We left the matter to her, carrying some things to the shed as we passed it on our way home--blankets and a pillow, fresh water, milk-and-water for the baby, and a candle and matches. One of the women-servants was to come after us, with hot broth and wine. When we reached Crabb Cot, the dismay there at hearing Robert Ashton had not turned up, was diversified by this news, which we told of. Not that they thought very much of it: the woman was only a poor tramp, they said; and such things--fevers, and that--happen to poor tramps every day. "Do you think the baby's dying?" asked Charles Ashton, the parson. "I'm nearly sure it is," said Tom Coney. "That's a kind of woman, you know, that ought to be committed for fourteen-days' hard labour," observed the Squire, fiercely, who was in a frightfully cross mood with the various mishaps and uncertainties of the evening. "Seems to be very sickly and humble, you say, Mr. Johnny! Hold your tongue, sir; what should you know about it? These women tramps bring death on their infants through exposure." "And that's true," said old Coney. "I'd punish 'em, Squire, if I were a magistrate like you." But what do you think Parson Ashton did? When the dog-cart had taken him and Mr. and Mrs. James Ashton to the Court--where they were to stay all night--he started off for the shed, and did not come away from it until he had baptized the baby. We heard nothing more about it until the next day--and I don't suppose any one has forgotten what sort of a miserable day that was, at old Coney's Farm. How the wedding never took place, and Robert Ashton was still missing, and Jane Coney was dressed in her bridal robes for nothing, and the breakfast could not be eaten, and we guests staring in each other's faces like so many helpless dummies. What news we had of it then, came from Charles Ashton: he had been to the shed again that morning. Whilst the carriages stood waiting at the gate, the post-boys' scarlet jackets flaming in the sun, and the company indoors sat looking hopelessly for the bridegroom, Parson Ashton talked about it in a corner to Mrs. Coney and the Squire's wife: both of them in their grand silk plumage then, one plum-coloured, the other sea-green, with feathers for top-knots. The little baby was dead, Charles Ashton said. The mother had been removed to a shelter in Timberdale village, and was being cared for. The doctor, called in to her, Darbyshire, thought she might get over it. "You baptized the child, I hear, Charles?" said Mrs. Coney, to the parson. "Oh yes." "What did you name it?"