“You should have tied a ligature tightly as possible round the arm above the wound, first thing,” said the surgeon, addressing those around him—“a bit of tape, a strip of linen, a garter—anything narrow, to stop the hæmorrhage. Had this been done, there would have been less effusion of blood, and our patient would not have been so utterly prostrated.”
“Just so, just so,” assented Mr. Ashton, adding, “but Mr. Mabbott had——”
“Done his best—no doubt,” interrupted the surgeon, “or our young friend might have bled to death. But the tight, narrow ligature would have been better; and many a valuable life may have been saved or lost this day through that bit of knowledge or—the want of it.”
Mr. Ashton’s “Just so, just so; I daresay you are right,” was followed up by “Shall we be able to remove him to-night, Mr. Huertley? He is my apprentice, and has been injured whilst bravely protecting your opposite neighbour, Mr. Chadwick, my brother-in-law. I should like to get him home, to be under Mrs. Ashton’s care, as well as to relieve Mr. Mabbott, to whom, I am sure, we all feel greatly indebted.”
“Don’t name it, I beg; at fearful times like this,” said Mr. Mabbott, with a shudder, “it does not do to think of trouble or of ceremony. But I do not imagine the doctor would counsel the young man’s removal to-night, even if the road were clear and safe.”
“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Huertley, as he packed up his lint and instruments. “And in my opinion, if you remove him to-morrow you must do it carefully on every account, and will have to smuggle him away in a hackney-coach, lest he should be pounced upon as a wounded rebel.”
Two days, however, elapsed before Mr. Mabbott’s sofa lost its occupant, and even then the strong arm of Tom Hulme and the loving care of Bess were needed to help Jabez, feeble and wan, to the hackney-carriage brought up to the back door, which bore him slowly away, avoiding the main streets, until they passed under the arched gateway in Back Mosley Street whence he had last emerged at a headlong pace to prevent Miss Augusta getting into danger.
Some remembrance of this flashed through the brain of Jabez as the coach stopped in the court-yard, and on the house door-steps he beheld Mrs. Ashton, Augusta, and Ellen Chadwick, all three waiting to receive him as if he had been a wounded relative returning from far-off victories to his own hearth. Nay, the very servants hovered in the back-ground, even cross Kezia pressing to have a first look at him.
Mrs. Ashton herself, with the graceful dignity which sat so well upon her, went down the steps to lead him up and into the house, and as she touched his left hand and unwounded arm, she said impressively,
“Jabez Clegg, I understand we owe our brother’s life to your self-abnegation, if not that of our daughter also. I regret that your noble intervention should have cost you so dear; but I thank you most truly, and shall not forget it.”