“Excuse me; Mrs. Peters is not the woman to send me such a message without sufficient cause. I have known her and her son too for many a long year, and they shall not find me fail them in their trouble.”
So the doctor put on his great-coat, took down his hat, begged his friends to do justice to the good cheer provided, and left them, if I must own it, with no small regret, to sally forth in that cold wintry night, tired and hungry as he was. He walked fast, both to save time and to keep himself warm; but his pace would have been even more rapid had he known the agonizing anxiety, increasing every minute, with which his arrival was expected. The door, as he reached it, was opened by the widow, who looked upon him with the breathless earnestness of one who expects to hear a sentence of life or death.
A very short examination of the sufferer enabled the doctor to pronounce that his case was one of decided scarlet fever. Some one must sit up with him and watch him that night; a messenger should instantly be sent with the remedies required; the doctor would himself call the first thing the next morning.
“You do not think my boy—very ill, sir?” faltered the mother, folding her hands, and fixing her eyes upon Dr. Merton with an expression of much grief, which touched the kind man to the heart.
“He is ill, I cannot deny that; but keep a good heart, he has youth and a fine constitution in his favour; and I need not remind you, my friend, to apply for help to Him in whose hands are the issues of life and of death.”
Oh, how often that night, that long, fearful night, did prayer arise from the widow’s low-roofed cottage! It seemed as though the darkness would never be passed. At the end of every weary hour the night-breeze brought the sound of the church-clock to the watcher’s ear, while the stars still trembled in the sky. The wick of the candle burned long and low, the last spark in the grate had died out, and there lay the sufferer, so helpless, so still, that it seemed as though his soul were in like manner silently, surely passing from its dwelling of clay!
But with the return of morning’s light the fever rose, and the malady took its more terrible form. Robin knew nothing of what was passing around him; even his much-loved mother he recognized no more; his mind became full of strange, wild fancies, the delirious dreams of fever. His mother listened in anguish to his ravings; but a deeper grief was spared her—even when reason no longer guided his lips, those lips uttered not a word that could raise a blush on the cheek of his mother. Robin’s conversation had been pure in the days of his health—he had kept his mouth as with a bridle; and the habit of a life was seen even now when he lay at the gates of death! His mother heard his unconscious prayers—words from Scripture instinctively spoken; and while her hot tears gushed more freely forth, she was thankful from the depths of her soul. There was no death-bed repentance here for a life devoted to sin; Robin had not left the work of faith and love for the dregs of age or the languor of a sick-bed. She felt that if Heaven were pleased to take him from her now, he was safe, safe in the care of One who loved him better than even she did; though consciousness might never return to him, though he might never again breathe on earth one connected prayer, he was safe, in time and in eternity, through the merits of the Saviour whom he had loved.
“O sir! I am so thankful to see you!” exclaimed Mrs. Peters, as, pale and worn with watching, she received the doctor at an early hour of the morning. “My poor boy is very feverish and restless indeed—he does not know me!”—the tears rolled down her cheek as she spoke; “I am scarcely able to make him keep in his bed!”
“You must have assistance,” said Dr. Merton, walking up to his patient. Words broke from Robin’s lips as he approached him—words rather gasped forth than spoken: “I must go—he expects me; indeed I must go—my own friend and my father’s friend.” He made an effort to rise, but sank back exhausted on the pillow.
“There is something on his mind,” observed the doctor.