"Peter, it's a bad job; we oughtn't ever to have sent for you; the doctor says he is pretty certain now that it's scarlet fever, which hasn't come out properly. Whatever shall we do?"
And my poor mother burst into tears.
[CHAPTER XI.]
A TERRIBLE TIME.
OF course my going back to Grassbourne, to carry the infection with me, was out of the question. I wrote to my mistress, and told her the state of the case, and then I was able to relieve my poor mother very much, by taking entire charge of Salome.
She was very ill, and as the days went by she grew worse. The doctor was proved right in his opinion of the complaint, for the very day after I arrived Bartholomew and Jude were both taken ill with the fever, and two days after that Thomas fell ill, and about a week after, Matthew and Simon were also smitten.
It was a terrible time. As I look back upon it now, I wonder how we ever bore up as we did. We had six of them ill at once, so ill that the doctor shook his head each time he saw them, and said he was afraid they would none of them pull through. My poor mother was up night and day, going from one bed to another with a white and anxious face.
My father said little, as was his nature under all circumstances, but he felt it deeply. He would wander about the house sighing loudly, and would stand beside the doors of the two sick-rooms for hours together, that he might be at hand to fetch or to carry anything, or to help us in any way he could. He felt it all the more, I think, from his having so little to do. He was a very honorable man, and he made no secret of our having the fever in the house. As soon as the doctor had told him that it was a case of malignant scarlet fever, he had let all his customers know, for he thought that concealment in such a case was both cruel and wicked.