Dariel: A Romance of Surrey

by R. D. Blackmore

CHAPTER LVII BUT NOT IN VAIN

In recounting my little adventures—as I am begged sometimes to do—upon coming to this particular part my general practice is to stop, as if I had no more to say. Whereas it is only that I want to know in which of the persons concerned my friends appear to take most interest. And to my pride, more perhaps than to my credit, their first question always is, not "What became of you, George?" but "What became of Dariel?" And that is more than I could tell for many a long day afterwards.

When the door of her cell was beaten in, she came forth as in a dream or trance, without any wonder, or fear, or question, possessed by one purpose alone,—to share the fate of her dear father. In the gloom of the tunnelled rock she glanced at the tall form of her brother, but the light even there was enough to show that this was not the one she wanted. And he, having reason from very early days to give a wide berth to the feminine form, drew aside gladly for a strange young lady to go her way without compressing him.

For this young fellow, Prince Origen, the son of Imar and Oria, the child who escaped by his fall into the drift (when Marva's genuine Hafer perished), being substituted for him, and brought up with plenty of chastisement, and strict privations, and a candid absence of affection, had never been encouraged to think, or act, or even to feel for his poor young self.

What then could be expected of him, when in a moment at one blow the whole of his world was cut from beneath him, his own identity plucked away, and not even a quiet corner left for considering who he was, or how he came to be? In such a case is it surprising that his head went round so rapidly that he might fairly be said to have lost it? Instead of attending to his new-found father, he had simply stood staring at the prostrate form, till moans of despair from that inner cell were brought to his ear by the chilly draughts of rock. Thereupon he rushed in, and while I kept the entrance, he used his great strength to such purpose that his unknown sister glided past him and hurried to their unconscious father. And truly it was a great mercy for me, as well as a glory to this grand young fellow, that, instead of waiting longer where he was not wanted, he ran out at once to obtain fresh air, and get some light shed upon so many marvels. Rapid action and muscular exertion, for which he found ample cause at once, probably saved him from congestion of the brain, and certainly saved me from perforation of the heart.

For why should I make light of my defeats, any more than extol my victories, which latter it would be hard to do by reason of their nonentity? Those Ossets had performed an exploit declared to be impracticable by all the bravest sons of Wykeham during my generation. That is to say, they had cracked my skull, which was not a piece of biscuit china, but of solid and heavy metal, sounder I trow than its contents. And those who have studied the subject tell me that the thicker the pot is, which nature has provided for our poor brains to boil in, the more ticklish the job is to make good the splinters. What tinker can patch an enamelled saucepan? And a queer saucepan must our brainpan be, if, after all the smut shed round it and the slow smoke under it, any steam of self-conceit still has a puff to lift the cover. Let any man who thinks himself a wonder get a bit of his skull (too small perhaps for a chick to pick up for the good of his gizzard) crumbled in upon the brain he is so proud of; and if he has the luck to meet with a friend who can get it out again, when he comes to know his own name once more, will he count it worth remembering?

But as for myself—because perhaps I had never thought wonders of it—trouble beyond belief was needful ever to make it sound again. When I came to know the facts—as I did at last—it may appear a singular result, but as true as I sat up in bed, the salt tears ran into my soup so fast that they had to give me another basin. Not through any weakness, as an ill-natured man might fancy, but just because I was so happy to come home to a world where loving folk were living, and people better than myself, who wished to keep me with them.

Perhaps I ought not to talk about it, and yet it seems shabby and ungrateful not to say how much they had done for me. Here was my sister Grace, together with her husband Jackson Stoneman, rushing from the honeycomb of their blue moon among the soft Italian lakes into the "horrid Caucasus;" and bringing with them by telegraph to Surrey that wonderfully clever Dr. Hopmann, to whose skill I owe it that my reason was restored as good as ever it was before, and perhaps even better, for when it came back it had slept in the dew of humility.

But the doctor's humility was not increased, neither deserved it so to be. Because the most eminent physician at Tiflis, a Frenchman of vast renown, being called in at once by my host Sûr Imar, had pronounced all surgical operation futile, and declared that the owner of that battered brain might linger on for weeks, until inflammation kindled, but could never be better than an imbecile, even if he failed to satisfy science by ending as a raving madman.