d. He felt the rhythm of the verse about him in the room.
How melancholy it was! Could he, too, write like that, express the
melancholy of his soul in verse? There were so many things he wanted
to describe: his sensation of a few hours before on Grattan Bridge, for
example. If he could get back again into that mood....

The child awoke and began to cry. He turned from the page and tried to
hush it: but it would not be hushed. He began to rock it to and fro in
his arms but its wailing cry grew keener. He rocked it faster while his
eyes began to read the second stanza:

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,
That clay where once...

It was useless. He couldn't read. He couldn't do anything. The wailing
of the child pierced the drum of his ear. It was useless, useless!
He was a prisoner for life. His arms trembled with anger and suddenly
bending to the child's face he shouted:

"Stop!"

The child stopped for an instant, had a spasm of fright and began to
scream. He jumped up from his chair and walked hastily up and down the
room with the child in his arms. It began to sob piteously, losing its
breath for four or five seconds, and then bursting out anew. The thin
walls of the room echoed the sound. He tried to soothe it but it sobbed
more convulsively. He looked at the contracted and quivering face of
the child and began to be alarmed. He counted seven sobs without a
break between them and caught the child to his breast in fright. If it
died!...

The door was burst open and a young woman ran in, panting.

"What is it? What is it?" she cried.

The child, hearing its mother's voice, broke out into a paroxysm of
sobbing.

"It's nothing, Annie... it's nothing.... He began to cry..."

She flung her parcels on the floor and snatched the child from him.

"What have you done to him?" she cried, glaring into his face.

Little Chandler sustained for one moment the gaze of her eyes and his
heart closed together as he met the hatred in them. He began to stammer:

"It's nothing.... He... he began to cry.... I couldn't... I didn't do
anything.... What?"

Giving no heed to him she began to walk up and down the room, clasping
the child tightly in her arms and murmuring:

"My little man! My little mannie! Was 'ou frightened, love?... There
now, love! There now!... Lambabaun! Mamma's little lamb of the world!...
There now!"

Little Chandler felt his cheeks suffused with shame and he stood back
out of the lamp