with an aspect almost approaching to the veneration that must have
beamed in the face of the Shunammite woman when the `Man of God' raised
her child from the dead. And truly this seemed almost a miracle--the
miracle of science given by the Great Creator to those who will study
and learn His wonders.
"But now Mr Ross was at a table, hurriedly writing out a prescription
on a leaf of his pocket book.
"`Take that,' he said to Mr Western--`take it yourself to my wife, and
bring back what she prepares.'
"`To your wife?' stammered the father.
"`Yes, to my wife,' said the young surgeon. `There, man, I'd trust my
life to her accuracy, so do not be afraid.'
"With the obedience of a servant, Mr Western hurried from the room, and
in a few minutes more the sound of hoofs was heard upon the drive, as he
galloped off himself to fetch the medicine.
"In less than half an hour Mr Western was back, to find that the poor
child had shown further signs of returning animation; the horrible
convulsed look had left its countenance; its breathing was more regular,
and already, with tears of gratitude, the mother was whispering her
thanks. But Mr Ross only shook his head, saying that the danger had
been staved off for awhile, but that it was still imminent.
"Then taking the medicine from its bearer, he tasted, nodded his head in
token of satisfaction, and with his own hands administered a small
portion.
"`Now, Mr Western,' he then said, fanning the child's head furiously
the while he spoke, `we have done all we can do for the present, the
rest must follow, and all depends upon good nursing. With your lady's
consent, then, we will divide that between us; but I feel it to be my
duty to tell you that the child is in very, very great danger, and
likely to be for some time. What we have to do now, is to try and make
up for the waste of nature that has already taken place.'
"Then followed instructions for preparing the juice of meat, arrowroot,
and that an ample supply of brandy should be at hand; when, just as Mr
Ross was in the act of administering a little in the arrowroot, the door
opened, and in walked the great practitioner, expressing great
astonishment at seeing his fellow professional there.
"`You here, sir?' he exclaimed. `This seems to be a most astounding
breach of etiquette. Perhaps you will step with me into the next room.'
"`Mr Tomkins!' exclaimed the father angrily, `I entrusted the life of
my sick child in your hands. You neglected that trust--whether from
ignorance or carelessness I will not say--'
"`Oh, indeed!' blustered the surgeon loudly, `I can see through the
trick; charlatans and pretenders are always waiting to seize their
opportunity; and--good heavens!' he ejaculated as if in horror--`a
dessert spoonful of strong brandy to a tender child like that.'
"Mr Ross turned upon him fiercely, but recollected himself directly
after, and kneeling down by his little patient, he proceeded to pour the
diluted spirit, drop by drop, between the parted lips, watching eagerly
the effect; every tiny drop that trickled down seeming to brighten the
eye, and give new life; even as when the effect passed off, the eye grew
dim, and that life seemed slowly sinking away.
"The old surgeon made some further remark, but Mr Western sternly
ordered him to leave the room, when Mr Ross rose from his knees.
"`I could not speak before that man, sir,' he said, `for he has heaped
too many insults upon me since I have been in Elmouth; but I think that
now, with careful watching and treatment, there may be some hope for the
little one; and if you would prefer that your old attendant should take
my place, I will directly leave.'
"As Mr Ross spoke, his eye lighted for an instant upon Mrs Western's
face, in which consternation was painted most plainly, but her husband
took the young doctor's hand, and in a broken voice said something
respecting gratitude, and thanks, which he could not finish, for, worn
out with watching and anxiety, he sank into a chair and wept like a
child.
"Anxious hours followed, life appearing to be sustained by the strong
spirit administered at intervals of ten or fifteen minutes, when the
flame seemed to spring up vigorously, but only to slowly decline, and
then begin to flicker and tremble, as if waiting for some stronger blast
of air than usual to extinguish it for ever.
"And so on at every quarter-hour the little sufferer seemed to be
snatched back, as it were, from the hands of death--all that day, all
that night, and again the next day; and during that space the young
surgeon never left the child's side. Next night he lay down upon a sofa
in the room for a few hours, but only to be awakened at four o'clock by
the anxious father, who dreaded that some change for the worse had taken
place.
"But the alarm was needless, though Mr Ross once more took his place at
the side of the little cot, working incessantly at his task with the
earnestness of a man whose soul was in his profession. No night seemed
too long, no watching too tedious, in his efforts to get the better of
the great enemy with whom he was contending. If he was away for ten
minutes he was restless to return, lest any change should take place in
his absence, and truly it seemed that, but for the incessant care and
attention, death would have gained the victory.
"But science conquered; and from incessant watching, Mr Ross's
attention was reduced to visits three times, twice, and then only once a
day. From the inanimate pale face the dark shadow had been effectually
chased, and divers signs of amendment set in, one succeeding the other
rapidly, till danger was quite at an end.
"And now the change had taken place; for instead of sitting at home hour
after hour, neglected, and longing for a patient, the demands upon Mr
Ross's time grew incessant, till with a pout on her lips, but joy in her
heart, Mrs Ross declared that she could never be sure of her husband
from one hour to another.
"For the fame of the cure had gone forth, with all the exaggerations
common to a country place, and wealthy old Tomkins grew at last fat, as
he sat at home gnawing his nails with annoyance at seeing his practice
become less year by year, till a call grew to be something unusual; and
making a virtue of necessity, he told a crony, one evening in
confidence, that with so many new-fangled ideas in medicine the
profession was going to the dogs, and he was glad to say he was not
called out now one night in a month; while as to meeting that upstart,
Ross, in consultation, he would not do it to save his life--and he might
have added, anybody else's.
"But John Ross was not proud in his prosperity, and would at any time
have stretched out the hand of good fellowship to the old doctor, could
he have been sure that it would have been taken.
"The Ross family found fast friends in the Westerns; and it was at one
of the dinner parties at the Hall, that after seriously speaking to his
friends of the debt of obligation he was under to Mr Ross, and thanking
him again as the instrument, under God's providence, of giving them back
their child to life, that, to give a livelier tone to the conversation,
the squire related an anecdote he professed to have heard a few days
before, in an encounter which took place between the sexton of the old
church, and the old gentleman doing duty at the new.
"`Ah!' said the first old man, chuckling with triumph, `you don't have
half so many funerals in your yard as I do in mine.'
"`No,' said the other, `and somehow they seem to be falling off year by
year. My place isn't hardly worth holding now. The town gets a deal
too healthy.'
"`It does so,' said the first speaker. `I'm nearly ruined, and can't
make it out anyhow--can you?'
"`No,' said the other, `it's past me'--`and then the two old fellows
went chattering and grumbling off,' continued Mr Western; `and if any
one wishes to know the reason of the falling away, he must ask our
friend the doctor there; though he will be sure to deny that he has had
anything to do with it.'
"`There's the bell again, dear,' said Mrs Ross one day, `and if it
wasn't for knowing that you are wanted for some poor suffering creature,
I believe I should exclaim against it as being a perfect nuisance. You
never now seem to get a meal in peace.'
"`Oh! yes, I do,' said Mr Ross smiling. `The bell does its share of
work, though, certainly. By the way though, my dear, you never feel any
dread in having the bell answered now, do you?'
"`Dread? no; what a question!' said Mrs Ross. `What made you say
that?'
"`I was only thinking of a few years ago, when a ring at the bell
sometimes caused one's heart to beat, lest it should be some hungry
creditor.'
"Mrs Ross sighed, and then smiled, saying, `and all the rest has come
of patience.'
"`And work,' said her husband.
"`But I don't think,' she whispered, creeping closer to his side, and
drawing one strong arm around her as if for protection--`I don't think,
dear, you will ever again say that the rich have no trouble.'
"John Ross was silent for awhile, as he recalled the loss he had so
nearly sustained, and the scene at the Hall, when the hope of two fond
parents lay a-dying, and then he answered softly--
"`God forbid!'"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
PENGELLY'S WEAKNESS.
These were the people the Hendricks wished me to go and visit, and in
due course I went down to Elmouth to pass two of the most delicious
months of rest and peace, growing stronger day by day, and finding ample
food for thought in what I saw and heard.
I had left London with a feeling that one great interest of my life
would be for the time in abeyance, but I soon found upon mixing with the
simple-hearted fishing and mining folks, that though the locality was
changed, the pleasures and pains of people were just the same, and that
care and suffering came to Cornwall hand-in-hand as often as elsewhere.
One of my great friends here was Old Pengelly, the Ross's gardener, and
often in a dreamy pleasant day have I sat in the old rugged garden, made
in a niche of the great granite rocks with a view of the restless
changing sea.
Old Pengelly always had an idea that I was too weak to walk, and showed
me the tenderest solicitude as he moved my chair more into the shade,
fetched my sunshade or book; but his great delight was to kneel down and
weed some bed close by me, and talk about the past, and no sooner did he
find that he had hit upon some subject that seemed to interest me, than
he would go steadily on, only rising up and straightening himself now
and then, to get rid of a pain in his back.
"Ah-h-h!" he would say, "don't take no notice of my groaning ma'am,
that's my back that is, and all along of mowing, and digging, and
sweating, and lifting about them lumps of granite stone to make the
missus's rockeries; master don't seem to do it a bit of good."
"Doesn't he, Pengelly?" I said, as I could not help smiling as I
thought of the fine sturdy old man's age, for he was seventy-five.
"No, ma'am; you see it's rheumatiz just in the small, through the rain
on it sometimes, and the sun on it sometimes, and the perspiration on it
always, along o' that bit o' lawn swade. Nice bit o' green swade,
though, as any in the county--spongy, and springy, and clean. Deal o'
worrit though, to get it to rights, what with the worms a-throwing up
their casties, and them old starlings pegging it about and tearing it to
rags, and then the daisies coming up all over it in all directions.
There ain't nothing like daisies: cut their heads off, and they like it;
spud 'em up, and fresh tops come; stop 'em in one place, and they comes
up in another. I can't get riddy of 'em. That bit o' lawn would be
perfect if it wasn't for the daisies; but they will come up, and like
everything else in this life, that there lawn ain't perfect. They will
come, you know: they will live, and you can't kill 'em. They ain't like
some things in this life that won't live, do all you can to make 'em.
"There, don't you take no notice of them; they ain't tears, they ain't;
that isn't crying, that's a sort o' watery weakness in the eyes through
always being a gardener all your life, and out in the wet. Only, you
know, when I get talking about some things living do all you can to kill
'em--such as weeds, you know, and daisies; and of some things not
living, do all you can to make 'em, like balsams in frosty springs, you
know--I think about my boy, as was always such a tender plant, do all I
would, and about all the plans I'd made for him, and all cut short by
one o' the sharp frosts as the good Master of all sends sometimes in
every garden, whether it's such a one as this, with good shelter, and a
south aspeck, and plenty of warm walls for your trained trees, or the
big garden of life, with the different human trees a-growing in it; some
fair plants growing to maturity, and sending out fine green leaves, well
veined and strong, well-shaped blossoms of good colour and sweet smell,
fair to look upon, and doing good in this life; sturdy, well-grown trees
of men, and bright-hued, tender, loving plants of women; some with
tendrils and clinging ways--the fruitful vines upon your house--and many
clustering blossoms of children; and bad weeds, and choking thorns, and
poison-berries, and all. Life's just one big garden, and when I stick
my spade in like this here, and rest my foot on it, and my elber on the
handle, and my chin on my hand, I get thinking about it all in a very
strange way, oftens and oftens.
"Say I get a bit of ground ready, and put seed in. That's faith, ain't
it? I put those little tiny brown grains in, and I know in all good
time, according as the great God has ordained, those tiny grains will
come up, and blow, and seed in their turns. Not all though; some gets
nipped, and never comes to anything, spite of all your care, some slowly
shrivels away, and those that do are generally the best.
"That's the watery weakness again. Don't you take no notice of that;
only, you know, whatever I get talking about seems, somehow or other, to
work round to my poor boy as we've laid in the earth over yonder by the
old church--a human seed, sowed in corruption, to be raised in
incorruption, eh? Those are the words, ain't they, ma'am? And that's
faith, too, you'll say.
"We were quite old folks when we married, you see, not being able to
afford it early in life, and when that boy was born, being an odd,
old-fashioned gardener of a man, I was always looking upon him as a sort
of plant sent to me to bring up to as near perfection as we can get
things in a garden that isn't Eden. And there I used to sit at dinner
hours or teas having my pipe, as made the little thing sneeze, but kept
away blight, you know: and then I used to plot and plan as to how I'd
work him; how, every now and then, I should, as he grew, carefully
loosen all the earth about his tender young fibres, and give him some of
the best, well-mixed, rich soil when I repotted him, shaking it well in
amongst his roots, giving him room to grow, every now and then, by
putting him in a larger pot, watching carefully for blight, taking away
all green moss, giving him proper light and air, and all the time while
it was nursery gardening, treating him as his tender nature required.
"Light, rich, loamy soil I meant him to have as soon as he was fit to go
on a border, and then I meant to train him; ah, that I did! I'd made up
my mind that no one else should touch him, but that I'd train him
myself. A weed shouldn't come near him, nor slug, nor snail neither, if
I knew it, but I'd cover him over, and shelter him from all frosts, and
then watch him grow and grow in the light and warmth of God's beautiful
sunshine. And let me tell you that you people who live in your big
towns don't know the real pleasure there is in seeing a young plant grow
day by day, putting forth its wonderful leaves from out some tiny bud,
where they have lain snugly shut up from the winter's frosts, then the
beautifully-painted flowers with their sweet scents. There, when I go
to bed every night, in my humble fashion I thank God that I was made a
gardener, with the chance through life of watching His wondrous works,
and how He has ordained that man, by industry and skill, can change the
wild, worthless weed or tree into the healthy, life-supporting vegetable
or fruit. And yet I don't know but what I'm doing you town-dwellers a
wrong, for I've seen many a pale face in your close, crowded courts
watching patiently over some sickly, sun-asking flower in a broken pot,
watering it, maybe, with a cracked jug, and then I've longed to put that
pale face down in such a place as my garden here--I call it mine, you
know, though it's master's--to watch it brighten, and see, as I've often
seen before now, the tears of joy come into the eyes of that pale face
because things were so beautiful.
"There's nothing like gardens, ma'am, to make people good and
pure-hearted, for there's something about flowers that leads the
thoughts up and up, higher and higher. I pity you folks in London.
There's religion in gardens, and I think if you put beautiful flowers
within reach of people, you do them more good than by showing them grand
buildings and sights. There's a something in flowers that makes its way
to the heart--not only in the grandest blossoms, but in the simplest;
and I ain't going to set up for a prophetic person, but I mean to say
that as long as this world lasts there will always be a tender love in
every human heart for the little, gentle, sweet-scented violets. I've
lived in big towns myself, and seen the girls with their baskets full of
fresh-gathered blossoms, nestling amongst green leaves, with the water
lying upon them in big, bright beads, and when, being only a poor man,
I've spent my penny in a bunch of the fragrant little blossoms, and held
it to my face, what have I breathed in?--just the scent of a violet?
Oh, no! but God's bright country--far away from the smoke, and bricks,
and mortar--and health and strength, and then it would be that a great
longing would come on me to be once again where the wind blew free and
the sun shone brightly.
"That was, you know, when I went up to London to better myself, and
didn't; thinking, you know, to get to be gardener to some great man, or
in one of the societies, but there wasn't room for me.
"I've heard about some poet saying something about a man to whom a
primrose by the river's brim was a yellow primrose, and nothing more. I
wonder what sort of a man that was, who could look upon the simplest
flower that grows, and not see in it wonder, majesty, grandeur--a
handiwork beside which the greatest piece of machinery made by man seems
as it were nothing. But there, that's always the way with violets and
primroses, they always have a tendency towards bringing on that watery
weakness. They do it with hundreds, bless you, if given at the right
times. They're so mixed up with one's early life, you see, and with
days when everything looked so bright and sunny; and with some people, I
suppose, that is the reason why they act so upon them; while with me,
you see, there's something else, for when I think of them, I can always
see two little bunches lying upon a little breast, with never a breath
to stir them,--bright blossoms, smelling of the coming spring-time, but
soon to be shut from the light of heaven, and buried deep, deep with
that seed to be raised where chill winds never come, where the flowers
are never-fading, and where the light of love shines ever upon those
thought worthy to enter into that garden of life everlasting, amen!
"For it was all in vain, it was not to be. I made all my plans, I took
all the care I could, I meant to train and prune and cut out all
foreright and awkward growths, I meant that boy to be something to be
proud of; but it was not to be: he was not to blossom here,--this did
not seem to be his climate; and though I wouldn't see it, there was the
plain fact, that there was a canker somewhere out of sight where it
could not be got at; and though I tried, and the doctor tried, all we
knew, it was of no use, and at last I was obliged to own that my little
fellow was slowly withering away. I used to have him in his little
chair in a sheltery spot, where there was sunshine, and give him a bunch
of flowers to play with; but at last he grew too weak to be taken out,
so I used to take him some flowers home, and it was always the same, he
would hold them in his hand till they withered away, and then cry to see
how they were faded.
"And at last there came a day when he did not seem any worse than usual.
It was one of those soft, bright, warm spring days, that come in all at
once, setting the buds bursting, the birds building, and your heart
seeming to drink in a kind of joy from the soft breeze. I'd been to
dinner, and was going back to the garden, to finish a bit of nailing in
over there upon the south wall, that ought to have been done long
before. Well, I'd got to the door, when my poor little fellow burst out
crying to go with me; and at last, seeing how bright and warm it was,
and how sheltered he would be there, under the sunny wall, we wrapped
him up, and I took him in his little chair to the warmest spot I could
find, gave him some violets and primroses, and a crocus and snowdrop or
two, and then I was soon up on my ladder, nailing away, laying in young
wood there, moving a branch here, and, being fond of my work, and soon
interested, I was sometimes a quarter of an hour together without
looking at our little fellow; but I was down four times to pick him a
fresh flower or two and the last time I was down I thought he seemed a
little drowsy.
"At last I got off to move my ladder, and had my foot on the round to
get up again, when I looked at the little chair, and started to see that
my boy was lying fast asleep, when, for fear of cold, I caught him up,
and carried him towards our cottage; but I had not gone half-way, before
a strange shudder seemed to run through me, and I stopped short to look
in the little face, saying something that I knew would make him smile if
he heard it; and then, hardly knowing what I did, I rushed home with my
light burden, whose little hands were tightly holding some of God's
early gifts of spring against the little breast now growing colder and
colder.
"No, he didn't hear me; but there was just the faint dawning of a smile
about his little mouth: for God is very kind to some of those he loves,
and there was no sign of pain there as he went to sleep. And I can't
think that I'm wrong, in always fancying my boy where never-fading
flowers bloom, for he was too young to have ever angered his Maker; and
besides, did he not say, `Suffer little children to come unto me,' and
`Of such is the kingdom of heaven?'
"Don't you take no notice of me, that's a watery weakness; but, now,
just look there, I went over every bit of that lawn reg'lar, last week,
and then there wasn't a bit of daisy to be seen; while now, here they
are coming up in a bunch. But it really is the case with flowers, that
those you want to kill and get rid of won't die, while those you wish to
save--There, don't take no notice of me, it's only a watery weakness."
Poor old Pengelly went away, for the weakness seemed disposed to
increase, and for long enough he was busy weeding a nook of the garden
far away from where I sat. He was very reticent afterwards, for days to
come, and when at last he grew more sociable his face was hard, rugged
and weather-stained, and he seemed the last man to have been influenced
by a tender sympathetical thought.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
SALT TEARS.
That rugged exterior and tenderness of heart of the Cornish people
render them marked amongst their fellows. It is questionable whether
you would find in any part of England so respectable and religious a
body of men as those of Cornwall. Whether fishers or miners it is the
same, they are quiet, temperate, and God fearing, and certainly more
intelligent than the men of many counties. I have often sat in the
Ross's garden of an evening listening to the singing of the fishermen
upon the cliff, not the roaring of some sailors' chorus, but the sweetly
blended parts of some old hymn, or glee--for part singing lingers still
amongst these Western folks.