Mavor to say:
'Ye'll be needed ower yonder, a'm thinkin'.'
'Why? Is the baby worse? Have you been in?'
'Na, na,' replied Geordie cautiously, 'a'll no gang where a'm no wanted.
But yon puir thing, ye can hear ootside weepin' and moanin'.'
'She'll maybe need ye tae,' he went on dubiously to me. 'Ye're a kind
o' doctor, a' hear,' not committing himself to any opinion as to my
professional value. But Slavin would have none of me, having got the
doctor sober enough to prescribe.
The interest of the camp in Slavin was greatly increased by the illness
of his baby, which was to him as the apple of his eye. There were a few
who, impressed by Geordie's profound convictions upon the matter,
were inclined to favour the retribution theory, and connect the baby's
illness with the vengeance of the Almighty. Among these few was Slavin
himself, and goaded by his remorseful terrors he sought relief in drink.
But this brought him only deeper and fiercer gloom; so that between her
suffering child and her savagely despairing husband, the poor mother was
desperate with terror and grief.
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