I didn't see what it meant, though Jervis did, till one day, all of a sudden, he put the question to the doctor, whether he would ever be able to walk again.
Dr. Wray was young still, and a kindhearted gentleman as ever I saw. He didn't like to trouble us, that was plain. And yet he wouldn't say what wasn't true. But I seemed to know what he meant, and Jervis was sure.
It was like a great black cloud coming down, and shutting off all joy in the rest of our life,—like to the blackness that came while I was on the beach watching for my husband and child to be dug out. I couldn't see any lightening of it, nor any hope.
Jervis to be a cripple for life! That was what seemed so terrible to me. I didn't scarcely know how to face the thought. He'd been always so good, and taken such care of me and the children. And now he had to be cared for like a baby. And it would be so always! It never could be anything else! I made up my mind to that, and it weighed me down. Mrs. Kingscote tried to make me feel I couldn't be sure. She said Dr. Wray hadn't said so much, which was true; and she said nobody could tell, which was true too. Doctors know a wonderful lot more than common folks, but they don't know everything, and they'd be the first to say so.
I couldn't take any comfort, though. It was worse to me than losing my little Bessie. For I could think of her as always happy and cared for; but if Jervis was to be a helpless cripple, he'd be miserable, and I should be miserable, and there was no knowing what would become of us all.
I suppose there's hardly any sort of trouble that folks don't get in a manner used to as time goes on. Even if it's a trouble that changes everything, still one gets used to the change after a time, so as to bear it patient; and even if it's a burden always pressing, one learns to bear up better under the burden. Looking back, I could think it was a very long while before I was able to fit in with this trouble, and yet it couldn't have been so very long. The summer weather hadn't begun to fade before I was feeling almost as if he'd been years and years like that, and as if we'd never been used to depend on him.
And the wonderful thing was that Jervis didn't seem miserable, as I'd thought he would be. He didn't fret, or fuss, or worry, but just lay and looked happy. And for a good while I couldn't make it out. A strong active man like him, struck down all at once, and made as helpless as a baby; why, one wouldn't have been surprised if he'd broken his heart over it, or been cross, and fractious, and complaining. But he didn't; not he! There was never a word of grumbling, and never a sign of fretting. And it only came to me slowly that he wasn't so of himself, but that he was being taught and helped, and put through what Mr. Kingscote called "a school of patience."
It was wonderful how manly and thoughtful Miles grew, all of a sudden, after that first day at Ermespoint. Though hardly fifteen yet, he was growing tall and big; and I'm sure he might have been twenty, by the way he cared for his father, and tried to save me trouble.
I won't say but what it was a grief to me that he shouldn't go into the trade. When he had talked of wanting a country life, I had sometimes wanted it too for him, but not anything of this sort. I hadn't looked for my Miles to be, so to speak, in service. Yet there didn't seem to be anything else we could do. He was earning more than he could have earned any other way; and the boy himself said it was right. I wondered sometimes what Jervis thought, for I had asked no questions, not liking to worry his head while it was weak.
But one day, after many weeks, when he was getting better and stronger every way, except that he'd little or no power yet over his legs, he said to me—