"All right, all right, I'll get up in a second," and relapsed into his
restless sleep.
Mrs Phillips did not return till eight o'clock; and the doctor arrived
almost at the same time.
"Has he taken anything?" he inquired.
"Scarcely anything; he can hardly swallow."
"You'll have a night with him, I fancy. Keep the temperature of the
room up to sixty, and see he doesn't throw off his clothes. How old is
he--eighteen?--a great overgrown boy, six feet one or two, surely. It
goes hard with these long fellows. Give me your short, thick-set young
ruffian for pulling through a bout like this. Have you found out where
he lives?"
"No, I can't discover his address anywhere."
"Look in his Sunday hat. I always kept mine there when I was a boy, and
never knew a boy who didn't."
Branscombe, however, was an exception.
"Well," said the doctor, "it's a pity. A mother's the proper person to
be with him a time like this. She'll never-- What's this?"
It was an envelope slipped behind the bookcase, containing a bill from
Splicer, the London cricket-bat-maker, dated a year ago. At the foot
the tradesman had written, "Hon. sir, sorry we could not get bat in time
to send home, so forward to you direct to Grandcourt School, by rail."
"There we are," said the doctor, putting the document in his pocket.
"This ought to bring mamma in twenty-four hours. The telegraph office
is shut now, but we'll wake Mr Splicer up early, and have mamma under
weigh by midday. Good-night, Railsford--keep the pot boiling, my good
fellow--I'll look round early."
He was gone, and Railsford with sinking heart set himself to the task
before him. He long remembered that night. It seemed at first as if
the doctor's gloomy predictions were to be falsified, for Branscombe
continued long in a half-slumber, and even appeared to be more tranquil
than he had been during the afternoon.
Railsford sat near the fire and watched him; and for two hours the
stillness of the room was only broken by the lively ticking of the
little clock on the mantelpiece, and the laboured breathing of the
sufferer.
He was nearly asleep when a cry from the bed suddenly roused him.
"Clip!" called the invalid.
Railsford went to his side and quietly replaced the covering which had
been tossed aside.
"Clip! look alive--he's coming--don't say a word, hang on to his legs,
you know--_En jam tempus erat_--Munger, you cad, why don't you come?
_Italiam fato profugus_. Hah! got you, my man. Shove him in, quick!
Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing,
Clip?--turn him face up. That's for blackguarding me before the whole
house! Clip put me up to it. Don't cut and leave me in the lurch, I
say. You're locking me in the boot-box!--let me out--I'm in for the
mile, you know. Who's got my shoes? _Pastor_ _cum traheret per freta
navibus_. Well run, sir! He's giving out! I say, I say. I can't keep
it up. I must stop. Clip, you put me up to it, old man. It'll never
come out--never--never. He thinks it was Railsford, ho, ho! I'll never
do such a thing again. Come along--sharp--coast's clear!"
Then he began to conjugate a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words
and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford
gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of
Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely
ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over again
in detail that dark night's work in the boot-box; now he was construing
Homer to the doctor; now he was being run down in the mile race; now he
was singing one of his old child's hymns; now he was laughing over the
downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating
society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild
incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford
harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the
picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and
over in the boy's wild ravings effectually dispelled them.
He knew now the whole of the wretched story from beginning to end. The
proud boy's resentment at the insult he had received in the presence of
his house, the angry passions which had urged him to the act of revenge,
the cowardly precautions suggested by his confederate to escape
detection, and the terrors and remorse following the execution of their
deep-laid scheme. Yet if the listener had no right to the secret locked
up in the desk, still less had he the right to profit by these sad
delirious confessions.
Towards morning the poor exhausted sufferer, who during the night had
scarcely remained a moment motionless, or abated a minute in his wild,
wandering talk, sunk back on his pillow and closed his eyes like one in
whom the flame of life had sunk almost to the socket. Railsford viewed
the change with the utmost alarm, and hastened to give the restoratives
prescribed by the doctor in case of a collapse. But the boy apparently
had run through his strength and lacked even the power to swallow.
For two terrible hours it seemed to Railsford as if the young life were
slipping through his hands; and he scarcely knew at one time if the
prayer he sent up would reach its destination before the soul of him on
whose behalf it rose. But soon after the school clock had tolled eight,
and when the clear spring sun rising above the chapel tower sent its
rays cheerily into the sick-chamber, the breathing became smoother and
more regular, and the hand on which that of Railsford rested grew moist.
The doctor arrived an hour later, and smiled approvingly as he glanced
at the patient.
"He's going to behave himself after all," said he. "You'll find he will
wake up in an hour or two with an appetite. Give him an egg beaten up
in milk, with a spoonful of brandy."
"What about his parents?" asked Railsford.
"They will be here by the four-o'clock train. What about your
breakfast? you've had nothing since midday yesterday; and if you're
going to have your turn at that sort of thing," added he, pointing to
the bed, "you'd better get yourself into good trim first. Get Mrs
Phillips to cook you a steak, and put yourself outside it. You can
leave him safely for twenty minutes or so."
Branscombe slept steadily and quietly through the forenoon, and then
woke, clear in mind, and, as the doctor anticipated, with an appetite.
He swallowed the meal prepared for him with considerably less pain than
yesterday, and then, for the first time, recognised his nurse.
"Thank you, sir," said he; "have I been seedy long?"
"You were rather poorly yesterday, old fellow," said Railsford, "and you
must keep very quiet now, and not talk."
The patient evinced no desire to disobey either of these injunctions,
and composed himself once more to sleep.
Before he awoke, a cab had driven into the courtyard and set down three
passengers. Two of them were Mr and Mrs Branscombe, the third was a
trained nurse from London.
As they appeared on the scene, joined almost immediately by the doctor,
Railsford quietly slipped away from the room and signalled to the cabman
to stop and pick him up. Five minutes later, he and his portmanteau
were bowling towards the station, a day late for the boat-race. But in
other respects Mark Railsford was a happy man, and a better one for his
night's vigil in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.