music. Where is the landlord? No; I want to see my rooms. I donât want your arm; I can get upstairs with the help of my stick. Mr Mayor and Mr Doctor, we need not detain one another any longer. I wish you good-night.â
Both mayor and doctor looked after the Scotchman as he limped upstairs, and shook their heads together in mute disapproval of him. The ladies, as usual, went a step farther, and expressed their opinions openly in the plainest words. The case under consideration (so far as
they
were concerned) was the scandalous case of a man who had passed them over entirely without notice. Mrs Mayor could only attribute such an outrage to the native ferocity of a Savage. Mrs Doctor took a stronger view still, and considered it as proceeding from the inbred brutality of a Hog.
The hour of waiting for the travelling carriage wore on, and the creeping night stole up the hill-sides softly. One by one the stars appeared, and the first lights twinkled in the windows of the inn. As the darkness came, the last idlers deserted the square; as the darkness came, the mighty silence of the Forest above flowed in on the valley, and strangely and suddenly hushed the lonely little town.
The hour of waiting wore out, and the figure of the doctor, walking backwards and forwards anxiously, was still the only living figure left in the square. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, were counted out by the doctorâs watch, before the first sound came through the night silence to warn him of the approaching carriage. Slowly it emerged into the square, at the walking pace of the horses, and drew up, as a hearse might have drawn up, at the door of the inn.
âIs the doctor here?â asked a womanâs voice, speaking out of the darkness of the carriage in the French language.
âI am here, madam,â replied the doctor, taking a light from the landlordâs hand, and opening the carriage door.
The first face that the light fell on, was the face of the lady who had just spoken â a young darkly-beautiful woman, with the tears standing thick and bright in her eager black eyes. The second face revealed, was the face of a shrivelled old negress, sitting opposite the lady on the backseat. The third was the face of a little sleeping child, in the negressâs lap. With a quick gesture of impatience, the lady signed to the nurse to leave the carriage first with the child. âPray take them out of the way,â she said to the landlady; âpray take them to their room.â She got out herself when her request had been complied with. Then the light fell clear for the first time on the farther side of the carriage, and the fourth traveller was disclosed to view.
He lay helpless on a mattress supported by a stretcher; his hair long and disordered under a black skull-cap; his eyes wide open, rolling to and fro ceaselessly anxious; the rest of his face as void of all expression of the character within him, and the thought within him, as if he had been dead. There was no looking at him now, and guessing what he might once have been. The leaden blank of his face met every question as to his age, his rank, his temper, and his looks which that face might once have answered, in impenetrable silence. Nothing spoke for him now but the shock that had struck him with the death-in-life of Paralysis. The doctorâs eye questioned his lower limbs, and Death-in-life 4 answered,
I am here
. The doctorâs eye, rising attentively by way of his hands and arms, questioned upward and upward to the muscles round his mouth, and Death-in-Life answered,
I am coming
.
In the face of a calamity so unsparing and so dreadful, there was nothing to be said. The silent sympathy of help was all that could be offered to the woman who stood weeping at the carriage door.
As they bore him on his bed across the hall of the hotel, his wandering eyes encountered the face of his wife. They rested on her for a moment; and, in that moment, he
Both mayor and doctor looked after the Scotchman as he limped upstairs, and shook their heads together in mute disapproval of him. The ladies, as usual, went a step farther, and expressed their opinions openly in the plainest words. The case under consideration (so far as
they
were concerned) was the scandalous case of a man who had passed them over entirely without notice. Mrs Mayor could only attribute such an outrage to the native ferocity of a Savage. Mrs Doctor took a stronger view still, and considered it as proceeding from the inbred brutality of a Hog.
The hour of waiting for the travelling carriage wore on, and the creeping night stole up the hill-sides softly. One by one the stars appeared, and the first lights twinkled in the windows of the inn. As the darkness came, the last idlers deserted the square; as the darkness came, the mighty silence of the Forest above flowed in on the valley, and strangely and suddenly hushed the lonely little town.
The hour of waiting wore out, and the figure of the doctor, walking backwards and forwards anxiously, was still the only living figure left in the square. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, were counted out by the doctorâs watch, before the first sound came through the night silence to warn him of the approaching carriage. Slowly it emerged into the square, at the walking pace of the horses, and drew up, as a hearse might have drawn up, at the door of the inn.
âIs the doctor here?â asked a womanâs voice, speaking out of the darkness of the carriage in the French language.
âI am here, madam,â replied the doctor, taking a light from the landlordâs hand, and opening the carriage door.
The first face that the light fell on, was the face of the lady who had just spoken â a young darkly-beautiful woman, with the tears standing thick and bright in her eager black eyes. The second face revealed, was the face of a shrivelled old negress, sitting opposite the lady on the backseat. The third was the face of a little sleeping child, in the negressâs lap. With a quick gesture of impatience, the lady signed to the nurse to leave the carriage first with the child. âPray take them out of the way,â she said to the landlady; âpray take them to their room.â She got out herself when her request had been complied with. Then the light fell clear for the first time on the farther side of the carriage, and the fourth traveller was disclosed to view.
He lay helpless on a mattress supported by a stretcher; his hair long and disordered under a black skull-cap; his eyes wide open, rolling to and fro ceaselessly anxious; the rest of his face as void of all expression of the character within him, and the thought within him, as if he had been dead. There was no looking at him now, and guessing what he might once have been. The leaden blank of his face met every question as to his age, his rank, his temper, and his looks which that face might once have answered, in impenetrable silence. Nothing spoke for him now but the shock that had struck him with the death-in-life of Paralysis. The doctorâs eye questioned his lower limbs, and Death-in-life 4 answered,
I am here
. The doctorâs eye, rising attentively by way of his hands and arms, questioned upward and upward to the muscles round his mouth, and Death-in-Life answered,
I am coming
.
In the face of a calamity so unsparing and so dreadful, there was nothing to be said. The silent sympathy of help was all that could be offered to the woman who stood weeping at the carriage door.
As they bore him on his bed across the hall of the hotel, his wandering eyes encountered the face of his wife. They rested on her for a moment; and, in that moment, he
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