"Mr. Cray said, sir, I oughtn't to feel no pain from a hurt like this, he did. It sounded hard like, for the pain is awful."
"Mr. Cray knows you would be better if you tried not to feel the pain--not to feel it so acutely. He is a doctor, you know, Bigg, and sees worse hurts than yours every day of his life."
"I'd like to ask you, sir, when I shall be well--if you can tell me. I have got a wife and children, sir; and she's sick just now, and can't work for 'em."
"We'll get you up again in three weeks," said Dr. Davenal cheerily, as he hastened away to another sufferer, groaning at a distance.
The term seemed long to the man: almost to startle him: he was thinking of his helpless wife and children.
"Three weeks!" he repeated with a moan. "Three weeks, and nobody to help 'em, and me laid down incapable!"
"Think how much worse it might be, Bigg!" said Mr. Oswald Cray, wishing to get the man to look at his misfortune in a more cheerful spirit. "Suppose Dr. Davenal had said three months?"
"Then, as good he'd said, sir, as I should never be up again."
"Do you think so? I don't. It is a long while to be confined by illness, three months, and to you it seems, no doubt, very long indeed; but it is not so much out of a man's life. I knew one who was ill for three years, and got up again. That would be worse, Bigg."
"Ay, sir, it would be. I haven't got just my right thoughts tonight, what with the pain that's racking me, and what with trouble about my wife and little 'uns."