or another, or perhaps has promised something to himself. This is the land of promise, my smart fellow, but you know it is India that must be the land of performance. So, good morning to you. The Doctor will come his rounds presently and put you all to rights.”
“Stay but one moment—one moment only—I have been robbed.”
“Robbed! look you there now,” said the Governor—”everybody that comes here has been robbed.—Egad, I am the luckiest fellow in Europe—other people in my line have only thieves and blackguards upon their hands; but none come to my ken but honest, decent, unfortunate gentlemen, that have been robbed!”
“Take care how you treat this so lightly, sir,” said Middlemas; “I have been robbed of a thousand pounds.”
Here Governor Seelencooper’s gravity was totally overcome, and his laugh was echoed by several of the patients, either because they wished to curry favour with the superintendent, or from the feeling which influences evil spirits to rejoice in the tortures of those who are sent to share their agony.
“A thousand pounds!” exclaimed Captain Seelencooper, as he recovered his breath,—”Come, that’s a good one—I like a fellow that does not make two bites of a cherry—why, there is not a cull in the ken that pretends to have lost more than a few hoggs, and here is a servant to the Honourable Company that has been robbed of a thousand pounds! Well done, Mr. Tom of Ten Thousand-you’re a credit to the house, and to the service, and so good morning to you.”
He passed on, and Richard, starting up in a storm of anger and despair, found, as he would have called after him, that his voice, betwixt thirst and agitation, refused its office. “Water, water!” he said, laying hold, at the same time, of one of the assistants who followed Seelencooper by the sleeve. The fellow looked carelessly round; there was a jug stood by the side of the cribbage players, which he reached to Middlemas, bidding him, “Drink and be d–-d.”
The man’s back was no sooner turned, than the gamester threw himself from his own bed into that of Middlemas, and grasping firm hold of the arm of Richard, ere he could carry the vessel to his head, swore he should not have his booze. It may be readily conjectured, that the pitcher thus anxiously and desperately reclaimed, contained something better than the pure element. In fact, a large proportion of it was gin. The jug was broken in the struggle, and the liquor spilt. Middlemas dealt a blow to the assailant, which was amply and heartily repaid, and a combat would have ensued, but for the interference of the superintendent and his assistants, who, with a dexterity that showed them well acquainted with such emergencies, clapped a straight-waistcoat upon each of the antagonists. Richard’s efforts at remonstrance only procured him a blow from Captain Seelencooper’s rattan, and a tender admonition to hold his tongue, if he valued a whole skin.
Irritated at once by sufferings of the mind and of the body, tormented by raging thirst, and by the sense of his own dreadful situation, the mind of Richard Middlemas seemed to be on the point of becoming unsettled. He felt an insane desire to imitate and reply to the groans, oaths, and ribaldry, which, as soon as the superintendent quitted the hospital, echoed around him. He longed, though he struggled against the impulse, to vie in curses with the reprobate, and in screams with the maniac. But his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, his mouth itself seemed choked with ashes; there came upon him a dimness of sight, a rushing sound in his ears, and the powers of life were for a time suspended.
Chapter VII
A wise physician, skill’d our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the common weal.
POPE’S Homer.
As Middlemas returned to his senses, he was sensible that his blood felt more cool; that the feverish throb of his pulsation was diminished; that the ligatures on his person were removed, and his lungs performed their functions more freely. One assistant was binding up a vein, from which a considerable quantity of blood had been taken; another, who had just washed the face of the patient, was holding aromatic vinegar to his nostrils. As he began to open his eyes, the person who had just completed the bandage, said in Latin, but in a very low tone, and without raising his head, “Annon sis Ricardus ille Middlemas, ex civitate Middlemassiense? Responde in lingua Latina.”
“Sum ille miserrimus,” replied Richard, again shutting his eyes; for, strange as it may seem, the voice of his comrade Adam Hartley, though his presence might be of so much consequence in this emergency, conveyed a pang to his wounded pride. He was conscious of unkindly, if not hostile, feelings towards his old companion; he remembered the tone of superiority which he used to assume over him, and thus to lie stretched at his feet, and in a manner at his mercy, aggravated his distress, by the feelings of the dying chieftain, “Earl Percy sees my fall.” This was, however, too unreasonable an emotion to subsist above a minute. In the next, he availed himself of the Latin language, with which both were familiar, (for in that time the medical studies at the celebrated University of Edinburgh were, in a great measure, conducted in Latin,) to tell in a few words his own folly, and the villany of Hillary.
“I must be gone instantly,” said Hartley—”Take courage—I trust to be able to assist you. In the meantime, take food and physic from none but my servant, who you see holds the sponge in his hand. You are in a place where a man’s life has been taken for the sake of his gold sleeve-buttons.”
“Stay yet a moment,” said Middlemas—”Let me remove this temptation from my dangerous neighbours.”
He drew a small packet from his under waistcoat, and put it into Hartley’s hands.
“If I die,” he said, “be my heir. You deserve her better than I.”
All answer was prevented by the hoarse voice of Seelencooper.
“Well, Doctor, will you carry through your patient?”
“Symptoms are dubious yet,” said the Doctor—”That was an alarming swoon. You must have him carried into the private ward, and my young man shall attend him.
“Why, if you command it, Doctor, needs must;—but I can tell you there is a man we both know, that has a thousand reasons at least for keeping him in the public ward.”
“I know nothing of your thousand reasons,” said Hartley; “I can only tell you that this young fellow is as well-limbed and likely a lad as the Company have among their recruits. It is my business to save him for their service, and if he dies by your neglecting what I direct, depend upon it I will not allow the blame to lie at my door. I will tell the General the charge I have given you.”
“The General!” said Seelencooper, much embarrassed—”Tell the General?—ay, about his health. But you will not say any thing about what he may have said in his lightheaded fits? My eyes! if you listen to what feverish patients say when the tantivy is in their brain, your back will soon break with tale-bearing, for I will warrant you plenty of them to carry.”
“Captain Seelencooper,” said the Doctor, “I do not meddle with your department in the hospital; my advice to you is, not to trouble yourself with mine. I suppose, as I have a commission in the service, and have besides a regular diploma as a physician, I know when my patient is lightheaded or otherwise. So do you let the man be carefully looked after, at your peril.”
Thus saying, he left the hospital, but not till, under pretext of again consulting the pulse, he pressed the patient’s hand, as if to assure
