The child looked wan and wasted, and had in its eyes, which it never
turned from me, the weary, wistful, unutterable look of "far away and
long ago" longing that comes into the miserably melancholy eyes of
monkeys.
"Is the baby ill?" said I.
"Ou na, mem; it's no to say that ill, only just always peaking and
pining like"--and she stopped ironing a moment to look at the little
creature.
"Is it your own baby?" said I, struck with the absence of motherly
tenderness in spite of the woman's compassionate tone and expression.
"Ou na, mem, it's no my ain; I hae nane o' my ain."
"How old is it?" I went on.
"Nigh upon five year old," was the answer, with which the ironing was
steadily resumed, with apparently no desire to encourage more questions.
"Five years old!" I exclaimed, in horrified amazement: its size was that
of a rickety baby under three, while its wizened face was that of a
spell-struck creature of no assignable age, or the wax image of some
dwindling life wasting away before the witch-kindled fire of a
diabolical hatred. The tiny hands and arms were pitiably thin, and
showed under the yellow skin sharp little bones no larger than a
chicken's; and at her wrists and temples the blue tracery of her veins
looked like a delicate map of the blood, that seemed as if it could
hardly be pulsing through her feeble frame; while below the eyes a livid
shadow darkened the faded face that had no other color in it.
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