“Do not alter your diet--it is simple and mucilaginous--but increase the quantity by degrees.”
He postponed his departure till midnight. Up to the present time he had made rather light of the case, and as for danger he had pooh-poohed it with good-humored contempt. Just before he went he said:
“Well, Frank, I don't mind telling you now that I am very glad you sent for me, and I'll tell you why. Forty-eight hours more of irritating medicines, and no human skill could have saved your life.”
“Ah! my dear friend, you are my good angel--you can have no conception how valuable my life is.”
“And you have saved that life. Yes! I am weak still, but I feel I shall live. You have cured me.”
“In popular language, I have. But between ourselves nobody ever cures anybody. Nature cures all that are cured. But I patted Nature on the back; the others hit her over the head with bludgeons and brick-bats.”
“And now you are going. I must not keep you or I shall compromise other lives. Well, go and fulfill your mission. But first think--is there anything I can do in part return for such a thing as this, old friend?”
“Only one that I can think of. Outlive me, old friend.”
A warm and tender grasp of the hand on this, and the Malvern doctor jumped into a fly, and the railway soon whirled him into Worcestershire.
His myrmidon remained behind and carried out his chief's orders with inflexible severity, unsoftened by blandishments, unshaken by threats.
In concert with Susan he closed the door upon all harassing communications.
One day Evans came to tell the invalid how the prisoners were maltreated. Susan received him, wormed from him his errand, and told him Mr. Eden was too ill to see him, which was what my French brethren call _une sainte mensonge_--I a fib.
A slow but steady cure was effected by these means: applications of water in various ways to the skin, simple diet, and quiet. A great appetite soon came; he ate twice as much as he had before the new treatment, and would have eaten twice as much as he did, but the myrmidon would not let him. Whenever he was feverish the myrmidon packed him, and in half an hour the fever was gone. His cheeks began to fill, his eyes to clear and brighten, only his limbs could not immediately recover their strength.