I like to have him."

He stooped down and took the child on his knee.

"What is it you want to see, old man? There's nothing much to look at to-day."

"Can't you make the animals wiggle about?"

"Animals?"

"Infusoria, he means," Molly put in. "You showed him a drop of water the other day."

"Oh, those! No, chick, I've no pond water to-day, and we don't let animals wiggle about in the water from our tap."

"Why?"

"For fear they should wiggle about in your inside and give you a bad throat. There, you can get the high chair and sit beside me, only don't jerk my elbow. Oh, confound the screw!"

He was stooping, with knitted brows, to adjust the microscope. The king of the household looked on critically.

"You're twisting him wrong," he remarked in a severe voice.

"True for you, so

"I think I hear Susan coming," Molly interposed. "And I think there are hot scones for tea. We'd better hurry up and get those grubby paws washed."

She opened the door, and Joh

"Molly," said Jack, with his head down over the screws of the microscope, "don't let the child call me 'Uncle,' there's a good soul."

The diphtheria epidemic which was spread­ing through the south of England had reached Cornwall. In Porthcarrick and the neighbouring moorland hamlets child after child sickened and died. It had been a wet and stormy autumn, a hard time for the fisher-folk. Many lives had been lost in the rough weather; and what little fish was dragged to market over sodden roads and howling moors brought in small return for the labour and peril it had cost. Poverty, grief, and weariness had lain heavily on the storm-beaten villages ever since the Septem­ber gales; now, at Christmas-time, the sick­ness had come.

But for their Vicar, the Porthcarrick people would have been in evil case. Dr. Jenkins, middle-aged, overworked, handicapped by the incessant cares of a small income and a large family, did his best; but conscientious and kindly as he was, he could hot have stood against the dead-weight of general misery without the support of the stronger nature. It was the Vicar who enrolled volunteer helpers and collected subscriptions; who tramped over the soaked heather from cot­tage to cottage, visiting the sick and be­reaved, investigating cases of distress, and finding temporary homes, away from con­tagion, for the brothers and sisters of the stricken children. In these black weeks he was on foot early and late; quite white-haired now and a little slower in his movements than when Jack had known him, but other­wise hardly changed; erect and uncompro­mising as of old.

As for Mrs. Raymond, she remained the dutiful wife that she had always been. She was too feeble, too heavy and asthmatic, to tramp the stony moors as her husband did, and for courage, she had none to help herself or others; nor could she dare to mock the gods by offering consolation to any woman who had lost a child; but what little one so poor in spirit had to give she gave submis­sively, without complaint. She turned her old black silk gown once more to make it last another year, and timidly slipped into the Vicar's hand the money she had saved up to buy a new one "for your coal and blanket fund, Josiah." Her mornings were spent in making soups and jellies for the sick; her after­noons in sewing or knitting for them; but it was the Vicar who had to distribute the gifts. In age as in youth, she hid behind her master and asked his approval at every step; a patient Griselda, grown old in obedience, behind whose eyes still lurked the unlaid ghost of fear.

The heart-breaking rain spent itself at last; and one morning, laying the cloth for lunch in the dreary, immaculate sitting-room, she saw an unfamiliar gleam of sunshine fall across the table.

Her first impulse was to lift up her heart in thanksgiving for a merciful answer to prayer: if dry weather should be granted at last, perhaps the sickness might abate. Her second was the result of lifelong habit: she spread a newspaper upon the floor to save the carpet.

The board of health officer from Truro came in with the Vicar for a hasty lunch; they were to attend a committee meeting, and then to make a round of visits together to places suspected of unsanitary conditions.

"I shall probably be out late," the Vicar told his wife. "There has been another death near Ze

"Don't kill yourself with work," said the visitor. "What would Porthcarrick do?"

"It is the diphtheria we hope to kill," Mr. Raymond answered bravely; "and we shall do it soon now, if the Almighty in His mercy should send us fair weather."

The official nodded approvingly. He was an earnest worker himself and a lover of workers, and the Vicar's indomitable energy delighted him. "What a splendid old fel­low!" he had said to Dr. Jenkins. "As stiff as a cast-iron gate to look at; and just see the work he gets through!" He looked at the hard old face with genuine admira­tion.

"Talking of diphtheria," he said, "reminds me. I wonder are you by any chance related to the Dr. Raymond in Bloomsbury who has been making experiments lately with the diphtheritic virus? I saw an article about it in this week's Lancet; he's to read a paper at the Edinburgh Congress. His theory seems to be attracting a good deal of attention."

If he had turned to the woman her scared eyes would have silenced him; but he was

looking at Mr. Raymond, and the grey face never twitched.

"Yes, he is a relative."

"Really? How small the world is, to be sure! I spent a week in the same boarding-house with Dr. Raymond last summer; I was taking a holiday on the south coast, and he was there with a sister of his, a young widow, I think, with a little boy — such a beautiful child!"

Then he became conscious of the strained immobility of his hosts, and stopped.

"He is a relative," the Vicar repeated; "but not an acquaintance."

The conversation flagged awkwardly for a few minutes; then the visitor looked at his watch.

"It's time to go, I think."

In the garden the Vicar stopped short.

"Pardon me," he said to his guest; "I for­got a message for my wife. I will catch you up the road."

He went back into the house. His wife was standing where they had left her, quite still, her eyes on the floor.

"Sarah," he began, and paused in the door­way.

She started, then recovered her self-posses­sion, and came up to him.

"Did you forget any thing?"

He hesitated, looking away from her. "You perhaps feel lonely when I am out so much?"

"No, Josiah; I'm used to being alone."

"Yes." He paused again.

"I was wondering... whether you would like Dr. Jenkins's little girl to come and sit with you sometimes. She is a nice, quiet little thing, and you were always so fond of chil­dren..."

The words died in his throat as he saw her draw back from him, her hands outstretched, her eyes widened, full of dread.

"No, no! Josiah. Oh, don't bring a child in here!"

His face had turned to stone.

"You mean, Sarah..?"

They stood still and looked at each other. He was brave enough, but not she. Her eyes sank; her old hand fluttered against the skirt of her gown.

"I... I'm not so strong as I was; ...and children are so noisy..."

He had not flinched.

"It is as you prefer," he said, and went out.

She watched him from her window as he walked up the lane; a black and sunless blot upon the landscape; correct, professional, with stubborn shoulders still unbowed under the weight of grey hair and of shame. Then she sat down at her neat work-table to darn his socks.