“Can’t see outside. Sheared? Tchah! It wouldn’t frighten a child.”
The doctor approached him, but the old man took no notice, and went on muttering:
“He! he! he! I could tell you something. I will some day. Frighten a child. Old man? Tchah! Mean to live—long—Ah!”
The last ejaculation was drawn out into a long sigh, followed by a heavy, regular breathing.
North placed his fingers in the sexton’s neckcloth to make sure that there was no danger of strangulation, and then turned away.
“Good for four or five hours, Master Moredock,” he said; and then, with his face lighting up strangely—“in the service of science—ambition—yes, and for the sake of love. Shall I succeed?”
He paused for a few minutes, bending over the body on the table.
“It seems very horrible, but it is only the dread of a man about to venture into the unknown. The first doctor who performed a serious operation must have felt as I do now, and—What’s that?”
He started upright, throwing his head back, and shaking it quickly, as if he had suffered from a sudden vertigo.
“Pooh! nothing; a little excitement. Now for my great discovery, for I must—I will succeed.”