CHAPTER XXV.
| "Love is not love |
| Which alters when it alteration finds, |
| Or tends with the remover to remove: |
| Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks |
| Within his bending sickle's compass come: |
| Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, |
| But bears it out even to the edge of doom." |
| —Shakspeare. |
"Why did you not send across to the hospital at the mill?" said Anne. "Dr. Flower, receiving no second message, supposed that Captain Heathcote had recovered."
"Well, you see, I reckon I know as much about this yer fever as the doctors do as never had it," replied Mrs. Redd. "The captain couldn't be moved; that was plain as day. And we hadn't a horse, nuther. Our horse and mules have all been run off and stole."
Mrs. Redd was a clay-colored woman, with a figure which, cavernous in front, was yet so rounded out behind that if she could have turned her head round she would have been very well shaped. Her knowledge of the fever was plainly derived from personal experience; she explained that she had it "by spells," and that "Redd he has it too," and their daughter Nancy as well. "Redd he isn't to home now, nor Nancy nuther. But Redd he'll be back by to-morrow night, I reckon. If you want to stay, I can accommodate you. You can have the loft, and the niggers can sleep in the barn. But they'll have to cook for themselves. I shall be mighty glad to have some help in tending on the captain; I'm about wore out."
Mrs. Redd did not mention that she had confiscated the sick man's money, and hidden it safely away in an old tea-pot, and that all her knowledge of arithmetic was at work keeping a daily account of expenses which should in the end exactly balance the sum. She had no intention of stealing the money—certainly not. But of course her "just account" must be paid. She could still work at this problem, she thought, and earn something as well from the new-comers, who would also relieve her from all care of the sick man: it was clearly a providence. In the glow of this expected gain she even prepared supper. Fortunately in summer her kitchen was in the open air, and the room where Heathcote lay was left undisturbed.
Anne had brought the hospital medicines with her, and careful instructions from Mary Crane. If she had come upon Heathcote before her late experiences, she would have felt little hope, but men whose strength had been far more reduced than his had recovered under her eyes. Diana was a careful nurse; July filled the place of valet, sleeping on straw on the floor. She ordered down the bed-curtains and opened all the windows; martial law regarding air, quiet, and medicines was proclaimed. The sick man lay quietly, save for the continued restless motion of his head.
"If we could only stop his slipping his head across and back in that everlasting way, I believe he'd be better right off," said Mrs. Redd.
"It done him good, 'pears to me," said July, who already felt a strong affection in his capacious vagabondizing heart for the stranger committed to his care. "Yo' see, it kinder rests his mind like."