“Oh, Ned, Ned!” exclaimed Maggie, unable to repress her grief, “can you—can you ever forgive me?”
She laid her hand on the fireman’s broad breast, and passionately kissed his brow.
He opened his eyes, and whispered with difficulty, “Forgive you, Maggie? God for ever bless you.” He could say no more, owing to excessive weakness.
“Come, missus, you mustn’t disturb him,” said David Clazie, emerging from behind the curtains at the foot of the bed. “The doctor’s orders was strict—to keep ’im quiet. You’d better go into the other room, an’ your brother likewise. Pr’aps you might send ’im to tell Joe Dashwood to be ready.”
David Clazie, who was more a man of action than of words, quietly, but firmly, ejected the brother and sister from the little room while he was speaking, and, having shut the door, sat down at his post again as a guard over his sick comrade.
“Seems to me it’s all up with ’im,” observed Sparks, as he stood gazing uneasily into the fire.
As Mrs Crashington replied only by sobbing, he continued, after a few minutes—
“Does the doctor say it’s all up, Mag?”
“No, oh no,” replied the poor woman, “he don’t quite say so; but I can’t git no comfort from that. Ned has lost such a quantity of blood, it seems impossible for him to git round. They’re goin’ to try a operation on ’im to-day, but I can’t understand it, an’ don’t believe in it. They talk of puttin’ noo blood into ’im! An’ that reminds me that the doctor is to be here at twelve. Do run round, Phil, to the Dashwoods, and tell Joe to be here in good time.”
“What’s Joe wanted for?”