Portent and Other Stories, The | Page 9

I knew better. I knew that she was fighting
some evil power; and what power it was, I knew full well; for twice,
during her pains, I heard the click of the horseshoe. But no one could
help her. After her delivery, she lay as if in a trance, neither dead, nor at
rest, but as if frozen to ice, and conscious of it all the while. Once more

I heard the terrible sound of iron; and, at the moment, your mother
started from her trance, screaming, 'My child! my child!' We suddenly
became aware that no one had attended to the child, and rushed to the
place where he lay wrapped in a blanket. Uncovering him, we found
him black in the face, and spotted with dark spots upon the throat. I
thought he was dead; but, with great and almost hopeless pains, we
succeeded in making him breathe, and he gradually recovered. But his
mother continued dreadfully exhausted. It seemed as if she had spent
her life for her child's defence and birth. That was you, Duncan, my
dear.
"I was in constant attendance upon her. About a week after your birth,
as near as I can guess, just in the gloaming, I heard yet again the awful
clank--only once. Nothing followed till about midnight. Your mother
slept, and you lay asleep beside her. I sat by the bedside. A horror fell
upon me suddenly, though I neither saw nor heard anything. Your
mother started from her sleep with a cry, which sounded as if it came
from far away, out of a dream, and did not belong to this world. My
blood curdled with fear. She sat up in bed, with wide staring eyes and
half-open rigid lips, and, feeble as she was, thrust her arms straight out
before her with great force, her hands open and lifted up, with the
palms outwards. The whole action was of one violently repelling
another. She began to talk wildly as she had done before you were born,
but, though I seemed to hear and understand it all at the time, I could
not recall a word of it afterwards. It was as if I had listened to it when
half asleep. I attempted to soothe her, putting my arms round her, but
she seemed quite unconscious of my presence, and my arms seemed
powerless upon the fixed muscles of hers. Not that I tried to constrain
her, for I knew that a battle was going on of some kind or other, and my
interference might do awful mischief. I only tried to comfort and
encourage her. All the time, I was in a state of indescribable cold and
suffering, whether more bodily or mental I could not tell. But at length
I heard yet again the clank of the shoe A sudden peace seemed to fall
upon my mind--or was it a warm, odorous wind that filled the room?
Your mother dropped her arms, and turned feebly towards her baby.
She saw that he slept a blessed sleep. She smiled like a glorified spirit,
and fell back exhausted on the pillow. I went to the other side of the

room to get a cordial. When I returned to the bedside, I saw at once that
she was dead. Her face smiled still, with an expression of the uttermost
bliss."
Nurse ceased, trembling as overcome by the recollection; and I was too
much moved and awed to speak. At length, resuming the conversation,
she said: "You see it is no wonder, Duncan, my dear, if, after all this, I
should find, when I wanted to fix the date of your birth, that I could not
determine the day or the hour when it took place. All was confusion in
my poor brain. But it was strange that no one else could, any more than
I. One thing only I can tell you about it. As I carried you across the
room to lay you down, for I assisted at your birth, I happened to look
up to the window. Then I saw what I did not forget, although I did not
think of it again till many days after,--a bright star was shining on the
very tip of the thin crescent moon."
"Oh, then," said I, "it is possible to determine the day and the very hour
when my birth took place."
"See the good of book-learning!" replied she. "When you work it out,
just let me know, my dear, that I may remember it."
"That I will."
A silence of some moments followed. Margaret resumed:--
"I am afraid you will laugh at my foolish fancies, Duncan; but in
thinking over all these things, as you may suppose I often do, lying
awake in my lonely bed, the notion sometimes comes to