"I hope I shall be on board ship just before that comes to pass," said the sailor. "Do you know what happens if a child dies and ha'n't been christened? It becomes a wanderer." "What do you mean?" "It ain't a Christian, so it can't go to heaven. It ain't done no evil, so it can't go to hell; and so the poor spirit wanders about in the wind and never has no rest. You can hear them piping in the trees and sobbin' at the winder. I've heard 'm scores of times. How will you like that when at sea to have your own child sighing and sobbin' up in the rigging of the vessel, eh?" "I hope it will not come to that," said the sailor. "That's what Susan Bay said when she put a darnin' needle into the armchair cushion, and I sed, said I, 'twas a ticklesome thing and might do hurt. She did it once too often. Her old man sat down on it." She brought some more ale at the request of the seaman, and as she set down the tankard said: "I won't be so bold as to say it's in Scriptur', but it's in the Psalm-book I dare swear. Mother, she were a tip-top tearin' religious woman, and she used to say it to me when I was younger than I be now:-- "'They flies in clouds and flap their shrouds When full the moon doth shine; In dead of night when lacketh light, We here 'em pipe and pine. "'And many a soul wi' hoot and howl Do rattle at the door, Or rave and rout, and dance about All on a barren moor.' "And it goes on somehow like this. You can think on it as you go over Hind Head in the dark: "'Or at the winder wail and weep, Yet never venture nigher; In snow and sleet, within to creep To warm 'em at the fire.'" The child began to cry in the adjoining room. "There," said the landlady, "'tis awake she is, poor mite without a name, and not as much Christianity as could make a cat sneeze. If that there child were to die afore you got to Portsmouth and had her baptized, sure as my name is Susanna Verstage, I'd never forgive myself, and I'd hear her for sure and certainty at the winder. I'm a motherly sort of a woman, and there's a lot o' them poor wanderers comes piping about the panes of an evening. But I can do nothing for them." "Now then, lads, let's be moving," said the mariner. The three men at the table rose; and when standing exposed more of their raggedness and the incongruity of their apparel than was shown when they were seated. The landlady reluctantly surrendered the child. "A babe," said she, "mustn't be shaken after feeding;" then, "a babe mustn't be allowed to get its little feet cold, or gripes comes;" then, "you must mind and carry it with the head to your shoulder, and away from the wind." Presently another item occurred to the good woman, as the men left their places at the table: "You must hold the child on your arm, between the wrist and the elbow-jint." As they went to the door she called, "And never be without a drop o' dill water: it's comforting to babies."