Margarita's Soul: The Romantic Recollections of a Man of FiftyBacon, Josephine Daskam
General
Margarita's Soul: The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty
Bacon, Josephine Daskam
Fiction
I remember muttering, "I never asked before--if You or Anybody is
there, save them! Take me and save them!" and then I stumbled on and
on....
It was not too long. Caliban was coming with his big wood-sled and
more rope and blankets, and as I caught sight of him the most
extraordinary thought flew into my mind, which worked with a dreadful
clearness, for I saw them stiffen and sink and slip away every second.
Rosy bayed just then, and as my heart sank, for I thought they were
gone, it suddenly occurred to me what Rosy's name must have been!
"It's _Rosencrantz_!" I muttered, "and the one Margarita insists was
called 'Gildy' was _Guildenstern_, and they were _Hamlet's_
friends--poor Prynne!" Perhaps that wasn't idiotic--I laughed as I
stumbled along!
Well, they were there, and Roger was enough himself to strike out with
his feet a little and avoid hindering us, if he couldn't help much. I
made another noose for her, and she hung in it while Caliban dragged
him up--the fellow had the strength of an ox and showed wonderful
dexterity--and later crawled down the rocks and cut her skirt through
with his big clasp-knife. She was the hardest to move, for her foot
was caught--all that saved her. I thought we should break her ankle
before we could get her.
We laid them on the sledge, wrapped in blankets, poured in more
brandy, and Caliban attached Rosy to it by his collar--an old trick of
his, it seems--and they dragged us all home, for my worthless legs
gave out completely.
Miss Jencks and Agnes rubbed them and mustard-bathed them and I wrote
telegrams for Caliban to take in the launch--wrote them as well as I
could in the clutches of a violent chill, with my teeth like castanets
and my hands palsied--and even as I wrote, it came to me that
Margarita had repeated monotonously, all the way home, in a hoarse,
painful voice (but, mercifully, a low one) "get a rope, get a rope,
get a rope."
It was the voice I had heard, that turned me back!
She was all right, but very weak and sore and with a little fever--not
much. She was perfectly conscious of everything within an hour, and
told us about it: how she had slipped and Roger had hit his head and
strained himself in going after her. She thinks she held him under the
arms ten minutes, screaming all the time! She sent Rosy back, finally,
though at first he refused to go.
Roger was delirious for five days and very dangerously ill for three
weeks--it was double pneumonia. Miss Jencks had seen it before and it
was her prompt measures before we could get the doctor or Harriet that
saved him, they think. It was a bad age for pneumonia; Harriet said
she would rather have pulled Margarita through it. She brought a
deaconess from the little dispensary with her and one or the other was
watching him like a cat every second, for three weeks. It was a
nurse's case, the doctor said, though he stopped the first week.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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