A burst of applause greeted the grave, grey-headed surgeon; and as it ceased, he expressed, in a few well-selected words, the pleasure he had felt in listening to Dr Horace North, to whose theory he expressed himself ready to pin his faith.
“And I say this, gentlemen, for the reason that I am here to-night—to point out to you how great a stride can be made in surgery—how much we have yet to learn.”
Then, explaining in a calm, clear voice as he went on, he turned back his sleeves, and selected a long, keen blade from a velvet-lined case, signed to his assistants, and the subject upon which he was to operate lay there grim, cold, and ghastly.
No: not ghastly to the earnest men who saw in it the martyr immolated to the saving of thousands, as, with deft fingers and unerring skill, the great surgeon made his incisions; and exemplifying step by step each act and its reasons, he performed his wonderful experiment to the last stroke; and then, having finished, was about to draw back when there was a volley of stones upon door and window, and, amid the creaking of woodwork and the tinkling of falling glass, came the yelling of the virtuous mob—“Yah!”
And directly afterwards—“Body-snatchers! Yah!” For a moment there was a stillness, as if the audience in the lecture theatre had been paralysed; then there was a general stampede towards the door, and a burst of rage, excitement, and dread, as a voice loudly announced that the mob had scaled the wall and were in the yard—a tremendous volley of stones and brickbats endorsing the announcement.
For a few minutes only one present seemed to keep his head, and that was the old operator, who whispered a few orders to his assistants, and with rapid action the table, with its burden, was draped and wheeled beyond the curtained arch from which it had been drawn, the banging of a heavy door and the shooting of bolts following directly after.
The beating of heavy sticks upon the doors, the smashing in of the windows, glass and wire-work giving way at every volley, and the yelling of the mob, made a deafening uproar, during which the old surgeon calmly began returning his favourite operating knives to their purple velvet-lined cases, locking them up carefully, as he turned to Horace North, who stood beside him, and said, with a smile:
“Now what have we done to deserve such treatment as this?”
“Yah! Body-snatchers!” came with a burst of yells from without.
“Done, sir?” said the young doctor, flushing. “Toiled hard to discover means of alleviating pain and saving life. This is our reward.”