ake the child to Bideabout," said one young man, "we want no
babies here, but we'll have the corpse, and welcome. Folks will
come and make a stir about that. But we won't have no babies.
Take that child back where you found it."

"Babies!" said another, scornfully, "they come thick as blackberries,
and bitter as sloes. But corpses--and they o' murdered men--them's
coorosities."

"But the baby?" again asked the boy.

CHAPTER V.

MEHETABEL.

Iver stood in the open air with the child in his arms. He was
perplexed. What should be done with it? He would have rubbed
his head, to rub an idea into it, had not both his arms been
engaged.

Large warm drops fell from the sky, like tears from an overcharged
heart. The vault overhead was now black with rain clouds, and a
flicker over the edge of the Punch-Bowl, like the quivering of
expiring light in a despairing eye, gave evidence that a thunderstorm
was gathering, and would speedily break.

The babe became peevish, and Iver was unable to pacify it.

He must find shelter somewhere, and every door was shut against the
child. Had it not been that the storm was imminent, Iver would have
hasted directly home, in full confidence that his tender-hearted
mother would receive the rejected of the Broom-Squire, and the
Ship Inn harbor what the Punch-Bowl refused to entertain.

He stumbled in the darkness to Jonas Kink's house, but finding the
door locked, and that the rain was beginning to descend out of the
clouds in rushes, he was obliged to take refuge in an out-house or
barn--which the building was he could not distinguish. Here he was
in absolute darkness. He did not venture to grope about, lest he
should fall over some of the timber that might be, and probably was,
collected there.

He supposed that he was in the place where Jonas fashioned his
brooms, in which case the chopping block, the bundles of twigs,
as well as the broom-sticks would be lying about. Bideabout was
not an orderly and tidy worker, and his material would almost
certainly be dispersed and strewn in such a manner as to trip
up and throw down anyone unaccustomed to the place, and unprovided
with a light.

The perspiration broke out on the boy's brow. The tears welled up
in his eyes. He danced the infant in his arms, he addressed it
caressingly, he scolded it. Then, in desperation, he laid it on
the ground, and ran forth, through the rain, to the cottage of an
old maid near, named Sally, stoppin