Now food, and drink, and all other necessaries of life came to me without effort or seeking, and I was as little accustomed as any other rich man's son to forage for supplies; but on this occasion circumstances forced out of me a helpfulness which necessity early teaches to the poor. I became dimly cognizant of the fact that water does not spring spontaneously in carafes, nor take a delicate colour and flavour in toast-and-water jugs of itself. I found the water-pot, replenished the mug, and went back to my patient. By the time his mother returned I had become quite clever in checking the spasmodic clutches which spilt the cold water into his neck. From what Mrs. Taylor said to her friend, it was evident that she disapproved in some way of my presence, and the boy's mother replied to her whispered remonstrances, "I was _that_ put out, I never thought;" which I have no doubt was strictly true. As I afterwards learnt, she got the blanket, and never ceased to laud my generosity. I was rather proud of it myself, and it was not without complacency that I recounted to Nurse Bundle my first essay in "visiting the sick." But complacency was the last feeling my narrative awoke in Mrs. Bundle. She was alarmed out of all presence of mind; and her indignation with the woman who had requited my kindness by allowing me to go into a house infected with fever knew no bounds. She had no pity to spare for her when the news reached us that the child was dead. Nothing further came of it for some time. Days passed, and it was almost forgotten, only I became decidedly ill-tempered. A captious irritability possessed me, alternating with fits of unaccountable fatigue. At that time I was always either tired or cross, and sometimes both. I must have made Nurse Bundle very uncomfortable. I was so little happy, for my own share, that when after a day's headache I was put to bed as an invalid, it was a delicious relief to be acknowledged to be ill, to throw off clothes and occupation, and shut my eyes and be nursed. This happiness lasted for about half an hour. Then I began to shiver, and, through no lack of blankets my teeth were soon chattering and the bed shaking under me, as it had been with the village boy. But when this was succeeded by burning heat, and intolerable, consuming restlessness, I would have been glad to shiver again. And then my mind wandered with a restlessness more intolerable than the tossing of my body; and all boundaries of time, and place, and person became confused and indefinitely extended, and hot hours were like ages, and I thought I was that other boy, and that myself would not wait upon him; and the only sensible words I spoke were cries for drink; and so the fever got me fairly into its clutches. CHAPTER IX "PEACE BE TO THIS HOUSE"