Stamping the snow from his feet, the doctor slowly untied his woollen
muffler, took off his hat, settled his wig, hung his overcoat on a
nail in the entry, drew from his pocket a huge red handkerchief, and
announcing his arrival by a blast, loud enough to arouse the seven
sleepers, followed Harry up stairs to the sick chamber.
The strong fire-light fell upon Ruth's white figure, as she sat, pale
and motionless, in the corner, with Daisy on her lap, whose laborious
breathing could be distinctly heard in the next room. A dark circle had
settled round the child's mouth and eyes, and its little hands hung
helplessly at its side. Dinah was kneeling at the hearth, stirring a
fresh mustard paste, with an air which seemed to say, "it is no use, but
I must keep on doing something."
The doctor advanced, drew his spectacles from their leathern case,
perched them astride the end of his nose, and gazed steadily at Daisy
without speaking.
"_Help her_," said Ruth, imploringly.
"Nothing to be done," said the doctor, in an unmoved tone, staring at
Daisy.
"Why didn't you come afore, den?" said Dinah, springing to her feet and
confronting the doctor. "Don't you see you've murdered _two_ of 'em?"
and she pointed to Ruth, whose head had dropped upon her breast.
"I tell you, Harry, it's no use to call another doctor," said his
father, shaking off his grasp; "the child is struck with death; let her
drop off quietly; what's the sense of tormenting her?"
Harry shuddered, and drew his father again to Daisy's side.
"Help her," said Ruth; "don't talk; try _something_."
"Well, I can put on these leeches, if you insist," said the old man,
uncorking a bottle; "but I tell you, it is only tormenting the dying."
Dinah cut open the child's night dress, and bared the fair, round chest,
to which the leeches clung eagerly; Daisy, meanwhile, remaining
motionless, and seemingly quite insensible to the disagreeable pricking
sensation they caused.
* * * * *
"The other doctor is below," whispered Pat, thrusting his head in at the
door.
"Bring him up," said the old gentleman.
An expression of pain passed over the young man's features as his
eye fell upon the child. As yet, he had not become so professionally
hardened, as to be able to look unmoved upon the group before him, whose
imploring eyes asked vainly of him the help no mortal hand could give.
A few questions he asked to avoid being questioned himself; a few
remedies he tried, to appease the mother's heart, whose mournful eyes
were on him like a spell.
"Water," said Daisy, faintly, as she languidly opened her eyes.
"God be thanked," said Ruth, overcome by the sound of that blessed
little voice, which she never expected to hear again, "God be thanked."
The young doctor returned no answering smile, as Ruth and Harry grasped
his hand; but he walked to the little window and looked out upon the
gray dawn, with a heavy sigh, as the first faint streak of light ushered
in the new-born day.
Still the fire-light flashed and flickered--now upon the old doctor, who
had fallen asleep in his arm chair; now upon Ruth's bowed head; now upon
Daisy, who lay motionless in her mother's lap, (the deadly paleness of
her countenance rendered still more fearful by the dark blood-stains on
her night dress;) then upon Harry, who, kneeling at Daisy's side, and
stifling his own strong heart, gazed alternately at mother and child;
then upon Dinah, who, with folded arms, stood like some grim sentinel,
in the shadow of the farther corner; the little mantle clock,
meanwhile, ticking, ticking on--numbering the passing moments with
startling distinctness.
Oh, in such an hour, when wave after wave of anguish dashes over us,
where are the infidel's boasted doubts, as the tortured heart cries out,
instinctively, "save, Lord; or we perish!"
Slowly the night waned, and the stars paled. Up the gray east the golden
sun slowly glided. One beam penetrated the little window, hovering like
a halo over Daisy's sunny head. A quick, convulsive start, and with one
wild cry (as the little throat filled to suffocation), the fair white
arms were tossed aloft, then dropped powerless upon the bed of Death!