Part 34 (2/2)

A faint smile pa.s.sed across his pallid features as he replied in a voice so weak and low, that I was obliged to -225--stoop my head almost to a level with his lips, ere I could catch his words--”Know you, dear Frank!

why not?”

”Thank heaven,” murmured I, ”he is no longer delirious!”

As I again turned towards him, he endeavoured to stretch out his hand to me, but his strength was unequal even to that slight exertion, and his arm dropped heavily by his side; as it did so, he spoke again--”Frank, what is all this? I cannot--I am very weak--very tired.”

”Lie still, dear Harry, and do not try to talk--it may do you harm. You have been very ill, but G.o.d in His mercy will soon, I trust, restore you to health.” I then crossed over to Ellis's sofa, and laid my hand lightly upon his shoulder. ”Oaklands is no longer delirious,” said I, as he started up; ”he knows me, and has spoken to me.”

”Is he?--does he?--has he?”--exclaimed Ellis in an eager whisper. ”I told you it would never kill him. Why didn't you call me before? but it's always the way; if I do by any chance fall asleep once in a week, there isn't another head properly so called in the whole house, they might as well be chair n.o.bs--Yes, I know,” he continued, as I attempted to get in a word of explanation, ”if you couldn't wake me before it happened, that doesn't prevent your giving me the medicine-chest now, does it?”

I may as well take this opportunity of mentioning that Ellis, though in the main one of the best-tempered fellows in the world, whenever he was particularly interested or excited, became extremely cross and snappish, and was certain at such times to scold every one who fell in his way, without the slightest regard to age, s.e.x, or station. However, it was always over in two or three minutes, and I have seen him laugh till the tears ran down his face, when the rude things he had said were repeated to him afterwards. While he was staying with his brother at Cambridge, it used to be a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt with some of the men to start a subject which they knew would excite him, for the sake of ”getting a rise out of the doctor,” as they termed it. But I am digressing.

The medicine Ellis gave Harry threw him into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake until late in the morning, when he appeared perfectly conscious. The fever had in great measure abated, and on Dr. Probehurt's arrival he was fain to confess a surprising improvement had taken place, and that, if not positively out of danger, the patient was in a fair way to become so. As for Ellis, he was exactly like one beside himself.

He ran all over the house--into bedrooms and all sorts of places where -226--he had not the slightest business, shaking hands with every one, and repeating, ”I knew it--I knew it--I always told you so--it would have killed any other man, but it couldn't kill him!”

Let us pa.s.s in silence over the first interview between Sir John Oaklands and his son. There are some of the deeper feelings of our nature, planted in our bosoms by the hand of G.o.d Himself, which, when called forth to their fullest extent by the chances of life, reveal so clearly their divine origin, that those who witness their display stand reverently by, and, with throbbing hearts and averted eyes, bow the head as in presence of some holy thing; and if such pure and sacred influences shed their l.u.s.tre over that meeting, and the old man wept tears of deep and fervent thankfulness on the neck of the son whom he had, as it were, received from the dead, far be it from us, with sacrilegious hand, to remove the veil which shrouds the hallowed mysteries of feeling.

From that day Oaklands began to amend slowly, and, at the end of another week, even the cautious Dr. Probehurt declared all immediate danger was over; for which admission, however, he took care fully to indemnify himself, by detailing at length every possible evil which might accrue for the future. The state of weakness to which Harry's once herculean frame was reduced was melancholy to witness; for many days he was unable to turn in his bed without a.s.sistance, and even when he began to recover his strength, it was by very slow and lingering degrees. Utterly unable to support himself, he was lifted from his bed to a sofa, and wheeled into the drawing-room, where all our powers of entertainment were called into requisition to relieve the monotony of such a state of existence.

In doing this, f.a.n.n.y made herself pre-eminently useful; by a sort of intuition she appeared to divine everything he could possibly want before he asked for it, and contrived to have it waiting his pleasure as if by magic; and yet it was done so quietly, that I believe Harry had not a notion to whom he was indebted for the forestalment of his every wish. Did his lips appear parched and dry from the low fever which still hung about him--un.o.bserved by any one, f.a.n.n.y would glide out of the room, and in another minute his servant would enter with a tray containing jelly, lemonade, or some refreshment of a like nature; and Harry would say, with a languid smile, that the fairies must have been at work, for that Wilson had brought him the very thing he was wis.h.i.+ng for. As he grew stronger, and -227--required less attention, I yielded to his request, and once more resumed my studies, reading doubly hard in order to make up for lost time. The duel had taken place early in June, but it was not until the latter end of August that the surgeons would allow of their patient's removal to the Hall. Under Ellis's directions a kind of litter was prepared, drawn by a stout Shetland pony, and hung upon a complicated arrangement of springs, by which means all possibility of jolting was avoided. With the a.s.sistance of this vehicle, Harry was enabled to take short airings in the park, and, when it was found that no ill effects ensued, a fine day was chosen, and Heathfield Hall flung wide its ample gates to receive once more within its walls the heir of that n.o.ble property. It was a glad day for every one--the old servants shed mingled tears of joy and sorrow; of joy that their young master had been spared to come among them again, and of sorrow when they gazed on his pallid cheeks and long thin hands, and thought of the amount of suffering that manly frame must have undergone ere it could have become such a wreck of its former self.

After his return home Oaklands progressed very slowly; he so far recovered as to walk about the house and garden with the a.s.sistance of Ellis's arm; but the wound in his side still presented an unsatisfactory appearance, and obstinately refused to heal. Ellis's skill and attention were unparalleled; he took the greatest interest in the case, and though he pretended that his zeal was entirely professional, yet it was clear the fascination which Harry seemed unconsciously to exercise over every one who became intimate with him, had subdued even the st.u.r.dy doctor, and that he had conceived the strongest affection for his patient.

The only one of the party on whom the fatigue and anxiety appeared to have produced any lasting effect was dear little f.a.n.n.y, and she continued to look much more pale and thin than I liked to see her. Her spirits, also, seemed less gay and buoyant than usual, and when Sir John and Harry left us, and she had no longer any motive for exertion, a kind of languor came over her, producing a listless distaste for all her former employments; and she would sit for hours poring over one of the Italian poets, without exchanging a word with any one. In order, if possible, to rouse her from this state of apathy, I used every means in my power to interest and amuse her; but, unfortunately, my time was now so fully occupied that I had little leisure to bestow upon her. I -228--was to take my degree at the commencement of the new year; and, as I had made up my mind to try for honours, I had not a moment to lose, and read eight hours a day. The rest of my time was devoted to Sir John and Harry (save an odd hour or two for a const.i.tutional scamper with my gun through the preserves to keep down the rabbits, or a gallop across country to prevent the hunters from getting too fat), and our kind friends were never so well pleased as when they could persuade us all to come to them. My sister, however, seemed to prefer dreaming over her book to the exertion of accompanying us to the Hall, and even when she did so, appeared unequal to the labour of amusing Harry, and devoted herself to the more easy task of pleasing Sir John, who, happy beyond expression in the prospect of his son's recovery, was in the highest good humour with everybody and everything. Becoming at length far from satisfied about f.a.n.n.y, I mentioned my uneasiness to my mother, who comforted me by the a.s.surance, that she considered it merely the natural consequences of the fatigue and anxiety she had undergone, a sort of reaction of the spirits, for which time and rest would prove the most effectual cure.

And once again the leaves upon the trees grew brown, presenting, in their varied richness, those exquisite shades of colouring that gladden a painter's eye--and the swallows, those summer parasites, taking alarm at the first sharp blast from the north, had departed to prosecute their annual pursuit of suns.h.i.+ne under difficulties, leaving the honest robin redbreast to renew his friends.h.i.+p with the race of men--when I, dissatisfied and anxious about those I was leaving behind me, and nervous in the highest degree as to the result of the struggle for distinction in which I was about to engage, once more took up my abode at Trinity.-229--

CHAPTER XXIX -- THE STRUGGLE IN CHESTERTON MEADOW

”Men Put forth their sons to seek preferment out.

Some to the studious universities, For any or for all these exercises.”

”Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you; If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.”

”A rescue! a rescue! Good people bring a rescue or two!”

”Construe me, art thou a gentleman? What is thy name?

Discuss!”

--_Shakspeare_.

HAVING now no one to interfere with me, I determined to read as hard as my powers, mental and bodily, would allow, so as to give my talents, be they great or small, full scope, and endeavour to evince my grat.i.tude to my unknown benefactor in the only manner that lay open to me, _i.e._, by proving to him that his liberality had not been thrown away. As the men began to come up, I took care to let it be generally known among my friends that I was reading steadily and in earnest, with a view of going out in honours; and when they became convinced that this was the case, and that whenever I ”sported oak” there was positively ”no admittance,”

they left me to my fate, as one who, in the words of Lawless, ”having strayed from the paths of virtue and--eh!--what do you call it?

--jollity--had fallen a victim to the vice of mathematics--not a hope of recovery--a regular case of hydrostatics on the brain--eh! don't you see?”

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