He was a keen-witted man, Ruel Saxon. Perhaps it may have crossed his mind at that moment that he was being called once more, at this late hour of his life, to lend a hand in straightening out some tangled skein of love, but if so he did not reveal it.
“No,” he said distinctly, “no; there’s nothing else but love will do. It’s all that’s strong enough to last, and it’s a long, long thing, giving your promise to marry.”
And then that shrewd reflective note crept into his voice again as he added: “But if it kept coming to a body the way you speak of, to be thinking of somebody else all the time, and be sorry for them, and all that, I should be a little mite doubtful if there wasn’t something after all besides pity at the bottom of it. A body wouldn’t keep on so very long being sorry for one person, if he was right down in love with another. He’d forget about that one before he knew it. It’s like Aaron’s rod, you see. Some things get swallowed up terrible quick when the one that’s bigger and more alive stretches itself out among ’em.”
She did not ask any more questions. She kept her eyes on the stars for a long time after that. And her grandfather spoke to Dobbin presently in a tone of impatience. “Get up; get up; it’s time we were home long ago.”
It was certainly later than usual when they drew up at the door. Aunt Elsie opened it, looking out rather anxiously when the wheels of the carriage stopped. “I guess we’ve been a little longer than common on the way, we’ve had so much to talk about,” said the old gentleman, cheerfully. Then, as he got down from the carriage, and left it in the hands of Tom, who stood ready with the lantern, he added, stretching himself, “I declare, I feel sort o’ chilly and stiff in the joints. Mebbe I’d better have a little sup of something warm before I get into bed.”
Esther had thought that would be the last time of going to prayer-meeting with her grandfather, and so it proved, but not because she had taken her flight before the next Wednesday evening came. Perhaps it was a cold settling upon him with the raw gray weather which November ushered in, but he was feverish next morning, and kept the house, complaining of draughts which no one else felt, and a little querulous, as he was apt to be when anything ailed that outer man in whose general soundness he took such pride.
For three days he sat by the fire, swallowing boneset tea in quantities and of a degree of bitterness which filled the household, especially Esther, with admiration; but he sternly rejected Aunt Elsie’s suggestion that he should send for a physician, being in practice disposed to the opinion that a man had no use for a doctor until he had reached the point where the chances were against a doctor or any one else being able to help him. He was in something of a strait, however, when Sunday came and he was clearly unable to attend church. To admit the gravity of his case by sending for a medical man was one thing, but to absent himself from the house of God, unless such state of gravity existed, was another; and between the two horns of the dilemma he tossed painfully all the morning. In the end Aunt Elsie settled it, and she was quite willing that he should take what grumbling comfort he could in representing himself as a martyr to feminine insistence when the doctor appeared.
Evidently the latter did not think he had been called too soon. He sent his patient promptly to bed, and now, having advertised himself as sick, the old gentleman obeyed orders with the meekness of a lamb. It would be only a few days, of course; but while it lasted he meant to make the most of his case, and take his full dues in the way of sympathy and attention.
That the minister would come promptly was certain, and there would be opportunity for testing the fidelity of his brother deacons to the duty of visiting the sick and afflicted. Undoubtedly there would be prayers sent up in his behalf from the pulpit and at the Wednesday evening prayer-meeting, and—let us not judge the good man too severely! his own gift in prayer was of no common order—he really hoped the petitions would be well expressed. As for his own family, it went without saying that they would wait upon him with unfailing attention, while he lay, as he plaintively expressed it, on his “bed of pain and languishment”; and feminine attentions were dear to the soul of Ruel Saxon.
He did not have to suggest to Esther that she should delay her departure for Boston. Indeed, it is possible that he forgot her plans altogether, and she remembered them herself only to say quietly to Aunt Elsie, “I shall stay, of course, till he is better. I couldn’t think of leaving him now, and perhaps I can be some help to you in taking care of him.”