“An old man is ill—he seems so very ill—and we cannot get to Three Crowns until nine o’clock to-morrow morning. I am wondering whatever we can do for all the night,” said Bertha, with more dismay in her tone than she knew.
“And you have got him to look after? Oh, I am sorry for you! Shall I come and help? Not that I can do much because of my arm; but, anyhow, I can be a little company, and most of the other women here have got children to look after, poor things,” said the young woman, who was not so very young after all.
“Oh, I shall be glad!” cried Bertha. “He is such a poor old man, and he seems so frail. I have thought all day how ill he looks, but for the last hour he has been so very much worse, and now he does not seem to know where he is.”
“Ah, he is light-headed—old people get like that very quickly; but he may be very much better in the morning. Draw those curtains at the back of him; yes, like that. Now we will make him up a bed on that long seat, and when the conductor comes back he will lift the old man on to it for us; no, you must not try to do it yourself, you are not strong enough.”
The girl was so brisk and alert in her ways, that her presence was an infinite consolation to Bertha, on whom was dumped the responsibility of being nurse-in-chief. But it was a night long to be remembered; neither Bertha nor the girl with the bandaged arm had time to even doze, for the poor old man tossed and raved, talking of all sorts of wild and impossible things, or he would break into grievous lamenting about some boy whom he had wronged. He was moaning now for someone whom he called Tom, and a minute later he would burst into bitter invective against some other person, name unknown, who had robbed him of property of great value.
Just about midnight there was a jar and a bang when the engine reached them and was fastened on once more; then they went slowly forward on the journey that had suffered so much delay. At Three Crowns depot, a wooden shed planted by the side of the track in company with half a dozen houses and a tin-roofed store, the old man was carried from the cars, and Bertha had to go with him, because he had hold of her hand, and was crying pitifully that he could not be taken among strangers, who would be sure to rob him. So the cars had to be kept waiting while the short journey to the house of the doctor was accomplished.
“Tell me your name—please tell me,” pleaded the poor old fellow, when he had been taken into the house of the doctor, and Bertha had told him that she must go.
“My name is Bertha Doyne, and I am going to the house of Mr. Ellis at Duck Flats,” said Bertha, and then the doctor laid a firm but kindly hand on the wrist of the poor old fellow to set Bertha free—for the train could not wait indefinitely—and she was hurried away.
CHAPTER VII
Worse than Her Fears
A timber house, a barn, two sheds, and a fenced enclosure, that was all, and they stood black specks on the vast snowfield, visible for miles before they were reached.