"I used to be able to lighten pain more," said Barnabas. "I've often known that, when I've put my hand on one suffering like that, the torment has been stilled for a bit and he's fallen asleep. But I can't do it now!"
"Of course you can't," said the doctor. "You had a sort of mesmeric faculty that you believed miraculous; but your own nervous energy has been pretty well kicked out of you now, and you are ill and weak; and, naturally, you can't play those tricks which, let me tell you, are best left alone at any time. The failure has nothing whatever to do with your morals, it has to do with your body. If you had been the greatest rogue unhung, so long as your iniquities hadn't touched your health, you'd still have possessed that faculty. There was no need to pray about it; or, if you'd prayed to the devil, it would have come to the same thing; except, of course, that people prefer the other arrangement—it's the pleasanter myth of the two."
Barnabas frowned, looking straight in front of him from under his fair eyebrows.
Scepticism was utterly impossible to him; the doctor's remarks could not touch the simplicity of his faith; he had rejoiced in his healing power, but if it had been clearly demonstrated to him a thousand times that his belief in it was a fallacy, the demonstrator would have left him practically much where he had been before.
"The same God as makes souls makes the bodies to 'em, I suppose," he said. "I can't see as it makes the least bit o' difference which the power comes through, sir. It's only 'through' arter all. I fancied it went straight fro' my soul to the sick man's; but you are more larned, and, happen, you know better; happen, as you say, it went fro' my body—it's no matter, is it, so long as it went? It wasn't fro' the devil, I know, because it was good and healed; I never heard as he did that; he destroys both soul and body. I've never prayed to him," said the preacher, giving the doctor's words a literal interpretation that half amused, half irritated his companion; "but you're wrong when you say it 'ud ha' come to the same thing."
"Oh, you think that the supernatural supply would have dried up, eh?" said Dr. Merrill. The preacher's reply took him by surprise.
"No; I'd not say that for sartain," he said, after a moment's reflection. "If ye mean the power—God doan't stop our breath when we use it to deny and blaspheme Him. If He did, I'd ha' been dead in my boyhood, and ye'd not ha' it now. Happen the power would ha' come just th' same (though I ain't sure about it), like the breath; but it 'ud ha' made a difference. Ha' ye never seen a man using God's gifts for th' devil's service? I have. Ay, an' so have ye, an' ye know too, that he'd better be dead than do it! As for supernatural, I doan't ever understan' what people mean by that. If it means fro' above—why, everything is that; I can't see the thing as isn't—unless it's fro' below," said the preacher, still frowning. "Happen ye can explain it to me."
The doctor shook his head.
"No," he said, "you're right. There's nothing especially supernatural in your creed, Thorpe; because, as you say, it's all that; nor in mine, because it's none of it; so we'll leave the term to the great majority, who are neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. Anyhow, you've got a marvellous knack with your fingers, whether it comes from heaven or hell, and I suppose you'll swear it must be one or t'other! It's pretty to see how quickly you bandage. It's not every doctor who would let you try your hand like this," said the surgeon, who was rather proud of his liberality. "But I like to see uncommon talent, even in a quack. It's a pity it's mixed with superstition. Now look here; Hopping Jack's sight is gone, and no amount of praying can possibly bring it back to this eye, as I can prove to you in a moment."
The unfortunate Jack swore under his breath, when the surgeon turned his face to the light again.