I laid my plans, in that case, either to be of any use to the family if I could, by remaining until the Trehernes arrived, or to leave immediately all was over. Circumstances, and their apparent wish, must be my only guide. Afterwards there would be no difficulty; the less they saw of any one who had been associated with such a painful time, the better. Better for all of them.
The clock below struck--what hour I did not count, but it felt like morning. It was,--must be--I must make it morning.
I went to the window to refresh my eyes with the soft white dawn, which, as I opened the blind, stole into the room, making the candle buRN yellow and dim. The night was over and gone. Across the moorland, and up on the far hills, it was already morning.
A thought struck me, suggesting one more chance. Extinguishing the candle, I drew aside all the curtains, so as to throw the daylight in a full stream across the foot of the bed; and by the side of it--with the patient's hand between mine, and my eyes fixed steadily on his face--I sat down.
His eyes opened, not in the old blank way, but with an expression in them that I never expected to see again. They turned instinctively to the light; then, with a slow, a wandering, but perfectly rational, look towards me, feebly, the old man smiled.
That minute was worth dying for; or rather, having lived for, all these twenty years.
The rest which I have to tell must be told another time.
|I have not been able to continue this. Every day has been full of business, and every night I have spent at Rockmount for the last three weeks.
Such was, I solemnly aver--from no fixed intention: I meant only to go as an ordinary doctor--in order, if possible, to serve the life that was valuable in itself, and most precious to some few; afterwards, whichever way the case terminated, to take my leave, like any other medical attendant: receiving thanks, or fee. Yes--if they offered it, I determined to take a fee; in order to show, both to them and myself, that I was only the doctor--the paid physician. But this last wound has been spared me--and I only name it now in proof that nothing has happened as I expected or intended.
I remember Dallas, in reading to me the sermons he used to write for practice, preparing for the sacred duties which, to him, never came--had one upon the text “Thy will be done,”--where, in words more beautiful than I dare try to repeat in mine, he explained how good it was for us that things so seldom fell out according to our shortsighted plannings; how many a man had lived to bless God that his own petty will had not been done; that nothing had happened to him according as he expected or intended.