flapped in his face,' with which bit of
proverbial philosophy he suddenly left me. But Geordie thenceforth
contented himself, in Mr. Craig's presence at least, with ominous
head-shakings, equally aggravating, and impossible to answer.

That same night, however, Geordie showed that with all his theories he
had a man's true heart, for he came in haste to Mrs. 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.

'Ah! madame,' she sobbed to Mrs. Mavor, 'my heart is broke for him. He's
heet noting for tree days, but jis dreenk, dreenk, dreenk.'

The next day a man came for me in haste. The baby was dying and the
doctor was drunk. I found the little one in a convulsion lying across
Mrs. Mavor's knees, the mother kneeling beside it, wringing her hands in
a dumb agony, and Slavin standing near, silent and suffering. I glanced
at the bottle of medicine upon the table and asked Mrs. Mavor the dose,
and found the baby had been poisoned. My look of horror told Slavin
something was wrong, and striding to me he caught my arm and asked--

'What is it? Is the medicine wrong?'

I tried to put him off, but his grip tightened till his fingers seemed
to reach the bone.

'The dose is certainly too large; but let me go, I must do something.'

He let me go at once, saying in a voice that made my heart sore for him,
'He has killed my baby; he has killed my baby.' And then he cursed the
doctor with awful curses, and