Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his
head. She had oftentimes heard in days that were
gone, how doctors would lift the hand of an insensible
wounded person, and would drop it if the person were
dead. She waited for the awful moment when the
doctors might lift this hand, all broken and bruised,
and let it fall.
The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before
proceeding to his examination, ‘Who brought
him in?’
‘I brought him in, sir,’ answered Lizzie,
at whom all present looked.
‘You, my dear? You could not lift, far
less carry, this weight.’
‘I think I could not, at another time, sir;
but I am sure I did.’
The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and
with some compassion. Having with a grave face
touched the wounds upon the head, and the broken arms,
he took the hand.
O! would he let it drop?
He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it,
but laid it gently down, took a candle, looked more
closely at the injuries on the head, and at the pupils
of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle
and took the hand again. Another surgeon then
coming in, the two exchanged a whisper, and the second
took the hand. Neither did he let it fall at once,
but kept it for a while and laid it gently down.
‘Attend to the poor girl,’ said the first
surgeon then. ’She is quite unconscious.
She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the better
for her! Don’t rouse her, if you can help
it; only move her. Poor girl, poor girl!
She must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much
to be feared that she has set her heart upon the dead.
Be gentle with her.’
BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN
Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock.
Stars were yet visible, but there was dull light in
the east that was not the light of night. The
moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks
of the river, seen through which the trees were the
ghosts of trees, and the water was the ghost of water.
This earth looked spectral, and so did the pale stars:
while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to
heat or colour, with the eye of the firmament quenched,
might have been likened to the stare of the dead.
Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman,
standing on the brink of the lock. For certain,
Bradley Headstone looked that way, when a chill air
came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if it
whispered something that made the phantom trees and
water tremble—or threaten—for
fancy might have made it either.
He turned away, and tried the Lock-house door.
It was fastened on the inside.
‘Is he afraid of me?’ he muttered, knocking.
Rogue Riderhood was soon roused, and soon undrew the
bolt and let him in.
’Why, T’otherest, I thought you had been
and got lost! Two nights away! I a’most
believed as you’d giv’ me the slip, and
I had as good as half a mind for to advertise you
in the newspapers to come for’ard.’
