"He is dead--he is dead!" said the wretched survivor.
"Then do you die too, and be d--d," answered one of the players, "and then there will be a pair of you, as Pugg says."
"I tell you he is growing stiff and cold," said the poor wretch--"the dead is no bed-fellow for the living--For G.o.d"s sake help to rid me of the corpse."
"Ay, and get the credit of having _done_ him--as may be the case with, yourself, friend--for he had some two or three hoggs about him"--
"You know you took the last rap from his breeches-pocket not an hour ago," expostulated the poor convalescent--"But help me to take the body out of the bed, and I will not tell the _jigger-dubber_ that you have been beforehand with him."
"You tell the _jigger-dubber!_" answered the cribbage player. "Such another word, and I will twist your head round till your eyes look at the drummer"s handwriting on your back. Hold your peace, and don"t bother our game with your gammon, or I will make you as mute as your bedfellow."
The unhappy wretch, exhausted, sunk back beside his hideous companion, and the usual jargon of the game, interlarded with execrations, went on as before.
From this specimen of the most obdurate indifference, contrasted with the last excess of misery, Middlemas became satisfied how little could be made of an appeal to the humanity of his fellow-sufferers. His heart sunk within him, and the thoughts of the happy and peaceful home, which he might have called his own, rose before his over-heated fancy, with a vividness of perception that bordered upon insanity. He saw before him the rivulet which wanders through the burgh-muir of Middlemas, where he had so often set little mills for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Menie while she was a child. One draught of it would have been worth all the diamonds of the East, which of late he had worshipped with such devotion; but that draught was denied to him as to Tantalus.
Rallying his senses from this pa.s.sing illusion, and knowing enough of the practice of the medical art, to be aware of the necessity of preventing his ideas from wandering if possible, he endeavoured to recollect that he was a surgeon, and, after all, should not have the extreme fear for the interior of a military hospital, which its horrors might inspire into strangers to the profession. But though he strove, by such recollections, to rally his spirits, he was not the less aware of the difference betwixt the condition of a surgeon, who might have attended such a place in the course of his duty, and a poor inhabitant, who was at once a patient and a prisoner.
A footstep was now heard in the apartment, which seemed to silence all the varied sounds of woe that filled it. The cribbage party hid their cards, and ceased their oaths; other wretches, whose complaints had arisen to frenzy, left off their wild exclamations and entreaties for a.s.sistance. Agony softened her shriek, Insanity hushed its senseless clamours, and even Death seemed desirous to stifle his parting groan in the presence of Captain Seelencooper. This official was the superintendent, or, as the miserable inhabitants termed him, the Governor of the Hospital. He had all the air of having been originally a turnkey in some ill-regulated jail--a stout, short, bandy-legged man, with one eye, and a double portion of ferocity in that which remained.
He wore an old-fashioned tarnished uniform, which did not seem to have been made for him; and the voice in which this minister of humanity addressed the sick, was that of a boatswain, shouting in the midst of a storm. He had pistols and a cutla.s.s in his belt; for his mode of administration being such as provoked even hospital patients to revolt, his life had been more than once in danger amongst them. He was followed by two a.s.sistants, who carried hand-cuffs and strait-jackets.
As Seelencooper made his rounds, complaint and pain were hushed, and the flourish of the bamboo, which he bore in his hand, seemed powerful as the wand of a magician to silence all complaint and remonstrance.
"I tell you the meat is as sweet as a nosegay--and for the bread, it"s good enough, and too good, for a set of lubbers, that lie shamming Abraham, and consuming the Right Honourable Company"s victuals--I don"t speak to them that are really sick, for G.o.d knows I am always for humanity."
"If that be the case, sir," said Richard Middlemas, whose lair the Captain had approached, while he was thus answering the low and humble complaints of those by whose bed-side he pa.s.sed--"if that be the case, sir, I hope your humanity will make you attend to what I say."
"And--who the devil are you?" said the Governor, turning on him his single eye of fire, while a sneer gathered on his harsh features, which were so well qualified to express it.
"My name is Middlemas--I come from Scotland, and have been sent here by some strange mistake. I am neither a private soldier, nor am I indisposed, more than by the heat of this cursed place."
"Why then, friend, all I have to ask you is, whether you are an attested recruit or not?"
"I was attested at Edinburgh," said Middlemas, "but"--
"But what the devil would you have then?--you are enlisted--the Captain and the Doctor sent you here--surely they know best whether you are private or officer, sick or well."
"But I was promised," said Middlemas, "promised by Tom Hillary"--
"Promised, were you? Why, there is not a man here that has not been promised something by somebody or another, or perhaps has promised something to himself. This is the land of promise, my smart fellow, but you know it is India that must be the land of performance. So, good morning to you. The Doctor will come his rounds presently and put you all to rights."
"Stay but one moment--one moment only--I have been robbed."
"Robbed! look you there now," said the Governor--"everybody that comes here has been robbed.--Egad, I am the luckiest fellow in Europe--other people in my line have only thieves and blackguards upon their hands; but none come to my ken but honest, decent, unfortunate gentlemen, that have been robbed!"
"Take care how you treat this so lightly, sir," said Middlemas; "I have been robbed of a thousand pounds."
Here Governor Seelencooper"s gravity was totally overcome, and his laugh was echoed by several of the patients, either because they wished to curry favour with the superintendent, or from the feeling which influences evil spirits to rejoice in the tortures of those who are sent to share their agony.
"A thousand pounds!" exclaimed Captain Seelencooper, as he recovered his breath,--"Come, that"s a good one--I like a fellow that does not make two bites of a cherry--why, there is not a cull in the ken that pretends to have lost more than a few hoggs, and here is a servant to the Honourable Company that has been robbed of a thousand pounds! Well done, Mr. Tom of Ten Thousand-you"re a credit to the house, and to the service, and so good morning to you."
He pa.s.sed on, and Richard, starting up in a storm of anger and despair, found, as he would have called after him, that his voice, betwixt thirst and agitation, refused its office. "Water, water!" he said, laying hold, at the same time, of one of the a.s.sistants who followed Seelencooper by the sleeve. The fellow looked carelessly round; there was a jug stood by the side of the cribbage players, which he reached to Middlemas, bidding him, "Drink and be d----d."
The man"s back was no sooner turned, than the gamester threw himself from his own bed into that of Middlemas, and grasping firm hold of the arm of Richard, ere he could carry the vessel to his head, swore he should not have his booze. It may be readily conjectured, that the pitcher thus anxiously and desperately reclaimed, contained something better than the pure element. In fact, a large proportion of it was gin.
The jug was broken in the struggle, and the liquor spilt. Middlemas dealt a blow to the a.s.sailant, which was amply and heartily repaid, and a combat would have ensued, but for the interference of the superintendent and his a.s.sistants, who, with a dexterity that showed them well acquainted with such emergencies, clapped a straight-waistcoat upon each of the antagonists. Richard"s efforts at remonstrance only procured him a blow from Captain Seelencooper"s rattan, and a tender admonition to hold his tongue, if he valued a whole skin.
Irritated at once by sufferings of the mind and of the body, tormented by raging thirst, and by the sense of his own dreadful situation, the mind of Richard Middlemas seemed to be on the point of becoming unsettled. He felt an insane desire to imitate and reply to the groans, oaths, and ribaldry, which, as soon as the superintendent quitted the hospital, echoed around him. He longed, though he struggled against the impulse, to vie in curses with the reprobate, and in screams with the maniac. But his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, his mouth itself seemed choked with ashes; there came upon him a dimness of sight, a rushing sound in his ears, and the powers of life were for a time suspended.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.
A wise physician, skill"d our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the common weal.
POPE"S _Homer_.
As Middlemas returned to his senses, he was sensible that his blood felt more cool; that the feverish throb of his pulsation was diminished; that the ligatures on his person were removed, and his lungs performed their functions more freely. One a.s.sistant was binding up a vein, from which a considerable quant.i.ty of blood had been taken; another, who had just washed the face of the patient, was holding aromatic vinegar to his nostrils. As he began to open his eyes, the person who had just completed the bandage, said in Latin, but in a very low tone, and without raising his head, "Annon sis Ricardus ille Middlemas, ex civitate Middlema.s.siense? Responde in lingua Latina."
"Sum ille miserrimus," replied Richard, again shutting his eyes; for, strange as it may seem, the voice of his comrade Adam Hartley, though his presence might be of so much consequence in this emergency, conveyed a pang to his wounded pride. He was conscious of unkindly, if not hostile, feelings towards his old companion; he remembered the tone of superiority which he used to a.s.sume over him, and thus to lie stretched at his feet, and in a manner at his mercy, aggravated his distress, by the feelings of the dying chieftain, "Earl Percy sees my fall." This was, however, too unreasonable an emotion to subsist above a minute. In the next, he availed himself of the Latin language, with which both were familiar, (for in that time the medical studies at the celebrated University of Edinburgh were, in a great measure, conducted in Latin,) to tell in a few words his own folly, and the villany of Hillary.
"I must be gone instantly," said Hartley--"Take courage--I trust to be able to a.s.sist you. In the meantime, take food and physic from none but my servant, who you see holds the sponge in his hand. You are in a place where a man"s life has been taken for the sake of his gold sleeve-b.u.t.tons."
"Stay yet a moment," said Middlemas--"Let me remove this temptation from my dangerous neighbours."
He drew a small packet from his under waistcoat, and put it into Hartley"s hands.
"If I die," he said, "be my heir. You deserve her better than I."
All answer was prevented by the hoa.r.s.e voice of Seelencooper.
"Well, Doctor, will you carry through your patient?"
"Symptoms are dubious yet," said the Doctor--"That was an alarming swoon. You must have him carried into the private ward, and my young man shall attend him.
"Why, if you command it, Doctor, needs must;--but I can tell you there is a man we both know, that has a thousand reasons at least for keeping him in the public ward."
"I know nothing of your thousand reasons," said Hartley; "I can only tell you that this young fellow is as well-limbed and likely a lad as the Company have among their recruits. It is my business to save him for their service, and if he dies by your neglecting what I direct, depend upon it I will not allow the blame to lie at my door. I will tell the General the charge I have given you."
"The General!" said Seelencooper, much embarra.s.sed--"Tell the General?--ay, about his health. But you will not say any thing about what he may have said in his light-headed fits? My eyes! if you listen to what feverish patients say when the tantivy is in their brain, your back will soon break with tale-bearing, for I will warrant you plenty of them to carry."
"Captain Seelencooper," said the Doctor, "I do not meddle with your department in the hospital; my advice to you is, not to trouble yourself with mine. I suppose, as I have a commission in the service, and have besides a regular diploma as a physician, I know when my patient is light-headed or otherwise. So do you let the man be carefully looked after, at your peril."
Thus saying, he left the hospital, but not till, under pretext of again consulting the pulse, he pressed the patient"s hand, as if to a.s.sure him once more of his exertions for his liberation.
"My eyes!" muttered Seelencooper, "this c.o.c.kerel crows gallant, to come from a Scotch roost; but I would know well enough how to fetch the youngster off the perch, if it were not for the cure he has done on the General"s pickaninies."
Enough of this fell on Richard"s ear to suggest hopes of deliverance, which were increased when he was shortly afterwards removed to a separate ward, a place much more decent in appearance, and inhabited only by two patients, who seemed petty officers. Although sensible that he had no illness, save that weakness which succeeds violent agitation, he deemed it wisest to suffer himself still to be treated as a patient, in consideration that he should thus remain under his comrade"s superintendence. Yet while preparing to avail himself of Hartley"s good offices, the prevailing reflection of his secret bosom was the ungrateful sentiment, "Had Heaven no other means of saving me than by the hands of him I like least on the face of the earth?"