By one great boon the losses of the Past!
Grant me a full imperishable Faith,
And let the Light be with me till the last.
Then all became a blank!
* * * * *
“Full? I never knew him to more than taste liquor. No, no! You're
mistaken. He has either been knocked senseless by some accident or
mischance, or else he has fallen in a fit.”
It was the Doc who spoke. I suddenly grew seized of consciousness to the
extent of recognizing my old friend's voice. But to indicate the fact
physically was impossible. I lay in a sort of trance, with lips that
would not open and hands that would not obey.
“Oh, all right, Doc! You ought to know!”
This time I caught the voice of the Judge.
“But he is in a pitiable plight. We must get to him and move him or he
may perhaps perish, if he's not gone now. Drat that dog! I don't want
to shoot him; and yet he'll tear us if we try to lay hand on his master.
But lay hand on him we must. Is it a go, Doc?”
“It's the only alternative, Judge. I like canine fidelity; but hang me
if this brute doesn't suit too well! We'll have to get him out of the
way and succor the man. Give it to him, Judge!”
“Stop!”
By a superhuman effort, through some agency I never could account for,
I managed to utter that one word in a sort of half expostulatory, half
authoritative tone, or rather groan.
[Illustration: 0148]
It broke the spell.
My eyes opened. My arms regained power. Instinctively I reached out a
hand and drew my canine guardian toward me, placing a cheek against his
cold, moist nose. That was enough for Charlie. The faithful brute grew
wild with joy. He barked, whined, jumped, capered, pirouetted after his
own stump, and, in a word, did the most tremendous despite to all my
careful training in the line of reserved and dignified demeanor.
I rose to a sitting posture and finally drew myself up on my feet,
gazing around me in a bewildered, uncertain sort of way.
“Hello, boys, what's the matter?” I managed to articulate.
“Hello, and what's the matter yourself?” replied the Doc.
“Yes, that's precisely what we came out here to know,” put in the Judge.
“I guess--I think--yes, let me see!--I believe I--I--must have dropped
off in a little doze, boys! Very kind of you to look me up. Only--say,
you never surely meant to shoot my dog? I'd have haunted both of you
to your respective dying days if you had, supposing I was a cold corpse
instead of a man taking a little nap.”
“Taking a little nap! Hear him! I should rather say you were. But, look
here, Scrib, do your little naps always mean two or three hours of the
soundest sleep a man ever slept who wasn't dead or drugged?”
“Dead or drugged, Doc? Pshaw, you're away off. You can see for yourself
I am not dead, and I can vow I wasn't drugged.”
“Then you've been intoxicated, by George; and as president of the
Blank-ville Gun Club I'll fine you----”
“Quail, as I live!”
“One--two--three; three brace and a half, Doc, and beauties, too! It
does my heart good to handle the darlings. Doc, if Scrib has been full
forty times to-day, he has more than atoned for the _lapsi_ with this
glorious bag. Whoop! Ya, ha! There'll be quail on toast for the whole
party.”
By the time the Judge's jubilation had ceased I had about regained my
normal condition and we were ready to make tracks homeward.
The clock strikes the midnight hour as I re-enter my own home. My wife
sits rocking the cradle, in which lies our darling Ted. She turns a
weary-looking, tear-stained face to me.
“Its all right, dear,” I gently remark, “I'm quite safe, as you see.”
“I haven't the slightest doubt of it, sir,” she returns, icily. “It's
not of you I've been thinking, but of baby.”
“Baby,” I repeat inquiringly. “What is the matter with him?”
“There is nothing the matter with him, but there is no telling what
might have been. And all owing to your foolish indulgence of his fancy
for bottles.”
“What does it mean, dear?” I venture. “It means that you had not been
gone an hour when I found Ted with that little two-ounce phial you left
half filled with laudanum on the lower pantry shelf yesterday. He had
evidently climbed a chair and reached it down. The cork was out and the
bottle was empty. You can perhaps imagine my feelings. I didn't know
whether he had taken the stuff or not, but was in an agony of anxiety on
the point, you may be sure. The doctor was away hunting, you were away
hunting, and here was I fairly consumed with apprehension lest my baby
had poisoned himself.”
Like a flash the whole mystery of my stupor sleep revealed itself to
me. “Baby barlo”--flask--laudanum phial--whiskey--it was all as clear as
day.