And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw,
the cushions intended to receive his head, and got
the lethargic trunk and skull of the Artillery doctor
well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of
sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid
them on the table, and unlocked his box, which was
a large one, and took out several instruments, silver-mounted,
straight and crooked, with awful adaptations to unknown
butcheries and tortures, and then out came another—the
veritable trepan—resembling the homely bit-and-brace,
but slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous
sort of elegance.
’You may as well order in half-a-dozen clean
towels, if you please, Ma’am.’
’Oh! Doctor, you’re not going to
have an operation to-night, gasped Mrs. Sturk, her
face quite white and damp, and her clasped hands trembling.
‘Twenty to one, Ma’am,’ he replied
with a slight hiccup, ’we’ll have nothing
of the kind; but have them here, Ma’am, and some
warm water for fear of accidents—though
maybe ’tis only for a dhrop of punch we’ll
be wanting it,’ and his huge, thirsty mouth
grinned facetiously; and just then Dr. Toole entered
the room. He was confoundedly surprised when he
found Black Dillon there. Though bent on meeting
him with hauteur and proper reserve, on account of
his damnable character, he was yet cowed by his superior
knowledge, so that Tom Toole’s address was strangely
chequered with pomposity and alarm.
Dillon’s credentials there was, indeed, no disputing,
so they sent for Moore, the barber; and, while he
was coming, they put the women out of the room, and
sat in consultation.
IN WHICH MR. MOORE THE BARBER ARRIVES, AND THE MEDICAL
GENTLEMEN LOCK THE DOOR.
The ladies were not much the wiser, though, I confess,
they were not far removed from the door. The
great men inside talked indistinctly and technically,
and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack
a joke—they could not distinctly hear what—and
hee-haw brutally over it. And poor little Mrs.
Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, and looked
as white as a ghost, and was, indeed, so obviously
at the point of swooning that her women would have
removed her to the nursery, and placed her on the
bed, but that such a procedure would have obliged them
to leave the door of their sick master’s room,
just then a point of too lively interest to be deserted.
So they consoled their mistress, and supported her
with such strong moral cordials as compassionate persons
in their rank and circumstances are prompt to administer.
‘Oh! Ma’am, jewel, don’t be
takin’ it to heart that way—though,
dear knows, ‘tis no way surprisin’ you
would; for may I never sin if ever I seen such a murtherin’
steel gimblet as the red-faced docthor—I
mane the Dublin man—has out on the table
beside the poor masther—’tid frighten
the hangman to look at it—an’ six
towels, too! Why, Ma’am dear, if ‘twas
what they wor goin’ to slaughter a bullock they
wouldn’t ax more nor that.’
