Volume I Part 40 (1/2)
”That finished me, and I gave a groan that set them all laughing again.
”'Well, sir, I 'm waiting,' said Asken. 'You can have no difficulty to describe concussion, if you only give us your present sensations.'
”'That's as true as if you swore it,' said I. 'I 'm just as if I had a fall on the crown of my head. There's a haze over my eyes, and a ringing of bells in my ears, and a feeling as if my brain was too big.'
”'Take my word for it, Mr. Dill,' said he, sneeringly, 'the latter is a purely deceptive sensation; the fault lies in the opposite direction.
Let us, however, take something more simple;' and with that he described a splinter wound of the scalp, with the whole integuments torn in fragments, and gunpowder and sticks and sand all mixed up with the flap that hung down over the patient's face. 'Now,' said he, after ten minutes' detail of this,--'now,' said he, 'when you found the man in this case, you 'd take out your scalpel, perhaps, and neatly cut away all these bruised and torn integuments?'
”'I would, sir,' cried I, eagerly.
”'I knew it,' said he, with a cry of triumph,--'I knew it. I 've no more to ask you. You may retire.'
”I got up to leave the room, but a sudden flash went through me, and I said out boldly,--
”'Am I pa.s.sed? Tell me at once. Put me out of pain, for I can't bear any more!'
”'If you'll retire for a few minutes,' said the President--
”'My heart will break, sir,' said I, 'if I 'm to be in suspense any more. Tell me the worst at once.'
”And I suppose they did tell me, for I knew no more till I found myself in the housekeeper's room, with wet cloths on my head, and the money you see there in the palm of my hand. _That_ told everything. Many were very kind to me, telling how it happened to this and to that man, the first time; and that Asken was thought very unfair, and so on; but I just washed my face with cold water, and put on my hat and went away home, that is, to where I lodged, and I wrote to Polly just this one line: 'Rejected; I 'm not coming back.' And then I shut the shutters and went to bed in my clothes as I was, and I slept sixteen hours without ever waking. When I awoke, I was all right. I could n't remember everything that happened for some time, but I knew it all at last, and so I went off straight to the Royal Barracks and 'listed.”
”Enlisted?--enlisted?”
”Yes, sir, in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Foot, now in India, and sending off drafts from Cork to join them on Tuesday. It was out of the depot at the bridge I made my escape to-night to come and see you once more, and to give you this with my hearty blessing, for you were the only one ever stood to me in the world,--the only one that let me think for a moment I _could_ be a gentleman!”
”Come, come, this is all wrong and hasty and pa.s.sionate, Tom. You have no right to repay your family in this sort; this is not the way to treat that fine-hearted girl who has done so much for you; this is but an outbreak of angry selfishness.”
”These are hard words, sir, very hard words, and I wish you had not said them.”
”Hard or not, you deserve them; and it is their justice that wounds you.”
”I won't say that it is _not_, sir. But it isn't justice I 'm asking for, but forgiveness. Just one word out of your mouth to say, 'I 'm sorry for you, Tom;' or, 'I wish you well.'”
”So I do, my poor fellow, with all my heart,” cried Con-yers, grasping his hand and pressing it cordially, ”and I 'll get you out of this sc.r.a.pe, cost what it may.”
”If you mean, sir, that I am to get my discharge, it's better to tell the truth at once. I would n't take it. No, sir, I 'll stand by what I 've done. I see I never could be a doctor, and I have my doubts, too, if I ever could be a gentleman; but there's something tells me I could be a soldier, and I'll try.”
Conyers turned from him with an impatient gesture, and walked the room in moody silence.
”I know well enough, sir,” continued Tom, ”what every one will say; perhaps you yourself are thinking it this very minute: 'It 's all out of his love of low company he 's gone and done this; he's more at home with those poor ignorant boys there than he would be with men of education and good manners.' Perhaps it's true, perhaps it is 'n't! But there 's one thing certain, which is, that I 'll never try again to be anything that I feel is clean above me, and I 'll not ask the world to give me credit for what I have not the least pretension to.”
”Have you reflected,” said Conyers, slowly, ”that if you reject my a.s.sistance now, it will be too late to ask for it a few weeks, or even a few days hence?”
”I _have_ thought of all that, sir. I 'll never trouble you about myself again.”
”My dear Tom,” said Conyers, as he laid his arm on the other's shoulder, ”just think for one moment of all the misery this step will cause your sister,--that kind, true-hearted sister, who has behaved so n.o.bly by you.”
”I have thought of that, too, sir; and in my heart I believe, though she 'll fret herself at first greatly, it will all turn out best in the end.