"Everything is extraordinarily satisfactory," he said. "I've tried a very small dose of scopolamin-morphine."
I went back and resumed my vigil. I did not feel at all tired. I felt a little aloof, as if I were sitting apart and critically watching myself.
I heard a bird twitter, and then the stillness settled down tighter than ever, and then the bird twittered again and a tinge of light, pallid and uncertain, crept up behind the hill.
The dawn was coming, the little bird voice had heralded it.
The little tinge became pink; the stars seemed to blink baldly, like eyes without eyelashes.
The bird world stirred, a blackbird trilled a few delicious notes. I saw that a few trees fringed the hill; the dawn peeped behind them, rosy and fresh, like a child peering from behind its fingers.
The hospital was waking up, too; I saw a woman cross the dewy orchard to a cowhouse in the corner carrying milk-pails and stool.
The scene, which had been changing and intensifying every second, suddenly remained stationary; it was as if Nature suddenly stepped back to view her work—she had fashioned a golden world with the help of the sun, gloriously, dazzlingly gold, golden apples and golden trees, golden thatched roofs; it blazed beyond my window.
Walter Markham opened his eyes.
"Topping day," he said weakly. "Hullo, doc!—I didn't go out, you see."