Mary had just rolled gently back on the floor. I went again in despair. But I heard Bridget's step this time. First flight, first passage; second flight, second passage. She ran in in triumph at length, with a screw-driver!
"No!" I whispered,—"no. The crooked thing you draw corks with," and I showed her the bottle again. "Find one somewhere and don't come back without it." So she vanished for the second time.
"Frederic!" said Morton. I think he never called me so before. Should I risk the clothes-brush again? I opened Lycidas's own drawers,—papers, boxes, everything in order,—not a sign of a tool.
"Frederic!" "Yes," I said. But why did I [pg 297] say "Yes"? "Father of Mercy, tell me what to do."
And my mazed eyes, dim with tears,—did you ever shed tears from excitement?—fell on an old razor-strop of those days of shaving, made by C. WHITTAKER, SHEFFIELD. The "Sheffield" stood in black letters out from the rest like a vision. They make cork screws in Sheffield too. If this Whittaker had only made a corkscrew! And what is a "Sheffield wimble?"
Hand in my pocket,—brown paper parcel.
"Where are you, Frederic?" "Yes," said I, for the last time. Twine off! brown paper off. And I learned that the "Sheffield wimble" was one of those things whose name you never heard before, which people sell you in Thames Tunnel, where a hoof-cleaner, a gimlet, a screw-driver, and a corkscrew fold into one handle.
"Yes," said I, again. "Pop," said the cork "Bubble, bubble, bubble," said the whiskey. Bottle in one hand, full tumbler in the other, I walked in. George poured half a tumblerful down Lycidas's throat that time. Nor do I dare say how much he poured down afterwards. I found that there was need of it, from what he said of the pulse, when it was all over. I guess Mary had some, too.
This was the turning-point. He was exceedingly weak, and we sat by him in turn through the night, giving, at short intervals, stimulants and such food as [pg 298] he could swallow easily; for I remember Morton was very particular not to raise his head more than we could help. But there was no real danger after this.
As we turned away from the house on Christmas morning,—I to preach and he to visit his patients,—he said to me, "Did you make that whiskey?"