This was too indefinite for James. “But please, mamma, may I go?” pleaded the boy with difficulty, for Bell was pulling him strongly outwards.
CAUGHT TRIPPING.
“Yes,” came from Mr. Barrie, fettered by some conditions about not going on the “Loch” without getting mamma’s permission, which James did not hear. Bell’s strength had mastered his, and the door was closed. They went up-stairs, Bell enlarging on broken legs and drowning, James on trying to learn on the “pattens;” and Bell had to threaten to go down to me, and tell me not to give him them, and had actually feigned a determined start on that errand, when James said, “Oh, don’t, Bell; I’ll be a good boy, and sleep,” which he did.
James being thus pleasantly disposed of, Mrs. Barrie began her record of experiences, which proved so interesting, that before she had gone on long, I so far forgot myself as to say, “Oh! how I wish Agnes had been here!” Mrs. Barrie caught me at once, and said with a merry smile, “Can you not do with us for an hour? or rather, why did you not bring her with you?”—then went on in a homely way with her useful hints and good advice, illustrating these by incidents that had occurred in her household.
A “for instance,” or “I remember on one occasion,” was followed by an account of a sudden call on her larder,—or a valuable dress torn, or soiled, or spoiled,—or a breakage,—or an unexpectedly heavy tradesman’s account,—or something that was much needed and apparently beyond her power and purse, yet eventually procured by her ingenuity and patience,—or her little plans to make Mr. Barrie’s coat into a suit for James and possibly a vest for Lewie. And as her family increased, her scheming, and shaping, and sewing, and turning of garments to keep them “cosy,” were prettily told, and, if I may use such a term, romantic in their very simplicity. I cannot forget the pathos with which she told of a serious and alarming illness caught by Mr. Barrie the week after Nellie’s death, at a funeral in a distant part of the parish, but doubtless aggravated by the disturbed state of his mind and the disorganized state of his frame. For, good man as he was, and perfectly resigned to God’s will, he felt keenly the blank in the home,—for “a little chair was empty there;” and although I could not say he murmured, I know that he greatly missed “the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still” (Tennyson).
MR. BARRIE’S ILLNESS.
“He was very ill,” said she; “alarmingly ill,—so ill that I suggested to Dr. Stevenson, or rather it struck the doctor and myself at the same moment, that it would be desirable to call in an Edinburgh consulting physician. I confess that the fee was a serious consideration, as I knew that it would prevent my getting the new wincey dresses for myself and the girls that I was saving up for; although this only floated through my mind in its excited state, and required no effort to cast off. The professor came, and went into the case minutely. Never can I forget the kindly way in which he said that our family doctor had treated the case exactly as he himself would have done,—that Mr. Barrie was a splendid patient, self-possessed, scrupulously obedient to the doctor’s orders, a model of passive subjection to the minutiæ of medical requirements; and that his good constitution, which had been conserved by his regular and correct life, rendered the case a hopeful one, still one requiring every attention and care. He said something about myself in that matter that I will not repeat. All I said was, I had a servant worth her weight in gold,—Bell.”
“That’s beyond doubt,” said Mr. Barrie and I simultaneously. Mrs. Barrie went on:
“He also said that he had successfully treated similar cases on a method of his own, and that the surroundings of Mr. Barrie’s case were such as to make him most anxious to have it treated with scrupulous attention to the most minute details of this new system,—that he would write these out carefully, and be in correspondence with Dr. Stevenson, and come out again if necessary. I asked his fee; he said not to mind at present, and when I pressed him he said he would write me. He was very particular in writing specific directions; and Dr. Stevenson more fully explained these, so that we were able to carry them out to the letter. Three days after his visit the carrier brought a small hamper of medicines and cordials from the professor, with full instructions as to their use, and a letter to myself”—here she sobbed. Tears had frequently trembled in her eyes as she told the story of the illness, but they trickled down as she spoke of the letter.
“THE GOOD SAMARITAN.”