When the surgeon came, he pronounced that none of her limbs were broken,
but that the shock to the brain, and the whole system, had been so
severe, that the only chance of recovery consisted in perfect quiet.
She herself said that the question was, whether Providence wanted her
still to watch over her child.
After some days she came down stairs, not without my support, and was
propped once more upon her poor sofa. Calm she appeared, and contented,
and happy in such sort as of old; but whenever she turned her glance
from me, she observed with starting eyes every little thing that moved.
Especially she would lie and gaze through the open window, at a certain
large spider, who worked very hard among the woodbine blossoms. One day,
in making too bold a cast, he fell; some chord of remembrance was
touched, and she swooned away on the couch.
In spite of these symptoms I fondly hoped that she was recovering
strength. She even walked out with me twice, in the sunny afternoon.
But this only lasted a very short time; it soon became manifest, even to
me, that ere long she would be with my father.
Unable to fight any more with this dark perception, I embraced it with a
sort of savage despair, an utter sinking of the heart, which defied God
as it sank. This she soon discovered, and I fear that it saddened her
end.
She was much disappointed, too, that we could not find or thank him who
had perilled his life for us. None could tell who he was, or what had
become of him; though the farmer, at our entreaty, searched all the
villages round. We were told, indeed, by the landlady of the "Red-deer
Inn" (a lonely public-house near the scene of the accident) that a
stranger had come to her in very great haste, and, having learned who we
were, for she had seen us pass half an hour before, had sent her boy to
the farm for some kind of conveyance, while he returned at full speed to
attend those whom he had rescued. It further appeared that this
stranger had helped to place us in the cart, and showed the kindest
anxiety to lessen the roughness of its motion, himself even leading old
"Smiler," to thwart his propensity to the deepest and hardest ruts. By
the time our slow vehicle reached the farm, Mrs. Huxtable was returned
from the Lower Cleve orchard, where she had been smoking the fernwebs,
in ignorance of our mishap; and our conductor, seeing us safe in her
hands, departed without a word, while she was too flurried and
frightened to take much notice of him.
Neither could the woman of the inn describe him; she was so "mazed,"
when she heard of the "vail arl down the girt goyal," as she called our
slide of about fifty feet; and for this she quoted the stranger as her
authority, "them's the very words as he used;" though, just before this,
she had stated that he was a foreigner and could not speak English.
Knowing that in Devonshire any stranger is called a foreigner, and
English means the brogue of the countryside, I did not attach much
weight to this declaration. The only remaining witness, the lad who had
come with the butt, was too stupid to describe anything, except three
round O's, with his mouth and eyes.
But it mattered little about description; I had seen that stranger under
such circumstances, that I could not fail to know him again.
On the morrow, and once in the following week, some kind inquiries were
made as to our condition, by means of slips of paper conveyed by country
lads. No name was attached to these, and no information given about the
inquirer. The bearer of the first missive came from Lynmouth, and of
the second from Ilfracombe. Neither lad knew anything (though submitted
by Mrs. Huxtable to keen cross-examination), except that he was paid for
his errand, but would like some cider, and that the answer was to be
written upon the paper he brought.
Whether any motive for concealment existed, beside an excess of
delicacy, or whether there even was any intentional secresy, or merely
indifference to our gratitude, was more than we could pretend to say. I
am not at all inquisitive--not more so, I mean, than other women--but I
need not confess that my curiosity (to say nothing of better feelings)
was piqued a little by this uncommon reserve.
So now, beside the engrossing search for my deadly enemy, I had to seek
out another, my brave and noble friend.