“Lord bless me!—to see legs and arms hang down like that!” exclaimed the gentleman: and he forthwith gave the woman a lecture on her method of nursing—scolded her for letting the child get a fever—for not putting it to bed—for not getting a doctor to it—for being a gipsy, and living under an alder clump. He then proceeded to inquire whether she had anybody else in the tent, where her husband was, whether he lived by thieving, how they would all like being transported, whether she did not think her children would all be hanged, and so on. At first, the woman tried a facetious and wheedling tone, then a whimpering one, and, finally, a scolding one. The last answered well. Mr. Nelson found that a man, to say nothing of a gentleman, has no chance with a woman with a sore heart in her breast, and a sick child in her lap, when once he has driven her to her weapon of the tongue. He said afterwards, that he had once gone to Billingsgate, on purpose to set two fishwomen quarrelling, that he might see what it was like. The scene had fulfilled all his expectations; but he now declared that it could not compare with this exhibition behind the alders. He stood a long while, first trying to overpower the woman’s voice; and, when that seemed hopeless, poking about among the rushes with his stick, and finally, staring in the woman’s face, in a mood between consternation and amusement:—thus he stood, waiting till the torrent should intermit; but there was no sign of intermission; and when the sick child began to move and rouse itself, and look at the strangers, as if braced by the vigour of its mother’s tongue, the prospect of an end seemed further off than ever. Mr. Nelson shrugged his shoulders, signed to his companions, and walked away through the alders. The woman was not silent because they were out of sight. Her voice waxed shriller as it followed them, and died away only in the distance. Moss was grasping Fleming’s hand with all his might when Mr. Nelson spoke to him, and shook his stick at him, asking him how he came to play with such people, and saying that if ever he heard him learning to scold like that woman, he would beat him with that stick: so Moss vowed he never would. “When the train was in sight by which Mr. Nelson was to depart, he turned to Fleming, with the most careless air imaginable, saying, “Have you any medicine in your house?—any bark?” “Not any. But I will send for some.” “Ay, do. Or,—no—I will send you some. See if you can’t get these people housed somewhere, so that they may not sleep in the swamp. I don’t mean in any of your houses, but in a barn, or some such place. If the physic comes before the doctor, get somebody to dose the child. And don’t fancy you are all going to die of the fever. That is the way to make yourselves ill: and it is all nonsense, too, I dare say.” “Do you like that gentleman?” asked Moss, sapiently, when the train was whirling Mr. Nelson out of sight. “Because I don’t—not at all.”