"A _what_ in _which_?" buzzed Sary Jane. "Oh! There's a man across the
yard, I suppose you mean. Among them young ones, yonder. I wish he'd
stop 'em throwing stones, plague on 'em! See him, don't you?"
"I don't see the children," said the Lady of Shalott, a little
troubled. Her glass had shown her so many things strangely since the
days grew hot. "But I see a man, and he walks upon the waves. See,
see!"
The Lady of Shalott tried to pull herself up upon the elbow of her
calico night-dress, to see.
"That's one of them Hospital doctors," said Sary Jane, looking out of
the blazing window. "I've seen him round before. Don't know what
business he's got down here; but I've seen him. He's talkin' to them
boys now, about the stones. There! He'd better! If they don't look out,
they'll hit--"
"_O, the glass! the glass!_"
The Hospital doctor stood still; so did Sary Jane, half risen from her
chair; so did the very South Street boys, gaping in the gutter, with
their hands full of stones, such a cry rang out from the palace window.
"_O, the glass! the glass! the glass!_"
In a twinkling the South Street boys were at the mercy of the South
Street police; and the Hospital doctor, bounding over a beachful of
shattered, scattered waves, stood, out of breath, beside the Lady of
Shalott's bed.
"O the little less, and what worlds away!"
The Lady of Shalott lay quite still in her little brown calico
night-gown [I cannot learn, by the way, that Bulfinch's studious and in
general trustworthy researches have put him in possession of this
point. Indeed, I feel justified in asserting that Mr. Bulfinch never so
much as _intimated_ that the Lady of Shalott wore a brown calico
night-dress]--the Lady of Shalott lay quite still, and her lips turned
blue.
"Are you very much hurt? Where were you struck? I heard the cry, and
came. Can you tell me where the blow was?"
But then the doctor saw the glass, broken and blown in a thousand
glittering sparks across the palace floor; and then the Lady of Shalott
gave him a little blue smile.
"It's not me. Never mind. I wish it was. I'd rather it was me than the
glass. O, my glass! my glass! But never mind. I suppose there'll be
some other--pleasant thing."
"Were you so fond of the glass?" asked the doctor, taking one of the
two chairs that Sary Jane brought him, and looking sorrowfully about
the room. What other "pleasant thing" could even the Lady of Shalott
discover in that room last summer, at the east end of South Street?
"How long have you lain here?" asked the sorrowful doctor, suddenly.
"Since I can remember, sir," said the Lady of Shalott, with that blue
smile. "But then I have always had my glass."
"Ah!" said the doctor, "the Lady of Shalott!"
"Sir?" said the Lady of Shalott.
"Where is the pain?" asked the doctor, gently, with his finger on the
Lady of Shalott's pulse.
The Lady of Shalott touched the shoulder of her brown calico
night-dress, smiling.
"And what did you see in your glass?" asked the doctor, once more
stooping to examine "the pain."
The Lady of Shalott tried to tell him, but felt confused; so many
strange things had been in the glass since it grew hot. So she only
said that there were waves and a purple wing, and that they were broken
now, and lay upon the floor.
"Purple wings?" asked the doctor.
"Over the sidewalk," nodded the Lady of Shalott. "It comes up at
night."
"Oh!" said the doctor, "the malaria. No wonder!"
"And what about the waves?" asked the doctor, talking while he touched
and tried the little brown calico shoulders. "I have a little girl of
my own down by the waves this summer. She--I suppose she is no older
than you!"
"I am seventeen, sir," said the Lady of Shalott. "Do they have green
faces and white hair? Does she see them run up and down? I never saw
any waves, sir, but those in my glass. I am very glad to know that your
little girl is by the waves."
"Where you ought to be," said the doctor, half under his breath. "It is
cruel, cruel!"
"What is cruel?" asked the Lady of Shalott, looking up into the
doctor's face.
The little brown calico night-dress swam suddenly before the doctor's
eyes. He got up and walked across the floor. As he walked he stepped
upon the pieces of the broken glass.
"O, don't!" cried the Lady of Shalott. But then she thought that
perhaps she had hurt the doctor's feelings; so she smiled, and said,
"Never mind."
"Her case could be cured," said the doctor, still under his breath, to
Sary Jane. "The case could be cured yet. It is cruel!"
"Sir," said Sary Jane,--she lifted her sharp face sharply out of
billows of nankeen vests,--"it may be because I make vests at sixteen
and three quarters cents a dozen, sir; but I say before God there's
something cruel somewheres. Look at her. Look at me. Look at them
stairs. Just see that scuttle, will you? Just feel the sun in't these
windows. Look at the rent we pay for this 'ere oven. What do you s'pose
the meriky is up here? Look at them pisen fogs arisen' out over the
sidewalk. Look at the dead as have died in the Devil in this street
this week. Then look out here!"
Sary Jane drew the doctor to the blazing, blindless window, out of
which the Lady of Shalott had never looked.
"Now talk of curin' her!" said Sary Jane.
The doctor turned away from the window, with a sudden white face.
"The Board of Health--"
"Don't talk to me about the Board of Health!" said Sary Jane.
"I'll talk to them," said the doctor. "I did not know matters were so
bad. They shall be attended to directly. To-morrow I leave town--" He
stopped, looking down at the Lady of Shalott, thinking of the little
lady by the waves, whom he would see to-morrow, hardly knowing what to
say. "But something shall be done at once. Meantime, there's the
Hospital."
"She tried Horspital long ago," said Sary Jane. "They said they
couldn't do nothing. What's the use? Don't bother her. Let her be."
"Yes, let me be," said the Lady of Shalott, faintly. "The glass is
broken."
"But something must be done!" urged the doctor, hurrying away. "I will
attend to the matter directly."
He spoke in a busy doctor's busy way. Undoubtedly he thought that he
should attend to the matter directly.
"You have flowers here, I see." He lifted, in hurrying away, a spray of
lilies that lay upon the bed, freshly sent to the Lady of Shalott that
morning.
"They ring," said the Lady of Shalott, softly. "Can you hear?
'Bless--it! Bless--it!' Ah, yes, they ring!"
"Bless what?" asked the doctor, half out of the door.
"The Flower Charity," said the Lady of Shalott.
"Amen!" said the doctor. "But I'll attend to it directly." And he was
quite out of the door, and the door was shut.
"Sary Jane, dear?" said the Lady of Shalott, a few minutes after the
door was shut.
"Well!" said Sary Jane.
"The glass is broken," said the Lady of Shalott.
"Should think I might know that!" said Sary Jane, who was down upon her
knees, sweeping shining pieces away into a pasteboard dust-pan.
"Sary Jane, dear?" said the Lady of Shalott again.
"Dear, dear!" echoed Sary Jane, tossing purple feathers out of the
window and seeming, to the eyes of the Lady of Shalott, to have the
spray of green waves upon her hands. "There they go!"
"Yes, there they go," said the Lady of Shalott. But she said no more
till night.
It was a hot night for South Street. It was a very hot night for even
South Street. The lean children in the attic opposite cried savagely,
like lean cubs. The monkeys from the spring-box came out and sat upon
the lid for air. Dirty people lay around the dirty hydrant; and the
purple wing stretched itself a little in a quiet way, to cover them.
"Sary Jane, dear?" said the Lady of Shalott, at night. "The glass is
broken. And, Sary Jane, dear, I am afraid I _can't_ stand it as well as
you can."
Sary Jane gave the Lady of Shalott a sharp look, and put away her
nankeen vests. She came to the bed.
"It isn't time to stop sewing, is it?" asked the Lady of Shalott, in
faint surprise. Sary Jane only gave her sharp looks, and said,--
"Nonsense! That man will be back again yet. He'll look after ye, maybe.
Nonsense!"
"Yes," said the Lady of Shalott, "he will come back again. But my glass
is broken."
"Nonsense!" said Sary Jane. But she did not go back to her sewing. She
sat down on the edge of the bed, by the Lady of Shalott; and it grew
dark.
"Perhaps they'll do something about the yards; who knows?" said Sary
Jane through the growing dark.
"But my glass is broken," said the Lady of Shalott.
"Sary Jane, dear!" said the Lady of Shalott, when it had grown quite,
quite dark. "He is walking on the waves."
"Nonsense!" said Sary Jane. For it was quite, quite dark.
"Sary Jane, dear!" said the Lady of Shalott. "Not that man. But there
_is_ a man, and he is walking on the waves."
The Lady of Shalott raised herself upon her little calico night-dress
sleeve. She looked at the wall where the 10 X 6 inch looking-glass had
hung.
"Sary Jane, dear!" said the Lady of Shalott. "I am glad that girl is
down by the waves. I am very glad. But the glass is broken."
Two days after, the Board of Health at the foot of the precipice, which
the lessor called a flight of stairs, which led into the Lady of
Shalott's palace, were met and stopped by another board.
"_This_ one's got the right of way, gentlemen!" said something at the
brink of the precipice, which sounded so much like a rat-trap that the
Board of Health looked down by instinct at its individual and
collective feet to see if they were in danger, and dared not by
instinct stir a step.
The board which had the right of way was a pine board, and the Lady of
Shalott lay on it, in her little brown calico night-dress, with Sary
Jane's old shawl across her feet. The Flower Charity (Heaven bless it!)
had half covered the old shawl with silver bells, and solemn green
shadows, like the shadows of church towers. And it was a comfort to
know that these were the only bells which tolled for the Lady of
Shalott, and that no other church shadow fell upon her burial.
"Gentlemen," said the Hospital doctor, "we're too late, I see. But
you'd better go on."
The gentlemen of the Board of Health went on; and the Lady of Shalott
went on.
The Lady of Shalott went out into the cart that had carried away the
monkeys from the spring-box, and the purple wing lifted to let her
pass; and fell again, as if it had brushed her away.
The Board of Health went up the precipice, and stood by the window out
of which the Lady of Shalott had never looked.
They sent orders to the scavenger, and orders to the Water Board, and
how many other orders nobody knows; and they sprinkled themselves with
camphor, and they went their ways.
And the board that had the right of way went its way, too. And Sary
Jane folded up the shawl, which she could not afford to lose, and came
home, and made nankeen vests at sixteen and three quarters cents a
dozen in the window out of which the Lady of Shalott had never looked.