“Sit down, Hodges.”
The surgeon felt his pulse and wrote a prescription; for it is a tradition of the elders that at each visit the doctor must do some overt act of medicine. After this he asked the patient how he felt.
Mr. Eden turned an eloquent look upon him in reply.
“I must speak to Hodges,” said he. “Come near me, Hodges,” said he in a kind voice, “perhaps I may not have any more opportunities of giving you a word of friendly exhortation.” Here a short, dissatisfied, contemptuous grunt was heard at the window-seat.
“Did you speak, Mrs. Davies?”
“No, I didn't,” was the somewhat sharp reply.
“We should improve every occasion, Mrs. Davies, and I want this poor man to know that a dying man may feel happy and hope everything from God's love and mercy, if he has loved and pitied his brothers and sisters of Adam's race.”
When he called himself a dying man, Hodges, who was looking uncomfortable and at the floor, raised his head, and the surgeon and he interchanged a rapid look; it was observed, though not by Mr. Eden.
That gentleman, seeing Hodges wear an abashed look, which he misunderstood, and aiming to improve him for the future, not punish him for the past, said, “But first let me thank you for coming to see me,” and with these words he put his hand out of the bed with a kind smile to Hodges. His gentle intention was roughly interrupted. Mrs. Davies flung down her work and came like a flaming turkey-cock across the floor in a moment, and seized his arm and flung it back into the bed.
“No, ye don't! ye shan't give your hand to any such rubbish.”