English fiction -- 19th century; Labor unions -- Fiction
There was a pair of old-fashioned bellows by the side of the fire;
Amboyne seized them, and opened Jael's mouth with more ease than he
expected. “That is a good sign,” said he.
He inflated the bellows, and inserted the tube very carefully; then he
discharged the air, then gently sucked it back again. When he had done
this several times something like a sigh escaped from Jael's breast. The
doctor removed the bellows, and felt her heart and examined her eyes.
“Curious!” said he. “Give me some brandy. It is more like syncope than
drowning.”
Acting on this notion, he laid her flat on her back, and applied neat
brandy to her nostrils and ears.
After a while she moved her whole body like a wounded snake, and moaned
feebly.
Raby uttered a loud shout of joy. “She is saved!” he cried. “She
is saved!” He jumped about the room like a boy, and, anxious to do
something or other, was for ringing up the female servants. But Amboyne
would not hear of it. “On the contrary,” said he, “lock the door, and
let only you and I see the poor girl's distress when she comes back to
this bitter world. Raby, don't you shut your eyes to the truth. This was
no accident.”
“I am afraid not,” said Raby. “She knows the water as well as I do, and
she picked out the deepest hole: poor girl! poor girl”
He then asked Amboyne in a whisper what he thought she would do when she
came to her senses.
“Impossible to say. She may be violent, and if so we shall have enough
to do to hold her. They tell me she threw that workman like a sack.”
At this moment Jael stretched her great arms and sighed. The movement,
though gentle and feminine, had a grandeur and freedom that only goes
with power.
The doctor lowered his voice to a whisper. “She is a good Christian, and
most likely she will be penitent, and then she will cry her heart out.
Any way, she is pretty sure to be hysterical, so mind and be firm as
well as kind. There, her color is coming back. Now put yourself in her
place. You and I must call this an accident. Stick to that through thick
and thin. Ah, she is coming round safe. She shall see you first. You
take her right hand, and look at her with all the pity and kindness I am
sure you feel.”
Mr. Raby took Jael's hand in both his, and fixed his eyes on her with
pity and anxiety.
She came to her senses, and stared at him a long time.
Then she looked down at her wet clothes. Then she snatched her hand
away, and covered her face with both hands, and began to rock and moan,
and finally turned round and hid her face against the very floor as if
she would grovel and burrow into it.
“Are you better, my dear?” said the doctor, quietly.
No reply. And the face still crushed against the floor.
“The next time you faint away, don't let it be on the banks of a river.
You have been going too long without food; and you fainted away and
fell into the river. Luckily it was not very deep or it might have been
serious. You have given us a fine fright, I can tell you.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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