Jock’s first experiment at nursing had proved successful. He was permitted, therefore, for that night only, as Katie said, to occupy the loft, to which he brought his straw bed and straw bolster; and his presence proved, more than once during the night, an invaluable aid.
The Doctor called next morning. Among his other causes for anxiety, one, and not the least, had been the impossibility of finding a respectable nurse. He was therefore not a little astonished to discover Jock Hall, the "ne’er-do-weel", well dressed, and attending the Sergeant. He did not at first ask any explanations of so unexpected a phenomenon, but at once admitted that he was better than none. But before leaving, and after questioning Jock, and studying his whole demeanour, and, moreover, after hearing something about him from Mrs. Mercer, he smiled and said, "Keep him by all means--I think I can answer for him;" and muttering to himself, "Peculiar temperament--hysterical, but curable with diet--a character--will take fancies--seems fond of the Sergeant--contagious fever--we shall try him by all means."
"Like a beast," Jock replied; "for a beast drinks jist when he needs it, Doctor, and sae div I; but I dinna need it noo, and winna need it, I think, a’ my days."
"You’ll do," said the Doctor; and so Jock was officially appointed to be Adam’s nurse.
Adam Mercer lay many weary days with the fever heavy upon him--like a ship lying to in a hurricane, when the only question is, which will last longest, the storm or the ship? Those who have watched beside a lingering case of fever can alone comprehend the effect which intense anxiety, during a few weeks only, caused by the hourly conflict of "hopes and fears that kindle hope, an undistinguishable throng" produces on the whole nervous system.
Katie was brought into deep waters. She had never taken it home to herself that Adam might die. Their life had hitherto been quiet and even--so like, so very like, was day to day, that no storm was anticipated to disturb the blessed calm. And now at the prospect of losing him, and being left alone in the wide, wide wilderness, without her companion and guide; her earthly all--in spite of the unearthly links of faith and love that bound them--lost to her; no one who has thus suffered will wonder that her whole flesh shrunk as from the approach of a terrible enemy. Then it was that old truths lying in her heart were summoned to her aid to become practical powers in this her hour of need. She recalled all she had learned as to God’s ends in sending affliction, with the corresponding duties of a Christian in receiving it. She was made to realize in her experience the gulf which separates _knowing_ from _being_ and _doing_--the right theory from the right practice. And thus it was that during a night of watching she fought a great battle in her soul between her own will and God’s will, in her endeavour to say, not with her lips, for that was easy, but from her heart, "Thy will be done!" Often did she exclaim to herself, "Na, God forgie me, but I _canna_ say’t!" and as often resolved, that "say’t she wad, or dee". At early morn, when she opened the shutters, after this long mental struggle, and saw the golden dawn spreading its effulgence of glory along the eastern sky, steeping the clouds with splendours of every hue from the rising sun of heaven, himself as yet unseen; and heard the birds salute his coming--the piping thrush and blackbird beginning their morning hymn of praise, with the lark "singing like an angel in the clouds"--a gush of holy love and confidence filled her heart, as if through earth and sky she heard the echo of her Father’s name. Meekly losing herself in the universal peace, she sank down on her knees, beside the old arm-chair, and with a flood of quiet tears, that eased her burning heart, she said, "Father! Thy will be done!"