Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into a corner.

The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished-evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used.

Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks.

They continued to be uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' the counting up to twelve, and 'Hush!' The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful.

The only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure.

It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more regular.

"For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the elder said:

"'There is another patient.'

"I was startled, and asked, 'Is it a pressing case?'

"'You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took up a light.

* * *

"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a stable.

There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across.

Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand.

I had to pass through that part, to get at the other.

My memory is circumstantial and unshaken.

I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.

"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant boy-a boy of not more than seventeen at the most.

He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward.

I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.

"'I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I. 'Let me examine it.'

"'I do not want it examined,' he answered; 'let it be.'

"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away.

The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to without delay.

He was then dying fast.

Table of Contents