But Pete was bitter and rebellious. “Who's wanting the child anyway?” said he. “It's only herself I'm wanting; and she's laving me; O Lord, she's laving me. God forgive me!” he muttered. “O good God, forgive me!” he groaned: “It isn't fair, though. Lord knows it isn't fair,” he mumbled hoarsely. At last Nancy Joe came out and took him in hand in earnest. “Look here, Pete,” she said. “If you're wanting to kill the woman, and middling quick too, you'll go on the way you're going. But if you don't, you'll be taking to the road, and you won't be coming back till you're wanted.” This settled Pete's restlessness. The fishing had begun early that season, and he went off for a night to the herrings. Kate waited long, and the women watched her with trembling. “It's a week or two early,” said one. “The weather's warm,” said another. “The boghee millish! She's a bit soon,” said Grannie. There was less of fear in Kate's own feelings. “Do women often die?” she asked. “The proportion is small,” said the doctor. Half an hour afterwards she spoke again. “Does the child sometimes die?” “Well, I've known it to happen, but only when the mother has had a shock--lost her husband, for example.” She lay tossing on the bed, wishing for her own death, hoping for the death of the unborn child, dreading its coming lest she should hate and loathe it. At last came the child's first cry--that cry out of silence that had never broken on the air before, but was henceforth to be one of the world's voices for laughter and for weeping, for joy and for sorrow, to her who had borne it into life. Then she called to them to show her the baby, and when they did so, bringing it up with soft cooings and foolish words, she searched the little wrinkled face with a frightened look, then put up her arms to shut out the sight, and cried “Take it away,” and turned to the wall. Her vague fear was a certainty now; the child was the child of her sin--she was a bad woman. Yet there is no shame, no fear, no horror, but the pleading of a new-born babe can drown its clamour. The child cried again, and the cruel battle of love and dread was won for motherhood. The mother heart awoke and swelled. She had got her baby, at all events. It was all she had for all she had suffered; but it was enough, and a dear and precious prize. “Are you sure it is well?” she asked. “Quite, quite well? Doesn't its little face look as if its mammy had been crying--no?” “'Deed no,” said Grannie, “but as bonny a baby as ever was born.”