CONCLUSION.
It is often said that no great work can be accomplished without
some correspondingly great sacrifice, and the fever was not
stamped out and the water supply made pure without the suffering
of an innocent victim in the good cause. And scarcely had the
excitement over the accident at the well abated, when Willowton
learned that one of the chief directors of the movement--their
vicar--was dangerously ill. The long strain, physical and mental,
of his resolute fight for the right, the senseless opposition his
flock had met him with all through those weary months of work and
disappointment, had told on him at last, and when the moment of
victory came he succumbed, and three days later he was raging in
the delirium of fever. And then, but only then, the wiseacres of
the village remarked to each other that they had "minded he
looked wonderful quare the last few Sundays--kind a' dazed like;"
and the old women had noticed his thin cheeks and restless eye.
Yet none of them had ever thought of saying a kind word to him
when he called at their cottages, and all had greeted him with
the sullen manner they had adopted, as if by common consent,
since he had begun his crusade against dirt and insanitariness.
On the evening of that day the doctor's dogcart stopped at Mrs.
Lummis's door. He had been such a frequent visitor there during
her illness that nobody attached any importance to his visit;
though Mrs. Lummis was up and about again, but not yet able to do
entirely for herself. But the neighbours did stare when, a
quarter of an hour later, Geo came out with a bundle and climbed
into the cart alongside him, and drove away up the village with
him. And they would have stared harder if they had known whither
Geo was bound.
Geo and his mother were sitting at their evening meal when the
doctor had knocked at their door. And they were not alone; Milly
Greenacre was with them. The three were laughing merrily over the
old lady's reminiscences of her "courting" days, and there was a
pleasant sense of comfort and happiness in the air.
"I am sorry to interrupt you, Mrs. Lummis," said the doctor,
putting his kindly face in at the door, "but I have come to ask
you for your nurse."
"Come in, sir, come in," said Mrs. Lummis, rising; and the doctor
complied, Geo closing the door behind him.
"But nurse have been gone these two days, sir," she said
wonderingly.
"Ah yes. It's not Nurse Blunt I want; it is this good fellow
here," looking at Geo, who got very red and looked extremely
uncomfortable. "The truth is," went on the doctor, "it is not a
woman I want, but a _man_, for the vicar; he is desperately ill,
you know."
"Yes, sir, we've heard," said Mrs. Lummis sympathetically.
"That's a bad job, poor gentleman, I'm sure; but---"
"Now, look here," said the doctor, cutting short any possible
objections, "this is a matter of life or death; there is no time
to lose.--Will you or will you not come?" turning to Geo.
"Me, sir! I am sure I don't know. I don't know nothin' about
nursing. I---"
"You know quite enough. Nurse Blunt will be there when she can,
and Mrs. Crowe will do her best. But the truth is, the poor man
is violent. It is a strong man I want, with a steady nerve and a
good temper. You, I think can answer to this description, and I
think, after the pluck and ability you showed during the past
week, that I can trust you."
Geo's eyes gleamed for a moment under their downcast lids, and he
looked at his mother and Milly for inspiration; and the doctor's
keen eye noticed with amusement that he sought Milly's counsel
first.
"Oh, you must go," said Milly warmly, answering the look. "That
would be a shame not to go to him. If only I was a man---"
"Which you need not wish at all, Milly," said the doctor,
laughing, for he had known Milly all her life. "You had better
come and help Mrs. Lummis a bit every day, and let her son
go.--Come along, Geo; put your night things together and let us
be off." And so, as Mrs. Lummis expressed it afterwards, "the
doctor was so terrible masterful he took him off before my own
eyes as if he'd a-been no more'n a child!"
But Geo proved no child, and, indeed, it was no child's work he
had to perform. For several nights he and Mrs. Crowe sat up with
the sick man, who, until the fever had spent itself, was so
strong that Geo had to put forth all his strength at times to
hold him when the fits of delirium came on. Then came the
inevitable weakness that follows fever, and so for a fortnight
the vicar of Willowton lay between life and death.
"Quiet, nothing but absolute quiet, can save him," the doctor
said. And so the bells were not rung for service; the carts and
other vehicles that generally came rattling past the vicarage
gate were now turned back at the top of the street, for a
faithful guard was always set there to stop all traffic that way.
It was old Greenacre's idea. "That there rattlin' is 'mazin' bad
for the 'hid,'" he said--"I mind that whin I was ill threugh
bein' thrown off a wagon when I was a booy--and they didn't ought
ter pass this way." So he established himself on a chair under
the shadow of the garden wall, and sat patiently watching the
egress through many a long hour, keeping the street. "Jest like a
beggar with a tin mug and a paper pinned on his chist," said
Corkam, who couldn't resist a sneer. But old Jimmy was not there
all day, for there were grateful convalescents in the persons of
Tom Chapman and his friends, who took their turn as sentry.
So the sick man, so carefully tended within and so guarded
without, still hung on between life and death. And as he lay
there powerless and speechless, that fickle jade Popularity stole
back to his side. Shyly, shamefacedly, almost fearfully, people
began to speak well of the man who was in all probability going
to give his life for their well-being. He had had the grace to
"ketch th' faver" just like one of themselves, and it was going
as hard with him as it had gone with many of their own flesh and
blood.
"He warn't so bad after all," they allowed. "'Twarn't so much his
fault that there well fell in." They even remembered how he had
watched and prayed by the sick-beds. They went so far as to hope
he "wouldn't be took." And the doctor, who read them like a book,
smiled to himself as he watched the poison of prejudice gradually
dying in their hearts, and common sense and a small measure of
justice stealing back into their perverted minds.
At last came a day when the good man came gaily down the
staircase and opened the door with the welcome words, "A decided
change for the better. Please God, we'll pull him through now."
And a subdued murmur of joy arose from the little crowd of women
and children that gathered every morning round the house to see
the doctor go away and hear the latest news.
Foremost among these was Annie Chapman--hard working, untidy,
cheery Annie. She has improved very little in any respect except
in her household arrangements; but though no power on earth could
ever succeed in making her tidy, cleanliness has become her
ruling passion. She scrubs, and rubs, and washes everything she
can lay her hands on, and no future outbreak of fever or any
other disease shall ever, she declares, be laid to her door. So
out of evil will come good, and the Willowton of the future
promises to be a very different place from the fever haunt it has
been for the past half-century, if the doctor and the vicar and
Annie Chapman can make it so.
And now there only remains for us to see how things fared with
Geo Lummis, who so suddenly found himself acting so important a
part in the annals of the village. Dr. Davies was anxious to keep
him under his eye as a professional man-nurse; but Geo struck at
that. He was very glad, he said, to have been of use to the
gentlemen, both of them, but sick-nursing was no work for him. He
pined for the fresh air and the open fields, and, if the truth
must be known, for the ripple of the water under the bridge. Not
that he meant to return either to his old ways or his old
companions, for he has done with Corkam for ever; and Milly
Greenacre and he have made their minds to be married as soon as
the vicar is well enough to marry them. And as if wonders would
never cease, Milly's scruples about leaving her old grandfather
alone have all been removed in the most unexpected manner. While
Geo has been nursing the vicar all the past month, old Jimmy had
been spending all his odd moments with Mrs. Lummis, with the
result that he and Geo are going to play at "puss in the corner,"
and there are going to be two weddings instead of one! Geo is
coming to live in the Greenacres' pretty cottage, and old Jimmy
is going to hang up his hat on Geo's old peg in his mother's
house. A more satisfactory arrangement of all parties could not
be imagined: for Jimmy has saved quite a little hoard of money,
enough to keep him comfortable, he hopes, for the rest of his
life; and Geo has been taken on as a farm labourer by Mr. Barlow,
with the promise of an extra teamster's place, and he is looking
forward to getting his seven pounds for the harvest which is now
about to begin, after which he and Milly are to be made man and
wife.
THE END