There is nothing so efficacious in restraining the outpouring of
emotion as the necessity of attending to practical details. The need of
getting Wynne out of the hack and into the house as speedily and as
safely as possible restored Mrs. Morison to calmness, and although for
the rest of the evening and for many days after she and her
granddaughter had a fashion of rushing into each other's arms in the
most unexpected manner, they now devoted themselves to the unconscious
young deacon.
Wynne revived again when he was lifted out of the carriage, and when he
had been, with the friendly aid of the driver, got into the house and
given a little brandy, he came once more to his complete if somewhat
shaken senses. He was too weak from the shock and the loss of blood to
resist anything that his friends chose to do to him, and although he
feebly protested against being quartered upon Mrs. Morison, his protest
was not in the least heeded.
"Say no more about it," Mrs. Morison said, with a quiet smile. "You are
here, and you are to stay here. There is nowhere else for you to go,
even if you don't like our hospitality."
"That isn't it," he began feebly; "only I've no claim"--
"There, that will do," Berenice interposed with decision. "Do you
suppose, grandmother, that it's possible to get anybody to come and see
his arm?"
"I'm afraid not, dear," was the answer. "Everybody's at the wreck. I've
been cowering down in the corner of the fire for what seemed to me
years since Mehitabel came rushing in with the news; and all the time
I've heard people driving past the house on their way out of town."
"There ain't a man left," put in Mehitabel, a severe elderly servant,
who had the air of being personally responsible for her mistress, and
of being bound to fulfill her duties faithfully, even if the effort
killed her. "I see Dr. Strong go gallopin' past first, and the other
doctors was all after him; even to that little squinchy electrical
image that's round the corner on Front Street."
"Electrical image?" repeated Berenice.
"She means the eclectic physician," explained Mrs. Morison. "I'm sure
that there's no use in sending for the doctors now. Later we will see.
We must manage the best we can. If I hurt you, Mr. Wynne, you must tell
me."
Berenice looked on, sick with the sight of the blood, while her
grandmother examined the wounded arm. Wynne shrank a little, but
Berenice noted that he bore the pain pluckily. The sleeve was cut to
the shoulder, and his arm laid bare. A jagged cut was revealed reaching
from the wrist to the elbow; a cut so ugly in appearance that the girl
went faint again.
"There, there, Miss Bee," old Mehitabel said, taking her by the
shoulder. "You've had enough of this sort of thing for one night.
You'll dream gray hairs all over your head if you don't get out."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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