Fortunately, the inn was at the entrance of the town. My uncle, bearing Larry in his arms, entered it with me, and ordering a mattress to be brought, placed him on it, shouting out--
"Be quick, now; fetch a doctor, some of you!"
My countrymen, though willing enough to crack each others" pates, are quite as ready to help a fellow-creature in distress; and, as my uncle spoke, two, if not three, of the bystanders hurried off to obey his order.
Meanwhile, the stable-boy having taken our horses, my uncle and I did our best to resuscitate our unfortunate follower. His countenance was pale as a sheet, except where the streaks of blood had run down it; his hair was matted, and an ugly wound was visible on his head. On taking off his handkerchief, I discovered a black mark on his neck, which alarmed me more than the wound. I fully believed that my poor foster-brother was dead.
Scarcely a minute had elapsed before two persons rushed into the room; one short and pursy, the other tall and gaunt, both panting as if they had run a race.
"I have come at your summons, sir!" exclaimed the tall man.
"And shure, so have I! and was I not first in the room?" cried the second.
"In that, Doctor Murphy, you are mistaken!" exclaimed the tall man, "for didn"t I put my head over your shoulder as we came through the door?"
"But my body was in before yours, Mr O"Shea; and I consider that you are bound to give place to a doctor of medicine!"
"But this appears to me to be a surgical case," said the tall man; "and as the head, as all will allow, is a more honourable part of the body than the paunch, I claim to be the first on the field; and, moreover, to have seen the patient before you could possibly have done so, Doctor Murphy. Sir," he continued, stalking past his brother pract.i.tioner, and making a bow with a battered hat to the major, "I come, I presume, on your summons, to attend to the injured boy; and such skill as I possess--and I flatter myself it"s considerable--is at your service.
May I ask what is the matter with him?"
"Here"s a pract.i.tioner who doesn"t know what his patient is suffering from by a glance of the eye!" cried the doctor of medicine. "Give place, Mr O"Shea, to a man of superior knowledge to yourself,"
exclaimed Doctor Murphy. "It"s easy enough to see with half a glance that the boy has broken his neck, and by this time, unless he possesses a couple of spines,--and I never knew a man have more than one, though,--he must be dead as a door nail!"
"Dead!" cried Mr O"Shea; "the doctor says his patient"s dead without feeling a pulse or lifting an eyelid."
"You, at all events, ought to know a corpse from a live man," cried the fat medico, growing irate, "when it"s whispered that you have made as many dead bodies in the town itself as would serve for a couple of battles and a few scrimmages to boot."
"And you, Doctor Murphy, have poisoned one-half of your patients, and the others only survive because they throw the physic you send them to the dogs."
"Come, gentlemen," exclaimed the major, "while you are squabbling, any spark of life the poor boy may contain will be ebbing away. As I am not acquainted with the skill you respectively possess, I beg that you, Doctor Murphy, as holding the higher grade in your profession, will examine the boy, and express your opinion whether he is dead or alive, and state, if there"s life in him, which you consider the best way to bring him round, and set him on his feet again."
Mr O"Shea, on hearing this, stepped back a few paces, and, folding his arms, looked with supreme contempt on the little doctor, who, stooping down over Larry with watch in hand, at which he mechanically gazed with a serious countenance, felt his pulse.
"His hand is cold and clammy, and there"s not a single thump in his arteries," he said with solemn gravity; and letting fall Larry"s hand he proceeded to examine his neck. "The vertebra broken, cracked, dislocated," he continued, in the same solemn tone. "D"ye see this black mark down his throat? it"s amply sufficient to account for death.
I hereby certify that this is a corpse before me, and authorise that he may be sent home to his friends for Christian burial."
"Och ahone! och ahone!" I cried out, throwing myself by the side of the mattress. "Is Larry really dead? Oh, doctors dear, can"t both of you put your heads together and try to bring him to life again?"
"When the breath is out of the body, "tis more than all the skill of the most learned pract.i.tioners can accomplish," exclaimed Doctor Murphy, rising from his knees. "I p.r.o.nounce the boy dead, and no power on earth can bring him round again."
"I hold to the contrary opinion," said Mr O"Shea, advancing and drawing out of his pocket a case of instruments, from which he produced a large operation knife, and began to strop it on the palm of his hand. "It"s fortunate for the boy that he didn"t move, or Doctor Murphy would have been thrusting one of his big boluses down his throat and drenched him with black draughts. Stand aside, friends, and you shall see that a surgeon"s skill is superior to a doctor"s knowledge. I have your leave, sir, to proceed as I consider necessary?" he asked, turning to the major.
"Certainly," answered my uncle; "if Doctor Murphy considers him dead and you believe him to be alive, and act accordingly, I have more hopes in the results of your skill than in that of the other gentleman."
"You"ll remain in town some time, sir, I presume, and as you"re a gentleman, I shall expect a visit from you," exclaimed the fat doctor, as, nearing the door, he made a bow, and, gold cane in hand, waddled out of the room.
Mr O"Shea cast a contemptuous glance at him, and then kneeling down, applied his knife to the nape of Larry"s neck. Warm blood immediately spouted forth. "I told you so," he exclaimed; "blood doesn"t flow like this from a corpse. Bring hot water and cloths." These he applied to Larry"s neck, and continued to pour the water on them, "to draw out the blood," as he said, and relieve the patient"s head. Then pressing his knees against Larry"s shoulders, he gave a pull at his head which seemed likely to dislocate his neck, if it hadn"t been broken already.
As he did this, he exclaimed, "There now, I have taken the twists out, and the boy will be all to rights in the course of an hour."
A groan and a heavy sigh proclaimed that there was still life in poor Larry. Presently he opened one eye and then the other, and some spoonfuls of whisky and water, which Surgeon O"Shea poured down his throat, contributed still further to revive him.
In the course of half-an-hour Larry asked in a low voice, "Did yer beat back the O"Sullivans, yer honour? shure they were coming after us at a mighty great rate, and I fancy some one of them gave me a whack on the crown which brought me to the ground."
"Keep quiet and don"t be talking," answered the surgeon, who, proud of his success, had been carefully watching his patient. "He"ll do now, gentlemen," he added, looking up at my uncle and me. "We"ll put him to bed, and by to-morrow morning he"ll be as blithe as a lark, barring a stiff neck."
CHAPTER FOUR.
MY FIRST DAY ON BOARD.
I sat up with Larry for the greater part of the night, after the surgeon had left him. He groaned sometimes as if in pain, and talked at one time of the scrimmage with the O"Sullivans, and at another of his fiddle, which he feared had been broken. I accordingly, to pacify him, went down and got it, and managed to produce some few notes, which had the desired effect. The major after some time came in to relieve me, for we could not trust any of the people at the inn, who would to a certainty have been dosing our patient with whisky, under the belief that they were doing him a kindness, but at the risk of producing a fever.
In the morning Mr O"Shea came in.
"I thought you said that the boy would be all to rights by this time," I observed.
"Shure that was somewhat hyperbolical," he answered, with a wink. "You can"t expect a man with a broken neck, and a gash as big as my thumb at the back of it, to come round in a few hours."
We couldn"t complain, for certainly the worthy surgeon had been the means of saving Larry"s life; but the incident detained us three whole days, before he was fit to mount his pony and accompany us to Cork.
Before leaving my uncle called on Doctor Murphy, who, to his great amus.e.m.e.nt, he found had no intention of calling him out, but merely expected to receive a fee for p.r.o.nouncing a living man a dead one.
Though my uncle might have declined to pay the amount demanded, he handed it to the doctor, and wished him good morning.
I afterwards heard that Doctor Murphy had challenged Mr O"Shea. That gentleman, however, refused to go out on the plea that should he be wounded, and become a patient of his brother pract.i.tioner, he should certainly go the way of the rest of those under his medical care. For many a long day Doctor Murphy and Mr O"Shea carried on a fierce warfare, till their patients agreed to fight it out and settle the matter, when the doctor"s party being defeated, no inconsiderable number of broken heads being the result, he left the town to exercise his skill in some other locality, where, as Mr O"Shea remarked, there was a superabundant population.
We were too late on arriving at Cork to go on board the frigate that evening, and thus Larry got the advantage of another night"s rest, and I had time to brush up my uniform, and, as I conceived, to make myself as smart as any officer in His Majesty"s service. The next morning my uncle hired a boat to proceed down the fair river of Cork to the harbour where the frigate lay. As we approached her my heart thrilled with pleasure as I thought of the honour I was about to enjoy of becoming one of her officers.
"There"s the _Liffy_, yer honour," said the boatman, pointing her out as she lay some distance from the sh.o.r.e. Her masts had already been replaced, and her yards were across, though the sails were not as yet bent; this, however, I did not observe.
"I hope I have not detained her, uncle," I said; "I should be sorry to have done that."
The major seldom indulged in a laugh, but he did so on this occasion till the tears rolled down his cheeks.
"Midshipmen are not of so much account as you suppose, Terence," he said, still laughing. "If you were to go on sh.o.r.e and not return on board in time, you would soon discover that the ship would not wait for you a single moment after the captain had resolved to put to sea."
As we approached, the sentry hailed to know who we were. In my eagerness I replied, "Major McMahon and the new midshipman, Mr Terence O"Finnahan," whereat a laugh came forth from one of the ports at which, as it appeared, some of my future messmates were standing.
"You"d have better have held your tongue," said my uncle. "And now, Terence, remember to salute the flag as you see me do," he added, as he was about to mount the side of the ship. He went up, I followed, and next came Larry. On reaching the deck he took off his hat, and I doffed mine with all the grace I could muster, Larry at the same time making a profound bow and a sc.r.a.pe of his foot. The master"s mate who received us, when my uncle inquired for Captain Macnamara, pointed to the after-part of the deck, where my future commander, with several other well-dressed officers, was standing. My uncle at once moved towards him, and I and Larry followed in the same direction. The captain, a fine-looking man, seeing him approach came forward, and they exchanged cordial greetings.
"I have come expressly to introduce my nephew Terence to you, Macnamara," said my uncle. "You were good enough, in a letter I received from you a few days ago, to say that you would receive him as a midshipman on board your ship. He"s a broth of a boy, and will be an ornament to the service, I hope."
"Can"t say that he is much of an ornament at present," I heard one of the officers remark to another. "Looks more like a mummer or stage-player than a midshipman."
Looking up, I observed a smile on their countenances, as they eyed me from head to foot.
"Wishing to present the boy in a respectable way to you on the quarter-deck of His Majesty"s ship, we had a uniform made for him at Ballinahone, which is, I fancy, such as your officers are accustomed to wear on grand occasions," said the major, taking me by the arm as if to exhibit me to more advantage.