For hours, however, and days, she lay at the very verge of death, kept alive by nothing but the care, the skill, the tenderness, and the perpetual watchfulness of Ruth. Luckily Annie was not there very often, so as to meddle; for kind and clever nurse as she was, she must have done more harm than good. But my broken rib, which was set by a doctor, who chanced to be at the wedding, was allotted to Annie's care; and great inflammation ensuing, it was quite enough to content her. This doctor had pronounced poor Lorna dead;wherefore Ruth refused most firmly to have aught to do with him. She took the whole case on herself; and with God's help she bore it through.
Now whether it were the light and brightness of my Lorna's nature; or the ******* from anxiety--for she knew not of my hurt;--or, as some people said, her birthright among wounds and violence, or her manner of not drinking beer--I leave that doctor to determine who pronounced her dead. But anyhow, one thing is certain;sure as stars of hope above us; Lorna recovered, long ere I did.
For the grief was on me still of having lost my love and lover at the moment she was mine. With the power of fate upon me, and the black cauldron of the wizard's death boiling in my heated brain, I had no faith in the tales they told. I believed that Lorna was in the churchyard, while these rogues were lying to me. For with strength of blood like mine, and power of heart behind it, a broken bone must burn itself.
Mine went hard with fires of pain, being of such size and thickness; and I was ashamed of him for breaking by reason of a pistol-ball, and the mere hug of a man.
And it fetched me down in conceit of strength; so that I was careful afterwards.
All this was a lesson to me. All this made me very humble; illness being a thing, as yet, altogether unknown to me. Not that I cried small, or skulked, or feared the death which some foretold; shaking their heads about mortification, and a green appearance.
Only that I seemed quite fit to go to heaven, and Lorna. For in my sick distracted mind (stirred with many tossings), like the bead in the spread of frog-spawn carried by the current, hung the black and central essence of my future life. A life without Lorna; a tadpole life. All stupid head; and no body.
Many men may like such life; anchorites, fakirs, high-priests, and so on; but to my mind, it is not the native thing God meant for us. My dearest mother was a show, with crying and with fretting. The Doones, as she thought, were born to destroy us. Scarce had she come to some liveliness (though sprinkled with tears, every now and then) after her great bereavement, and ten years' time to dwell on it--when lo, here was her husband's son, the pet child of her own good John, murdered like his father! Well, the ways of God were wonderful!
So they were, and so they are; and so they ever will be. Let us debate them as we will, are ways are His, and much the same; only second-hand from Him. And Iexpected something from Him, even in my worst of times, knowing that I had done my best.
This is not edifying talk--as our Nonconformist parson says, when he can get no more to drink--therefore let me only tell what became of Lorna. One day, I was sitting in my bedroom, for I could not get downstairs, and there was no one strong enough to carry me, even if I would have allowed it.
Though it cost me sore trouble and weariness, I had put on all my Sunday clothes, out of respect for the doctor, who was coming to bleed me again (as he always did twice a week); and it struck me that he had seemed hurt in his mind, because I wore my worst clothes to be bled in--for lie in bed I would not, after six o'clock;and even that was great laziness.
I looked at my right hand, whose grasp had been like that of a blacksmith's vice; and it seemed to myself impossible that this could be John Ridd's. The great frame of the hand was there, as well as the muscles, standing forth like the guttering of a candle, and the broad blue veins, going up the back, and crossing every finger. But as for colour, even Lorna's could scarcely have been whiter; and as for strength, little Ensie Doone might have come and held it fast. I laughed as Itried in vain to lift the basin set for bleeding me.
Then I thought of all the lovely things going on out-of-doors just now, concerning which the drowsy song of the bees came to me. These must be among the thyme, by the sound of their great content. Therefore the roses must be in blossom, and the woodbine, and clove-gilly-flower; the cherries on the wall must be turning red, the yellow Sally must be on the brook, wheat must be callow with quavering bloom, and the early meadows swathed with hay.
Yet here was I, a helpless creature quite unfit to stir among them, gifted with no sight, no scent of all the changes that move our love, and lead our hearts, from month to month, along the quiet path of life. And what was worse, I had no hope of caring ever for them more.
Presently a little knock sounded through my gloomy room, and supposing it to be the doctor, I tried to rise and make my bow. But to my surprise it was little Ruth, who had never once come to visit me, since I was placed under the doctor's hands. Ruth was dressed so gaily, with rosettes, and flowers, and what not, that I was sorry for her bad manners; and thought she was come to conquer me, now that Lorna was done with.
Ruth ran towards me with sparkling eyes, being rather short of sight; then suddenly she stopped, and I saw entire amazement in her face.
'Can you receive visitors, Cousin Ridd?--why, they never told me of this!' she cried: 'I knew that you were weak, dear John; but not that you were dying.
Whatever is that basin for?'
'I have no intention of dying, Ruth; and I like not to talk about it. But that basin, if you must know, is for the doctor's purpose.'
'What, do you mean bleeding you? You poor weak cousin!
Is it possible that he does that still?'
'Twice a week for the last six weeks, dear. Nothing else has kept me alive.'
'Nothing else has killed you, nearly. There!' and she set her little boot across the basin, and crushed it.