Three mortal hours passed, she was burnt with a fever which only her own tears could quench; and those wide-open, dry eyes were fearful to see. A knock came to the door, "How is she now?" said Sir Thomas's voice, "The doctor is here: you look as if you wanted him yourself. I'll bring him up."
The medical man entered. Such a case had not occurred in his small country practice before, but he was a sensible and a kind man, and no practice could have helped him here if he had not been. He heard the whole sad history, felt the throbbing pulse, saw the flush on the face, and wide-open eyes, which now seemed scarcely to notice any thing. He took Miss Campbell into another room, and said that the patient must be instantly roused, and then bled if necessary.
"But the first you can undertake better than I, madam." He looked round. "Is there no little object which would recall?—nothing you could bring before her sight? You understand me?"
Indeed, Miss Campbell did. She had not sat by that bed-side for the last three hours without feeling and fearing that this was necessary; but, at the same time, she would rather have cut off her own hand than undertaken it. She hesitated—but for a moment, and then whispered something to Sir Thomas.
"God bless my heart!" said he: "who would have thought of it? Yes. I know it made me cry like a child."
And then he repeated her proposition to the medical man, who gave immediate assent, and she left the room. In a few minutes she entered that of Mrs. H—— with the little boy's cap in her hand, placed it in a conspicuous position before the bed, and then seated herself with a quick, nervous motion by the bed-side. It was a horrid pause, like that which precedes a cruel operation, where you have taken upon yourself the second degree of suffering—that of witnessing it. The cap lay there on the small stone mantle-piece, with its long, drabbled, weeping tassel, like a funeral emblem. It was not many minutes before it caught those eyes for which it was intended. A suppressed exclamation broke from her; she flew from the bed, looked at Miss Campbell one instant in intense inquiry, and the next had the cap in her hands. The touch of that wet object seemed to dissolve the spell; her whole frame trembled with sudden relaxation. She sank, half-kneeling, on the floor, and tears spouted from her eyes. No blessed rain from heaven to famished earth was ever more welcome. Tears, did we say? Torrents! Those eyes, late so hot and dry, were as two arteries of the soul suddenly opened. What a misery that had been which had sealed them up! They streamed over her face, blinding her riveted gaze, falling on her hands, on the cap, on the floor. Meanwhile the much-to-be-pitied sharer of her sorrow knelt by her side, her whole frame scarcely less unnerved than that she sought to support, uttering broken ejaculations and prayers, and joining her tears to those which flowed so passionately. But she had a gentle and meek spirit to deal with. Mrs. H—— crossed her hands over the cap and bowed her head. Thus she continued a minute, and then turning, still on her knees, she laid her head on her companion's shoulder.
"Help me up," she said, "for I am without strength." And all weak, trembling, and sobbing, she allowed herself to be undressed and put to bed.
Miss Campbell lay down in the same room. She listened till the quivering, catching sobs had given place to deep-drawn sighs, and these again to disturbed breathings, and then both slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, and Miss Campbell, fortunately, knew not when the mourner awoke from it.
Oh, the dreary first-fruits of excessive sorrow! The first days of a stricken heart, passed through, writhed through, ground through, we scarcely know or remember how, before the knowledge of the bereavement has become habitual—while it is still struggle and not endurance—the same ceaseless recoil from the same ever-recurring shock. It was a blessing that she was ill, very ill; the body shared something of the weight at first.
Let no one, untried by such extremity, here lift the word or look of deprecation. Let there not be a thought of what she ought to have done, or what they would have done. God's love is great, and a Christian's faith is strong, but when have the first encounters between old joys and new sorrows been otherwise than fierce? From time to time a few intervals of heavenly composure, wonderful and gracious to the sufferer, may be permitted, and even the dim light of future peace discerned in the distance; but, in a moment, the gauntlet of defiance is thrown again—no matter what—an old look, an old word, which comes rushing unbidden over the soul, and dreadful feelings rise again only to spend themselves by their own violence. It always seems to us as if sorrow had a nature of its own, independent of that whereon it has fallen, and sometimes strangely at variance with it—scorching the gentle, melting the passionate, dignifying the weak, and prostrating the strong—and showing the real nature, habits, or principles of the mind, only in those defenses it raises up during the intervals of relief. With Mrs. H—— these defenses were reared on the only sure base, and though the storm would sweep down her bulwarks, and cover all over with the furious tide of grief, yet the foundation was left to cling to, and every renewal added somewhat to its strength.