Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time. Fern Fanny

me of it as soon as you can, for the sake of my little wife, who, though she can endure pain herself like a martyr, is an arrant little coward whenever it attacks me. Don’t look so sober, Ruth, I shall be better to-morrow. I can not afford time to be sick long, for I have a world of business on hand. I had an important appointment this very day, which it is a thousand pities to postpone; but never mind, I shall certainly be better to-morrow.”

      But Harry was not “better to-morrow;” nor the next day; nor the next; the doctor pronouncing his case to be one of decided typhus fever.

      Very reluctantly the active man postponed his half-formed plans, and business speculations, and allowed himself to be placed on the sick list. With a sigh of impatience, he saw his hat, and coat, and boots, put out of sight; and watched the different phials, as they came in from the apothecary; and counted the stroke of the clock, as it told the tedious hours; and marvelled at the patience with which (he now recollected) Ruth bore a long bed-ridden eight-weeks’ martyrdom, without a groan or complaint. But soon, other thoughts and images mixed confusedly in his brain, like the shifting colors of a kaleidoscope. He was floating – drifting – sinking – soaring, by turns; – the hot blood coursed through his veins like molten lava; his eye glared deliriously, and the hand, never raised but in blessing, fell, with fevered strength, upon the unresisting form of the loving wife.

      “You must have a nurse,” said the doctor to Ruth; “it is dangerous for you to watch with your husband alone. He might injure you seriously, in one of these paroxysms.”

      “But Harry has an unconquerable dislike to a hired nurse,” said Ruth; “his reason may return at any moment, and the sight of one will trouble him. I am not afraid,” replied Ruth, between a tear and a smile.

      “But you will wear yourself out; you must remember that you owe a duty to your children.”

      “My husband has the first claim,” said Ruth, resuming her place by the bed-side; and during the long hours of day and night, regardless of the lapse of time – regardless of hunger, thirst or weariness, she glided noiselessly about the room, arranged the pillows, mixed the healing draught, or watched with a silent prayer at the sufferer’s bed-side; while Harry lay tossing from side to side, his white teeth glittering through his unshorn beard, raving constantly of her prolonged absence, and imploring her in heart-rending tones to come to his side, and “bring Daisy from the Glen.”

      Many a friendly voice whispered at the door, “How is he?” The Irish waiters crossed themselves and stept softly through the hall, as they went on their hasty errands; and many a consultation was held among warm-hearted gentlemen friends, (who had made Harry’s acquaintance at the hotel, during the pleasant summer,) to decide which should first prove their friendship by watching with him.

      Ruth declined all these offers to fill her place. “I will never leave him,” she said; “his reason may return, and his eye seek vainly for me. No – no; I thank you all. Watch with me, if you will, but do not ask me to leave him.”

      In the still midnight, when the lids of the kind but weary watchers drooped heavily with slumber, rang mournfully in Ruth’s ear the sad-plaint of Gethsemane’s Lord, “Could ye not watch with me one hour?” and pressing her lips to the hot and fevered hand before her, she murmured, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

      CHAPTER XXVII

      “Have you got the carpet-bag, doctor? and the little brown bundle? and the russet-trunk? and the umberil? and the demi-john, and the red band-box, with my best cap in it? one – two – three – four; yes – that’s all right. Now, mind those thievish porters. Goodness, how they charge here for carriage hire! I never knew, before, how much money it took to journey. Oh dear! I wonder if Harry is worse? There now, doctor, you’ve put your foot right straight through that band-box. Now, where, for the land’s sake, are my spectacles? ’Tisn’t possible you’ve left them behind? I put them in the case, as you stood there in the chayna closet, drinking your brandy and water, and asked you to put them in your side-pocket, because my bag was full of orange-peels, scissors, camphor, peppermint-drops, and seed-cakes. I wouldn’t have left ’em for any money. Such a sight of trouble as it was to get them focussed right to my eyes. How could you, doctor, be so blundering? I declare it is enough to provoke a saint.”

      “If that’s the case, there’s no immediate call for you to get vexed,” said the doctor, tartly.

      “Is that the house?” asked the old lady, her curiosity getting the better of her indignation; “what a big hotel! I wonder if Harry is worse? Mercy me, I’m all of a quiver. I wonder if they will take us right into the drawing-room? I wonder if there’s many ladies in it – my bonnet is awfully jammed: beside, I’m so powdered with dust, that I look as if I had had an ash barrel sifted over me. Doctor! doctor! don’t go on so far ahead. It looks awk’ard, as if I had no protector.”

      “How’s Harry?” said the doctor, to a white-jacketted waiter, who stood gossipping on the piazza steps with a comrade.

      “Funny old chap!” said the waiter, without noticing the doctor’s query; “I say, Bill, look how his hair is cut!”

      “’Taint hair,” said Tom, “it is a wig.”

      “Bless my eyes! so it is; and a red one, too! Bad symptoms; red wigs are the cheapest; no extra fees to be got out of that customer, for blacking boots and bringing hot beafsteaks. Besides, just look at his baggage; you can always judge of a traveler, Bill, by his trunks; it never fails. Now, I like to see a trunk thickly studded with brass nails, and covered with a linen overall; then I know, if it is a lady’s, that there’s diamond rings inside, and plenty of cash; if ’tis a gentleman’s, that he knows how to order sherry-cobblers in the forenoon, and a bottle of old wine or two with his dinner; and how to fee the poor fellow who brings it, too, who lives on a small salary, with large expectations.”

      “How’s Harry?” thundered the doctor again, (after waiting what he considered a reasonable time for an answer,) “or if you are too lazy to tell, you whiskered jackanapes, go call your employer.”

      The word “employer” recalled the rambling waiter to his senses, and great was his consternation on finding that “the old chap with the red wig” was the father of young Mr. Hall, who was beloved by everything in the establishment, down to old Neptune the house-dog.

      “I told you so,” said the doctor, turning to his wife; “Harry’s no better – consultation this morning – very little hope of him; – so much for my not being here to prescribe for him. Ruth shouldered a great responsibility when she brought him away out of reach of my practice. You go into that room, there, Mis. Hall, No. 20, with your traps and things, and take off your bonnet and keep quiet, while I go up and see him.”

      CHAPTER XXVIII

      “Humph!” said the doctor, “humph!” as Ruth drew aside the curtain, and the light fell full upon Harry’s face. “Humph! it is all up with him; he’s in the last stage of the complaint; won’t live two days;” and stepping to the table, the doctor uncorked the different phials, applied them to the end of his nose, examined the labels, and then returned to the bed-side, where Ruth stood bending over Harry, so pallid, so tearless, that one involuntarily prayed that death, when he aimed his dart, might strike down both together.

      “Humph!” said the doctor again! “when did he have his reason last?”

      “A few moments, day before yesterday,” said Ruth, without removing her eyes from Harry.

      “Well; he has been murdered, – yes murdered, just as much as if you had seen the knife put to his throat. That tells the whole story, and I don’t care who knows it. I have been looking at those phials, – wrong course of treatment altogether for typhoid fever; fatal mistake. His death will lie heavy at somebody’s door,” and he glanced at Ruth.

      “Hush! he is coming to himself,” said Ruth, whose eyes had never once moved from her husband.

      “Then I must tell him that his hours are numbered,” said the doctor, thrusting his hands in his pockets,