Bildungsromans; England -- Fiction; Foundlings -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Identity (Psychology) -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
While the servants were busied in providing materials, the surgeon,
who imputed the backwardness which had appeared in Sophia to her
fears, began to comfort her with assurances that there was not the
least danger; for no accident, he said, could ever happen in bleeding,
but from the monstrous ignorance of pretenders to surgery, which he
pretty plainly insinuated was not at present to be apprehended. Sophia
declared she was not under the least apprehension; adding, “If you
open an artery, I promise you I'll forgive you.” “Will you?” cries
Western: “D--n me, if I will. If he does thee the least mischief, d--n
me if I don't ha' the heart's blood o'un out.” The surgeon assented to
bleed her upon these conditions, and then proceeded to his operation,
which he performed with as much dexterity as he had promised; and with
as much quickness: for he took but little blood from her, saying, it
was much safer to bleed again and again, than to take away too much at
once.
Sophia, when her arm was bound up, retired: for she was not willing
(nor was it, perhaps, strictly decent) to be present at the operation
on Jones. Indeed, one objection which she had to bleeding (though she
did not make it) was the delay which it would occasion to setting the
broken bone. For Western, when Sophia was concerned, had no
consideration but for her; and as for Jones himself, he “sat like
patience on a monument smiling at grief.” To say the truth, when he
saw the blood springing from the lovely arm of Sophia, he scarce
thought of what had happened to himself.
The surgeon now ordered his patient to be stript to his shirt, and
then entirely baring the arm, he began to stretch and examine it, in
such a manner that the tortures he put him to caused Jones to make
several wry faces; which the surgeon observing, greatly wondered at,
crying, “What is the matter, sir? I am sure it is impossible I should
hurt you.” And then holding forth the broken arm, he began a long and
very learned lecture of anatomy, in which simple and double fractures
were most accurately considered; and the several ways in which Jones
might have broken his arm were discussed, with proper annotations
showing how many of these would have been better, and how many worse
than the present case.
Having at length finished his laboured harangue, with which the
audience, though it had greatly raised their attention and admiration,
were not much edified, as they really understood not a single syllable
of all he had said, he proceeded to business, which he was more
expeditious in finishing, than he had been in beginning.
Jones was then ordered into a bed, which Mr Western compelled him to
accept at his own house, and sentence of water-gruel was passed upon
him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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