Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction
The sigh that burst from him seemed to tear his very heart; but the very
next moment he put his hands humbly together and said, “God's will
be done!” Yet one big tear gathered in his lion eye and spite of all
trickled down his cheek while he said, “God's will be done.”
Susan saw it, and turned quickly away and hid her face; but he called
her, and though his lip quivered his voice was pretty firm.
“Dear friend, God can always find instruments. The good work will be
done, though not by me.”
So then Susan judged, by these few words, and the tear that trickled
from his closed eyes, that he saw what others saw and did not look to
live now.
She left the room in haste not to agitate him by the sorrow she could no
longer restrain or conceal. The patient lay quiet, languidly dozing.
Now about four o'clock in the afternoon the surgeon came to the door;
but what surprised Susan was that a man accompanied him whom she only
just knew by sight, and who had never been there before--the turnkey
Hodges. The pair spoke together in a low tone, and Susan, who was
looking down from an upper window, could not hear what they said; but
the discussion lasted a minute or two before they rang the bell. Susan
came down herself and admitted them: but as she was leading the
way upstairs her aunt suddenly bounced out of the parlor looking
unaccountably red, and said:
“I will go up with them, Susan.”
Susan said, “If you like, aunt,” but felt some little surprise at Mrs.
Davies's brisk manner.
At the sick man's door Mrs. Davies paused, and said dryly, with a look
at Hodges, “Who shall I say is come with you?”
“Mr. Hodges, one of the warders, is come to inquire after his
reverence's health,” replied the surgeon smoothly.
“I must ask him first whether he will receive a stranger.”
“Admit him,” was Mr. Eden's answer. The men entered the room, and were
welcomed with a kind but feeble smile from the sick man.
“Sit down, Hodges.”
The surgeon felt his pulse and wrote a prescription; for it is a
tradition of the elders that at each visit the doctor must do some overt
act of medicine. After this he asked the patient how he felt.
Mr. Eden turned an eloquent look upon him in reply.
“I must speak to Hodges,” said he. “Come near me, Hodges,” said he in a
kind voice, “perhaps I may not have any more opportunities of giving
you a word of friendly exhortation.” Here a short, dissatisfied,
contemptuous grunt was heard at the window-seat.
“Did you speak, Mrs. Davies?”
“No, I didn't,” was the somewhat sharp reply.
“We should improve every occasion, Mrs. Davies, and I want this poor man
to know that a dying man may feel happy and hope everything from God's
love and mercy, if he has loved and pitied his brothers and sisters of
Adam's race.”
When he called himself a dying man, Hodges, who was looking
uncomfortable and at the floor, raised his head, and the surgeon and he
interchanged a rapid look; it was observed, though not by Mr. Eden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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