Women are so queer about thae things.
I've seen her sitting by his cradle, moaning to hersel', 'I did so
want to be good! It would be sweet to be good! and never stopping
rocking the cradle, and a' the time the tears were rolling down."
Tommy cried, "If there is any more to tell, Corp, be quick."
"There's what I come here to tell you. It was no langer syne than
jimply an hour. We thocht the bairn was playing at the gavle-end, and
that Grizel was up the stair. But they werena, and I gaed straight to
Double Dykes. She wasna there, but the bairn was, lying greetin' on
the floor. We found her in the Den, sitting by the burn-side, and she
said we should never see him again, for she had drowned him. We're
sweer, but you'll need to tak' her awa'."
"We shall take her away," David said, and when he and Tommy were left
together he asked: "Do you see what it means?"
"It means that the horrors of her early days have come back to her,
and that she is confusing her mother with herself."
David's hands were clenched. "That is not what I am thinking of. We
have to take her away; they have done far more than we had any right
to ask of them. Sandys, where are we to take her to?"
"Do even you grow tired of her?" Tommy cried.
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