His eyes opened, not in the old blank way, but with an expression in them that I never expected to see again. They turned instinctively to the light; then, with a slow, a wandering, but perfectly rational, look towards me, feebly, the old man smiled. That minute was worth dying for; or rather, having lived for, all these twenty years. The rest which I have to tell must be told another time. CHAPTER II. HIS STORY. |I have not been able to continue this. Every day has been full of business, and every night I have spent at Rockmount for the last three weeks. Such was, I solemnly aver--from no fixed intention: I meant only to go as an ordinary doctor--in order, if possible, to serve the life that was valuable in itself, and most precious to some few; afterwards, whichever way the case terminated, to take my leave, like any other medical attendant: receiving thanks, or fee. Yes--if they offered it, I determined to take a fee; in order to show, both to them and myself, that I was only the doctor--the paid physician. But this last wound has been spared me--and I only name it now in proof that nothing has happened as I expected or intended. I remember Dallas, in reading to me the sermons he used to write for practice, preparing for the sacred duties which, to him, never came--had one upon the text “Thy will be done,”--where, in words more beautiful than I dare try to repeat in mine, he explained how good it was for us that things so seldom fell out according to our shortsighted plannings; how many a man had lived to bless God that his own petty will had not been done; that nothing had happened to him according as he expected or intended. Do you know, you to whom I write, how much it means, my thus naming to you of Dallas--whose name, since he died, has never but once passed my lips. I think you would have liked my brother Dallas. He was not at all like me--I took after my father, people said, and he after our mother. He had soft, English features, and smooth, fine, dark hair. He was smaller than I, though so much the elder. The very last Christmas we had at St. Andrews, I mind lifting him up and carrying him several yards in play, laughing at him for being as thin and light as a lady. We were merry-hearted fellows, and had many a joke, the two of us, when we were together. Strange to think, that I am a man nigh upon forty, and that he has been dead twenty years. It is you--little as you guess it, who have made me think upon these my dead, my father, mother, and Dallas, whom I have never dared to think of until now. Let me continue.