CHAPTER VII.
"See
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,
"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."
—Browning.
Barnabas Thorpe had been blessed all his life with a physique that was strong enough to bear the exactions of his spirit. In this respect he had been remarkably fortunate. But, after all, his body was made of flesh and blood; and flesh and blood give way at last.
It was a great source of grief to him that he could no longer heal as he had once healed; that strange power seemed to have, in a large measure, left him.
"May be it's because I am not fit to ha' it," he said sadly. "One who hates his brother whom he has seen deserves no power to bring down healing from the God he has not seen."
The surgeon, who was watching Barnabas dress a wound that had been inflicted by Bill's poker, laughed impatiently.
"That's nonsense, you know," he remarked; but he no longer said, "That's cant".
The preacher's surgery was gentler than the doctor's, which was certainly rough. The man's eye was badly damaged, and the lightest touch caused agony; he turned over on his face with a groan when Barnabas had finished.