"No, thank God! but—but—he has lost his right arm."
"Lost his right arm! He had better ha' lost his life than return a cripple from the wars. Don't you see, girl, that this will put a stop to his promotion, an' make an idle pensioner of him—when, in these stirring times, he might ha' risen to be a general officer. Dear—dear—dear! This is a terrible calamity. My boy—my brave boy!"
"Don't tell mother a word about it, father, it would kill her in her weak state," urged Dorothy.
"It won't vex her, Dorothy, as it does me. She has no ambition for her son. She would sooner ha' him sitting beside her with his one arm, so she had him safe at home, than know that he was commander o' the British army abroad. It will be as well to say nought about it, Dorothy, if you can keep it from her. My dear old woman—the loss o' her will be bad enough, wi'out this fresh trouble. Lost his right arm! Oh, my poor Gilly!"
Badly as Gilbert had behaved to her, Dorothy could better have borne the loss of her own arm. She still loved him well enough to feel truly grieved for his misfortune.
To a man of Gilbert's active habits, the want of that arm would be a dreadful calamity. She could not bear to think of the empty sleeve, hanging so uselessly beside his tall athletic figure. In all rural sports be had always been foremost, and never failed to carry off the prize. What would they do without him on the cricket ground—their best bat? What at the ploughing matches, where he had always turned the straightest furrow? In the hay and harvest fields, where he had no equal? Even in the boat races he had always pulled the best oar. And when his discarded love thought of these things, she retired to the solitude of her own chamber, and wept bitterly.
She thought that Lawrence Rushmere ought to have felt more grateful to God for sparing the life of his son. But the old man had been in the habit of speculating so much upon his rising to hold a high position in the army, that he could scarcely as yet realize the destruction of all his ambitious hopes.
This, together with the growing weakness of his wife, who, to do the old man justice, he loved better than anything in the world, tended much to sour his temper, and render it no easy matter to live at peace with him.
Directly Gerard Fitzmorris heard, through Mrs. Martin, of the troubles in the Rushmere family, he hastened to offer them the consolations of religion, and the sympathy of a true and benevolent heart. His pastoral visits were duly appreciated by the poor invalid and Dorothy, to whom they afforded the greatest comfort.
Mrs. Rushmere was a woman after the vicar's own heart. Her gentle resignation and genuine piety filled him with respect and admiration. He treated her as an affectionate son would do a beloved mother; soothing her in moments of intense suffering with his kind ministrations, and strengthening her mind with the blessed promises of the Gospel, to bear with submission the great burthen that had been laid upon her.