CHAPTER IV. “STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE”
On the evening of the day of the trial, Mrs. Tynan, having fixed the new blind to the window of Shiel Crozier’s room, which was on the ground-floor front, was lowering and raising it to see if it worked properly, when out in the moonlit street she saw a wagon approaching her house surrounded and followed by obviously excited men. Once before she had seen just such a group nearing her door. That was when her husband was brought home to die in her arms. She had a sudden conviction, as, holding the blind in her hand, she looked out into the night, that again tragedy was to cross her threshold. Standing for an instant under the fascination of terror, she recovered herself with a shiver, and, stepping down from the chair where she had been fixing the blind, with the instinct of real woman, she ran to the bed of the room where she was, and made it ready. Why did she feel that it was Shiel Crozier’s bed which should be made ready? Or did she not feel it? Was it only a dazed, automatic act, not connected with the person who was to lie in the bed? Was she then a fatalist? Were trouble and sorrow so much her portion that to her mind this tragedy, whatever it was, must touch the man nearest to her—and certainly Shiel Crozier was far nearer than Jesse Bulrush. Quite apart from wealth or position, personality plays a part more powerful than all else in the eyes of every woman who has a soul which has substance enough to exist at all. Such men as Crozier have compensations for “whate’er they lack.” It never occurred to Mrs. Tynan to go to Jesse Bulrush’s room or the room of middle-aged, comely Nurse Egan. She did the instinctive thing, as did the woman who sent a man a rope as a gift, on the ground that the fortune in his hand said that he was born not to be drowned.
Mrs. Tynan’s instinct was right. By the time she had put the bed into shape, got a bowl of water ready, lighted a lamp, and drawn the bed out from the wall, there was a knocking at the door. In a moment she had opened it, and was faced by John Sibley, whose hat was off as though he were in the presence of death. This gave her a shock, and her eyes strove painfully to see the figure which was being borne feet foremost over her threshold.
“It’s Mr. Crozier?” she asked.
“He was shot coming home here—by the M’Mahon mob, I guess,” returned Sibley huskily.
“Is—is he dead?” she asked tremblingly. “No. Hurt bad.”
“The kindest man—it’d break Kitty’s heart—and mine,” she added hastily, for she might be misunderstood; and John Sibley had shown signs of interest in her daughter.
“Where’s the Young Doctor?” she asked, catching sight of Crozier’s face as they laid him on the bed. “He’s done the first aid, and he’s off getting what’s needed for the operation. He’ll be here in a minute or so,” said a banker who, a few days before, had refused Crozier credit.
“Gently, gently—don’t do it that way,” said Mrs. Tynan in sharp reproof as they began to take off Crozier’s clothes.