ally supremely independent of everyone; although
his body seemed so helpless one got the impression that his soul was
thoroughly aloof, untouched. When he laughed at the efforts of the
grown-ups to please him it was a sublime condescension, that was all.
When something failed to please him he was recalled to the things of
this world and set up a loud wail, which filled Ishmael with anxiety,
though Vassie and the nurse remained unaccountably calm. The baby
evidently was of their opinion, because he left off wailing with the
suddenness with which he had begun, and finally was tucked into his
cradle and fell soundly asleep, one tiny hand flung palm upwards upon
the pillow by his head after the manner of babies from time immemorial.

Ishmael, though he had first held aloof and then been terrified when
Vassie insisted on his taking the fragile little body in his arms, had
yet felt a thrill go through him when he did so. It was not possible for
a man to have the feeling for the land that he had and not both crave
for a child and feel a deep-rooted emotion at its possession. Yet it was
more than that, he told himself, when he felt the warm little body
utterly dependent on him. He had taken him up before often enough, but
never in the intimacy of this evening, which held the quality of a
shrine.

He showed nothing of what he felt, but that evening, after Vassie and
her ever-talking husband had settled themselves in the parlour, he went
up again to the nursery and told the nurse she could go downstairs for a
little while. Then he crossed over to the cot and, drawing back the
curtain, looked down at the little morsel lying asleep in it. This was
his son, this small rosy thing, his son that would one day walk his land
beside him and would eventually take it over as his own. This was flesh
of his flesh as no wife could ever be, and soul of his soul as well.

As he looked the baby began to whimper and opened its eyes, of the milky
blue of a kitten's. Ishmael went on his knees beside the cot, and eager,
absurdly eager, to be able to cope with the situation successfully
himself, spoke as soothingly as he knew how. The baby's whimper became a
cry. His little hand beat the air. Ishmael struck his forefinger into
the tiny palm, and the little fingers curled round it with that amazing
tenacity of babies, who can clutch and suck before they can do anything
else--getting, always getting, from life, like all young things. The
baby hung fir