“You’ll think better of it before morning,” said Sir Ulick, as he left Ormond.
The surgeon gave Ormond little comfort. After extracting the bullet, and examining the wound, he shook his head—he had but a bad opinion of the case; and when Ormond took him aside, and questioned him more closely, he confessed that he thought the man would not live—he should not be surprised if he died before morning. The surgeon was obliged to leave him to attend another patient; and Ormond, turning all the other people out of the room, declared he would sit up with Moriarty himself. A terrible night it was to him. To his alarmed and inexperienced eyes the danger seemed even greater than it really was, and several times he thought his patient expiring, when he was faint from loss of blood. The moments in which Ormond was occupied in assisting him were the least painful. It was when he had nothing left to do, when he had leisure to think, that he was most miserable; then the agony of suspense, and the horror of remorse, were felt, till feeling was exhausted; and he would sit motionless and stupified, till he was wakened again from this suspension of thought and feeling by some moan of the poor man, or some delirious startings. Toward morning the wounded man lay easier; and as Ormond was stooping over his bed to see whether he was asleep, Moriarty opened his eyes, and fixing them on Ormond, said, in broken sentences, but so as very distinctly to be understood, “Don’t be in such trouble about the likes of me—I’ll do very well, you’ll see—and even suppose I wouldn’t—not a friend I have shall ever prosecute—I’ll charge ‘em not—so be easy—for you’re a good heart—and the pistol went off unknownst to you—I’m sure there was no malice—let that be your comfort. It might happen to any man, let alone gentleman—don’t take on so. Only think of young Mr. Harry sitting up the night with me!—Oh! if you’d go now and settle yourself yonder on t’other bed, sir—I’d be a grate dale asier, and I don’t doubt but I’d get a taste of sleep myself—while now wid you standing over or forenent me, I can’t close an eye for thinking of you, Mr. Harry.”
Ormond immediately threw himself upon the other bed, that he might relieve Moriarty’s feelings. The good nature and generosity of this poor fellow increased Ormond’s keen sense of remorse. As to sleeping, for him it was impossible; whenever his ideas began to fall into that sort of confusion which precedes sleep, suddenly he felt as if his heart were struck or twinged, and he started with the recollection that some dreadful thing had happened, and wakened to the sense of guilt and all its horrors. Moriarty now lying perfectly quiet and motionless, and Ormond not hearing him breathe, he was struck with the dread that he had breathed his last. A cold tremor came over Ormond—he rose in his bed, listening in acute agony, when to his relief he at last distinctly heard Moriarty breathing strongly, and soon afterwards (no music was ever so delightful to Ormond’s ear) heard him begin to breathe loudly, as if asleep. The morning light dawned soon afterwards, and the crowing of a cock was heard, which Ormond feared might waken him; but the poor man slept soundly through all these usual noises: the heaving of the bed-clothes over his breast went on with uninterrupted regularity. The gardener and his wife softly opened the door of the room, to inquire how things were going on; Ormond pointed to the bed, and they nodded, and smiled, and beckoned to him to come out, whispering that a taste of the morning air would do him good. He suffered them to lead him out, for he was afraid of debating the point in the room with the sleeping patient. The good people of the house, who had known Harry Ormond from a child, and who were exceedingly fond of him, as all the poor people in the neighbourhood were, said every thing they could think of upon this occasion to comfort him, and reiterated about a hundred times their prophecies, that Moriarty would be as sound and good a man as ever in a fortnight’s time.
“Sure, when he’d take the soft sleep he couldn’t but do well.”
Then perceiving that Ormond listened to them only with faint attention, the wife whispered to her husband, “Come off to our work, Johnny—he’d like to be alone—he’s not equal to listen to our talk yet—it’s the surgeon must give him hope—and he’ll soon be here, I trust.”
They went to their work, and left Ormond standing in the porch. It was a fine morning—the birds were singing, and the smell of the honeysuckle with which the porch was covered, wafted by the fresh morning air, struck Ormond’s senses, but struck him with melancholy.
“Every thing in nature is cheerful except myself! Every thing in this world going on just the same as it was yesterday—but all changed for me!—within a few short hours—by my own folly, my own madness! Every animal,” thought he, as his attention was caught by the house dog, who was licking his hand, and as his eye fell upon the hen and chickens, who were feeding before the door, “every animal is happy—and innocent! But if this man die—I shall be a murderer.”
This thought, perpetually recurring, so oppressed him, that he stood motionless, till he was roused by the voice of Sir Ulick O’Shane.
“Well, Harry Ormond, how is it with you, my boy?—The fellow’s alive, I hope?”
“Alive—Thank Heaven!—yes; and asleep.”