“My God!” cried Tom Meredith.
The bandaged hand waved jauntily over the Teller's head. “Ah, men,” he said, almost clearly, and tried to lift himself on his arm, “I tell you it's a grand eleven we have this year! There will be little left of anything that stands against them. Did you see Jim Romley ride over his man this afternoon?”
As the voice grew clearer the sheriff stepped forward, but Tom Meredith, with a loud exclamation of grief, threw himself on his knees beside the cot and seized the wandering fingers in his own. “John!” he cried. “John! Is it you?”
The voice went on rapidly, not heeding him: “Ah, you needn't howl; I'd have been as much use at right as that Sophomore. Well, laugh away, you Indians! If it hadn't been for this ankle—but it seems to be my chest that's hurt—and side—not that it matters, you know; the Sophomore's just as good, or better. It's only my egotism. Yes, it must be the side—and chest—and head—all over, I believe. Not that it matters—I'll try again next year—next year I'll make it a daily, Helen said, not that I should call you Helen—I mean Miss—Miss—Fisbee—no, Sherwood—but I've always thought Helen was the prettiest name in the world—you'll forgive me?—And please tell Parker there's no more copy, and won't be—I wouldn't grind out another stick to save his immortal—yes, yes, a daily—she said-ah, I never made a good trade—no—they can't come seven miles—but I'll finish you, Skillett, first; I know you! I know nearly all of you! Now let's sing 'Annie Lisle.'” He lifted his hand as if to beat the time for a chorus.
“Oh, John, John!” cried Tom Meredith, and sobbed outright. “My boy—my boy—old friend——” The cry of the classmate was like that of a mother, for it was his old idol and hero who lay helpless and broken before him.
The brougham lamps and the apathetic sparks of the cab gleamed in front of the hospital till daylight. Two other pairs of lamps joined them in the earliest of the small hours, these subjoined to two deep-hooded phaetons, from each of which quickly descended a gentleman with a beard, an air of eminence, and a small, ominous black box. The air of eminence was justified by the haste with which Meredith had sent for them, and by their wide repute. They arrived almost simultaneously, and hastily shook hands as they made their way to the ward down the long hall and up the narrow corridor. They had a short conversation with Gay and a word with the nurse, then turned the others out of the room by a practiced innuendo of manner. They stayed a long time in the room without opening the door. Meredith paced the hall alone, sometimes stopping to speak to Warren Smith; but the two officials of peace sat together in dumb consternation and astonishment. The sleepy young man relaxed himself resignedly upon a bench in the hall had returned to the dormance from which he had been roused. The big hospital was very still. Now and then a nurse went through the hall, carrying something, and sometimes a neat young physician passed cheerfully along, looking as if he had many patients who were well enough to testify to his skill, but sick enough to pay for it. Outside, through the open front doors, the crickets chirped.
Meredith went out on the steps, and breathed the cool night air. A slender taint of drugs hung everywhere about the building, and the almost imperceptible permeation sickened him; it was deadly, he thought, and imbued with a hideous portent of suffering. That John Harkless, of all men, should lie stifled with ether, and bandaged and splintered, and smeared with horrible unguents, while they stabbed and slashed and tortured him, and made an outrage and a sin of that grand, big, dexterous body of his! Meredith shuddered. The lights in the little ward were turned up, and they seemed to shine from a chamber of horrors, while he waited, as a brother might have waited outside the Inquisition—if, indeed, a brother would have been allowed to wait outside the Inquisition.
Alas, he had found John Harkless! He had “lost track” of him as men sometimes do lose track of their best beloved, but it had always been a comfort to know that Harkless was—somewhere, a comfort without which he could hardly have got along. Like others he had been waiting for John to turn up—on top, of course; for people would always believe in him so, that he would be shoved ahead, no matter how much he hung back himself—but Meredith had not expected him to turn up in Indiana. He had heard vaguely that Harkless was abroad, and he had a general expectation that people would hear of him over there some day, with papers like the “Times” beseeching him to go on missions. And he found him here, in his own home, a stranger, alone and dying, receiving what ministrations were reserved for Jerry the Teller. But it was Helen Sherwood who had found him. He wondered how much those two had seen of each other, down there in Plattville. If they had liked each other, and Harkless could have lived, he thought it might have simplified some things for Helen. “Poor Helen!” he exclaimed aloud. Her telegram had a ring, even in the barren four sentences. He wondered how much they had liked each other. Perhaps she would wish to come at once. When those fellows came out of the room he would send her a word by telegraph.
When they came out—ah! he did not want them to come out; he was afraid. They were an eternity—why didn't they come? No; he hoped they would not come, just now. In a little time, in a few minutes, even, he would not dread a few words so much; but now he couldn't quite bear to be told he had found his friend only to lose him, the man he had always most needed, wanted, loved. Everybody had always cared for Harkless, wherever he went. That he had always cared for everybody was part of the reason, maybe. Meredith remembered, now, hearing a man who had spent a day in Plattville on business speak of him: “They've got a young fellow down there who'll be Governor in a few years. He's a sort of dictator; and runs the party all over that part of the State to suit his own sweet will, just by sheer personality. And there isn't a man in that district who wouldn't cheerfully lie down in the mud to let him pass over dry. It's that young Harkless, you know; owns the 'Herald,' the paper that downed McCune and smashed those imitation 'White-Caps' in Carlow County.” Meredith had been momentarily struck by the coincidence of the name, but his notion of Harkless was so inseparably connected with what was (to his mind) a handsome and more spacious—certainly more illuminated—field of action, that the idea that this might be his friend never entered his head. Helen had said something once—he could not remember what—that made him think she had half suspected it, and he had laughed. He thought of the whimsical fate that had taken her to Plattville, of the reason for her going, and the old thought came to him that the world is, after all, so very small. He looked up at the twinkling stars; they were reassuring and kind. Under their benignancy no loss could befall, no fate miscarry—for in his last thought he felt his vision opened, for the moment, to perceive a fine tracery of fate.
“Ah, that would be too beautiful!” he said.