“I 'm afraid,” said Massingbred, “that her state is highly dangerous. The few words the doctor dropped were full of serious meaning.”
“Let us hope, and pray,” said Repton, fervently, “that, amidst all the calamities of this sorrow-struck land, it may be spared the loss of one who never opened a cabin door without a blessing, nor closed it but to shut a hope within.”
CHAPTER XXXVII. A DARK DAY
A mild, soft day, with low-lying clouds, and rich odors of wild-flowers rising from the ground, a certain dreamy quiet pervading earth and sky and sea, over which faint shadows lingered lazily; some drops of the night dew still glittered on the feathery larches, and bluebells hung down their heads, heavy with moisture; so still the scene that the plash of the leaping trout could be heard as he rose in the dark stream. And yet there was a vast multitude of people there. The whole surface of the lawn that sloped from the cottage to the river was densely crowded, with every age, from the oldest to very infancy; with all conditions, from the well-clad peasant to the humblest “tramper” of the high-roads. Weariness, exhaustion, and even hunger were depicted on many of their faces. Some had passed the night there; others had come long distances, faint and footsore; but as they sat, stood, or lay in groups around, not a murmur, not a whisper escaped them; with aching eyes they looked towards an open window, where the muslin curtain was gently stirred in the faint air.
The tidings of Mary Martin's illness had spread rapidly: far-away glens down the coast, lonely cabins on the bleak mountains, wild remote spots out of human intercourse had heard the news, and their dwellers had travelled many a mile to satisfy their aching hearts.
From a late hour of the evening before they had learnt nothing of her state; then a few words whispered by old Catty to those nearest the door told “that she was no better,—if anything, weaker!” These sad tidings were soon passed from lip to lip; and thus they spent the night, praying or watching wearily, their steadfast gaze directed towards that spot where the object of all their fears and hopes lay suffering.
Of those there, there was scarcely one to whom she was not endeared by some personal benefit. She had aided this one in distress, the other she had nursed in fever; here were the old she had comforted and cheered, there the children she had taught and trained beside her chair. Her gentle voice yet vibrated in every heart, her ways of kindness were in every memory. Sickness and sorrow were familiar enough to themselves. Life was, at least to most of them, one long struggle; but they could not bring themselves to think of her thus stricken down! She! that seemed an angel, as much above the casualties of such fortune as theirs as she was their superior in station,—that she should be sick and suffering was too terrible to think of.
There was a stir and movement in the multitude, a wavy, surging motion, for the doctor was seen to issue from the stable-yard, and lead his pony towards the bridge. He stopped to say a word or two as he went. They were sad words; and many a sobbing voice and many a tearful eye told what his tidings had been. “Sinking,—sinking rapidly!”
A faint low cry burst from one in the crowd at this moment, and the rumor ran that a woman had fainted. It was poor Joan, who had come that night over the mountain, and, overcome by grief and exhaustion together, had at last given way.