When he reached the door-ladder, he found descent difficult but possible. It was more difficult to make his way through the tangled bushes without scratching the baby, which, after all, might, alas, be beyond hurt! He held it close to his bosom, life coaxing life to “stay a little.” Thus laden, he appeared before Tommy, who had heard the splash, and thought Clare had fallen into the deep hole, but had not had courage to go and see, partly from the fear of verifying his fear, but more from his horror of the watery abyss. He stood trembling where Clare had left him. To save the baby was now Clare’s only thought. The baby was now the one thing in the universe! If only the light that shone on it were that of the hot sun instead of the cold moon, which looked far more like killing than bringing to life! “And,” thought Clare with himself, “there ain’t much more heat in my body than in that shivery moon!” But the sun would wake and mount the sky, and send the moon down, and all would be different! Only, if nothing could be done in the meantime, where would baby be by then! “Here, Tommy,” he cried, “come and see what I found in the water-butt.” At the word, Tommy turned to flee; but confidence in Clare, and curiosity to see what, in Clare’s arms, could hardly hurt him, prevailed, and he drew near cautiously. “Lord, it’s a kid!” he cried. “It’s not a kid,” said Clare, who had no slang; “it’s a baby!” “Well! ain’t a baby a kid, just?” Tommy did not know that the word stood for anything else than a child, which was indeed its meaning long before it was specially applied to the young of the goat. A _kidnapper_ or _kidnabber_ is a stealer of children. Mr. Skeat tells us that _kid_ meant at first just a young one. “You can’t tell me what to do with it, I’m afraid, Tommy!” said Clare. Already it was as if from all eternity he had loved this helpless little waif of Time, with its small, thin, blue-gray, gin-drugged face; this tiny life, so hopeless, so miserable, yet so uncomplaining: the thing that was, was the thing for it to bear; it had come into the world to bear it! Ready to die, even Death would not have it; it must live where it was not wanted, where it was not welcome! “Yes, I can!” answered Tommy with evil promptitude. “Put it in again.” “But that would drown it, you know, Tommy!” answered Clare, treating him like the child he was not. “We want it to live, Tommy!” His tenderness for the baby made him speak with foolish gentleness. “No, we don’t!” returned Tommy. “What business has _it_ to live, when we can’t get nothing to eat?”