Ultima Thule Read Online Free PDF

wifehood, high-bosomed, high-coloured, high-spirited, she seemed to have shrunk together, fallen in. Her pale face was puffy; her eyes deeply ringed.
    "You poor thing! What you must have suffered!"
    Mary said this more than once as she listened to Tilly's tale. It was that of a child born strong and healthy -- "As fine a boy as ever you saw, Mary!" -- with whom all had gone well until, owing to an unfortunate accident, they had been forced to change the wet-nurse. Since then they had tried one nurse after another; had tried handfeeding, goat's milk, patent mixtures; but to no purpose. The child had just wasted away. Till he was now little more than a skeleton. Nor had he ever sat up or taken notice. The whole day long he lay and wailed, till it nearly broke your heart to hear it.
    "And me . . . who'd give my life's blood to help 'im!"
    "Have you seen MacMullen? What does he say?"
    Tilly answered with a hopeless lift of her shoulders. "'E calls it by a fine name, Mary -- they all do. And 'as given us a new food to try. But the long and short of it is, if the wasting isn't stopped, Baby will die." And, the ominous word spoken, Tilly's composure gave way: the tears came with a gush and streamed down her cheeks, dropping even into her lap, before she managed to fish a handkerchief from her petticoat pocket.
    "There, there, you old fool!" she rebuked herself. "Sorry, love. It comes of seeing your dear old face again. For weeping and wailing doesn't help either, does it?"
    "Poor old girl, it is hard on you . . . and when you've so wanted children."
    "Yes, and'm never likely to 'ave another. Other people can get 'em by the dozen -- as 'ealthy as can be."
    "Well, I shouldn't give up hope of pulling him through -- no matter what the doctors say. You know, Tilly . . . it may seem an odd thing to come from me . . . but I really haven't very much faith in them. I mean -- well, you know, they're all right if you break your leg or have something definite the matter with you, like mumps or scarlet fever -- or if you want a tumour cut out. But otherwise, well, they never seem to allow enough . . . I mean, for common-sense things. Now what I think is, as the child has held out so long, there must be a kind of toughness in him. And there's always just a chance you may still find the right thing."
    But when, leaning over the cot, she saw the tiny, wizened creature that lay among its lace and ribbons: ("Hardly bigger than a rabbit, Richard . . . with the face of an old, old man -- no, more like a poor starved little monkey!") when, too, the feather-weight burden was laid on her lap, proving hardly more substantial than a child's doll: then, Mary's own heart fell.
    Sitting looking down at the little wrinkled face, her mother eyes full of pity, she asked: "What does Purdy say?"
    "'Im.?" Again Tilly raised her shoulders, but this time the gesture bespoke neither resignation nor despair. "Oh, Purd's sorry, of course."
    "I should think so, indeed."
    "Sorry! Does being sorry help?" And now her words came flying, her aitches scattering to the winds. "The plain truth is, Mary, there's not a man living who can go on 'earing a child cry, cry, cry, day and night and night and day, and keep 'is patience and 'is temper. And Purd's no different to the rest. When it gets too bad, 'e just claps on 'is 'at and flies out of the 'ouse -- to get away from it. Men are like that. Only the rosy side of things for them! And, Purd, 'e must be free. The smallest jerk of the reins and it's all up. As for a sick child . . . and even though it's 'is own -- oh, I've learnt something about men since I married 'im, Mary! Purd's no good to lean on, not an 'apporth o good. 'E's like an air-cushion -- goes in where you lean and puffs out somewhere else. And 'ow can 'e 'elp it? -- when there isn't anything but air in 'im. No, 'e's nothing in the world but fizzle and talk . . . a bag of chaff -- an 'ollow drum."
    Mary heard her sadly and in silence. This, too. Oh, the gilt was off