Hard Cash Part 50

They got David to bed again, anti Sampson told Mrs. Dodd there was no danger now from the malady, but only from the remedies.

And in fact David fell into a state of weakness and exhaustion, and kept muttering unintelligibly.

Dr. Short called in the morning, and was invited to consult with Dr.

Sampson. He declined. "Dr. Sampson is a notorious quack: no physician of any eminence will meet him in consultation."

"I regret that resolution," said Mrs. Dodd quietly, "as it will deprive me of the advantage of your skill."

Dr. Short bowed stifly. "I shall be at your service, madam, when that empiric has given the patient up." And he drove away.

Osmond, finding Sampson installed, took the politic line; he contrived to glide by fine gradations into the empiric's opinions, without recanting his own, which were diametrically opposed.

Sampson, before he shot back to town, asked him to provide a good reliable nurse.

He sent a young woman of iron. She received Sampson's instructions, and a.s.sumed the command of the sick-room, and was jealous of Mrs. Dodd and Julia, looked on them as mere rival nurses, amateurs, who, if not snubbed, might ruin the professionals. She seemed to have forgotten in the hospitals all about the family affections and their power of turning invalids themselves into nurses.

The second night she got the patient all to herself for four hours, from eleven till two.

The ladies having consented to this arrangement its order to recruit themselves for the work they were not so mad as to intrust wholly to a hireling, nurse's feathers smoothed themselves perceptibly.

At twelve the patient was muttering and murmuring incessantly about wrecks, and money, and things: of which vain babble nurse showed her professional contempt by nodding.

At 12.30 she slept

At 1.20 she snored very loud, and woke instantly at the sound.

She took the thief out of the candle, and went like a good sentinel to look at her charge.

He was not there.

She rubbed her eyes, and held the candle over the place where he ought to be--where, in fact, he must be; for he was far too weak to move.

She tore the bedclothes down: she beat and patted the clothes with her left hand, and the candle began to shake violently in her right.

The bed was empty.

Mrs. Dodd was half asleep when a hurried tap came to her door: she started up in a moment and great dread fell on her; was David sinking?

"Ma'am! Ma'am! Is he here?"

"He! Who?" cried Mrs. Dodd, bewildered.

"Why, _him!_ He can't be far off"

In a moment Mrs. Dodd had opened the door, and her tongue and the nurse's seemed to dash together, so fast came the agitated words from each in turn; and crying, "Call my son! Alarm the house!" Mrs. Dodd darted into the sickroom. She was out again in a moment, and up in the attics rousing the maids, while the nurse thundered at Edward's door and Julia's, and rang every bell she could get at. The inmates were soon alarmed, and flinging on their clothes: meantime Mrs. Dodd and the nurse scoured the house and searched every nook in it down to the very cellar: they found no David.

But they found something.

The street door ajar.

It was a dark drizzly night.

Edward took one road, Mrs. Dodd and Elizabeth another.

They were no sooner gone, than Julia drew the nurse into a room apart and asked her eagerly if her father had said nothing.

"Said nothing, Miss? Why he was a-talking all the night incessant."

"Did he say anything particular? think now."

"No, Miss: he went on as they all do just before a change. I never minds 'em; I hear so much of it."

"Oh, nurse! nurse! have pity on me; try and recollect."

"Well, Miss, to oblige you then; it was mostly fights this time--and wrecks--and villains--and bankers--and sharks."

"Bankers??!" asked Julia eagerly.

"Yes, Miss, and villains, they come once or twice, but most of the time it was sharks, and s.h.i.+ps, and money, and--hotch-potch I call it the way they talk. Bless your heart, they know no better: everything they ever saw, or read, or heard tell of--it all comes out higgledy-piggledy just before they goes off. We that makes it a business never takes no notice of what they says, Miss, and never repeats it out of one sick house into another, that you _may_ rely on."

Julia scarcely heard this: her hands were tight to her brow as if to aid her to think with all her force.

The result was, she told Sarah to put on her bonnet and rushed upstairs.

She was not gone three minutes, but in that short interval the nurse's tongue and Sarah's clashed together swiftly and incessantly.

Julia heard them. She came down with a long cloak on, whipped the hood over her head, beckoned Sarah quickly, and darted out. Sarah followed instinctively, but ere they had gone many yards from the house, said, "Oh, Miss, nurse thinks you had much better not go."

"Nurse thinks! Nurse thinks! What does she know of me and my griefs?"

"Why, Miss, she is a very experienced woman, and she says--Oh, dear! oh, dear! And such a dark cold night for you to be out!"

"Nurse? Nurse? What did she say?"

"Oh, I haven't the heart to tell you: if you would but come back home with me! She says as much as that poor master's troubles will be over long before we can get to him." And with this Sarah burst out sobbing.

"Come quicker," cried Julia despairingly. But after a while she said, "Tell me; only don't stop me."

"Miss, she says she nursed Mr. Campbell, the young curate that died last harvest-time but one, you know; and he lay just like master, and she expecting a change every hour: and oh, Miss, she met him coming down-stairs in his nightgown: and he said, 'Nurse, I am all right now,'

says he, and died momently in her arms at the stair-foot. And she nursed an old farmer that lay as weak as master, and just when they looked for him to go, lo! and behold him dressed and out digging potatoes, and fell down dead before they could get hands on him mostly: and nurse have a friend, that have seen more than she have, which she is older than nurse, and says a body's life is all one as a rushlight, flares up strong momently just before it goes out altogether. Dear heart! where ever are we going to in the middle of the night?"

"Don't you see? To the quay."

"Oh, don't go there, Miss, whatever! I can't abide the sight of the water when a body's in trouble." Here a drunken man confronted them, and asked then if they wanted a beau; and on their slipping past him in silence, followed them, and offered repeatedly to treat them. Julia moaned and hurried faster. "Oh, Miss," said Sarah, "what could you expect, coming out at this time of night? I'm sure the breath is all out of me, you do tear along so."

"Tear? we are crawling. Ah! Sarah, you are not his daughter. There, follow me! I cannot go so slow." And she set off to run.