With their limbs left behind at St. Bernard’s.”
And he whistled merrily to think how his capital operation had come in the nick of time.
* * * * *
Poor Pat was quite resigned; he had obeyed the voice of the Church; and Faith bade him reflect that God would look after his family when he went out with a wooden leg and his calling gone in this life. It is not absolutely certain that this mediæval attitude of mind is so very inferior to that of the free and independent Protestant way of looking at things, after all. Patrick Flynn’s day-book and ledger would not make a bad figure when the auditing angel came along, notwithstanding his complete ignorance of any learning save his rosary and the non-possession of the key of his own conscience.
“I could have saved that leg if it had been my case,” said Senior Surgeon Bishop after the operation; “but it would have been hard on Wilson to make him lose his chance.”
It was this same Wilson who so horrified Elsworth by compelling him to tear off the thumb-nail of a patient for whom such an operation was necessary, without the use of any anæsthetic. “If we gave chloroform for every trifling job like that,” he said, “we should have enough to do.” He had become so case-hardened against feeling pain in others that he could only attribute to weakness and incompetence that hesitation to cause a single unnecessary pang in any sentient being which is the unvarying qualification of all the greatest and noblest men and women of whom we know anything. The blood-madness of some of the Dukes of Milan no doubt began early with unrestricted torture of animals. Not all at once do men bring themselves to hunt their prisoners with dogs fed on human flesh. Ecelin had to learn his cruelty as men learn any other business, slowly and by degrees qualifying for the title of “The Cruel” which men gave him. It would doubtless be some satisfaction to flies and other insects tortured by ill-trained children, if they could know that their tormentors would soon exercise their skill on their fellows, and so avenge the innocent world below them. Elsworth had done his best to get the man to consent to his mutilation, but his conscience troubled him for many days afterwards.
CHAPTER XIII.
“THE SOOTHING IDEA OF GOD.”
How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments.—Emerson.
That grand sin of atheism or impiety, Melancthon calls it monstrosam melancholiam, monstrous melancholy; or venenatam melancholiam, poisoned melancholy.—Burton.