Rhoda Fleming. Complete

“Hard, mother!—and quick!—I can’t hold out long.”

“Oh! Robert,” moaned the petrified woman “strike you?”

“Straight in the ribs. Shut your fist and do it—quick.”

“My dear!—my boy!—I haven’t the heart to do it!”

“Ah!” Robert’s chest dropped in; but tightening his muscles again, he said, “now do it—do it!”

“Oh! a poke at a poor fire puts it out, dear. And make a murderess of me, you call mother! Oh! as I love the name, I’ll obey you, Robert. But!—there!”

“Harder, mother.”

“There!—goodness forgive me!”

“Hard as you can—all’s right.”

“There!—and there!—oh!—mercy!”

“Press in at my stomach.”

She nerved herself to do his bidding, and, following his orders, took his head in her hands, and felt about it. The anguish of the touch wrung a stifled scream from him, at which she screamed responsive. He laughed, while twisting with the pain.

“You cruel boy, to laugh at your mother,” she said, delighted by the sound of safety in that sweet human laughter. “Hey! don’t ye shake your brain; it ought to lie quiet. And here’s the spot of the wicked blow—and him in love—as I know he is! What would she say if she saw him now? But an old woman’s the best nurse—ne’er a doubt of it.”

She felt him heavy on her arm, and knew that he had fainted. Quelling her first impulse to scream, she dropped him gently on the pillow, and rapped to rouse up her maid.

The two soon produced a fire and hot water, bandages, vinegar in a basin, and every crude appliance that could be thought of, the maid followed her mistress’s directions with a consoling awe, for Mrs. Boulby had told her no more than that a man was hurt.

“I do hope, if it’s anybody, it’s that ther’ Moody,” said the maid.

“A pretty sort of a Christian you think yourself, I dare say,” Mrs. Boulby replied.

“Christian or not, one can’t help longin’ for a choice, mum. We ain’t all hands and knees.”

“Better for you if you was,” said the widow. “It’s tongues, you’re to remember, you’re not to be. Now come you up after me—and you’ll not utter a word. You’ll stand behind the door to do what I tell you. You’re a soldier’s daughter, Susan, and haven’t a claim to be excitable.”

“My mother was given to faints,” Susan protested on behalf of her possible weakness.

“You may peep.” Thus Mrs. Boulby tossed a sop to her frail woman’s nature.

But for her having been appeased by the sagacious accordance of this privilege, the maid would never have endured to hear Robert’s voice in agony, and to think that it was really Robert, the beloved of Warbeach, who had come to harm. Her apprehensions not being so lively as her mistress’s, by reason of her love being smaller, she was more terrified than comforted by Robert’s jokes during the process of washing off the blood, cutting the hair from the wound, bandaging and binding up the head.

His levity seemed ghastly; and his refusal upon any persuasion to see a doctor quite heathenish, and a sign of one foredoomed.

She believed that his arm was broken, and smarted with wrath at her mistress for so easily taking his word to the contrary. More than all, his abjuration of brandy now when it would do him good to take it, struck her as an instance of that masculine insanity in the comprehension of which all women must learn to fortify themselves. There was much whispering in the room, inarticulate to her, before Mrs. Boulby came out; enjoining a rigorous silence, and stating that the patient would drink nothing but tea.

“He begged,” she said half to herself, “to have the window blinds up in the morning, if the sun wasn’t strong, for him to look on our river opening down to the ships.”

“That looks as if he meant to live,” Susan remarked.

“He!” cried the widow, “it’s Robert Eccles. He’d stand on his last inch.”

“Would he, now!” ejaculated Susan, marvelling at him, with no question as to what footing that might be.

“Leastways,” the widow hastened to add, “if he thought it was only devils against him. I’ve heard him say, ‘It’s a fool that holds out against God, and a coward as gives in to the devil;’ and there’s my Robert painted by his own hand.”

“But don’t that bring him to this so often, Mum?” Susan ruefully inquired, joining teapot and kettle.

“I do believe he’s protected,” said the widow.

With the first morning light Mrs. Boulby was down at Warbeach Farm, and being directed to Farmer Eccles in the stables, she found the sturdy yeoman himself engaged in grooming Robert’s horse.

“Well, Missis,” he said, nodding to her; “you win, you see. I thought you would; I’d have sworn you would. Brandy’s stronger than blood, with some of our young fellows.”

“If you please, Mr. Eccles,” she replied, “Robert’s sending of me was to know if the horse was unhurt and safe.”

“Won’t his legs carry him yet, Missis?”

“His legs have been graciously spared, Mr. Eccles; it’s his head.”

“That’s where the liquor flies, I’m told.”

“Pray, Mr. Eccles, believe me when I declare he hasn’t touched a drop of anything but tea in my house this past night.”

“I’m sorry for that; I’d rather have him go to you. If he takes it, let him take it good; and I’m given to understand that you’ve a reputation that way. Just tell him from me, he’s at liberty to play the devil with himself, but not with my beasts.”

The farmer continued his labour.

“No, you ain’t a hard man, surely,” cried the widow. “Not when I say he was sober, Mr. Eccles; and was thrown, and made insensible?”

“Never knew such a thing to happen to him, Missis, and, what’s more, I don’t believe it. Mayhap you’re come for his things: his Aunt Anne’s indoors, and she’ll give ‘em up, and gladly. And my compliments to Robert, and the next time he fancies visiting Warbeach, he’d best forward a letter to that effect.”

Mrs. Boulby curtseyed humbly. “You think bad of me, sir, for keeping a public; but I love your son as my own, and if I might presume to say so, Mr. Eccles, you will be proud of him too before you die. I know no more than you how he fell yesterday, but I do know he’d not been drinking, and have got bitter bad enemies.”

“And that’s not astonishing, Missis.”

“No, Mr. Eccles; and a man who’s brave besides being good soon learns that.”

“Well spoken, Missis.”

“Is Robert to hear he’s denied his father’s house?”

“I never said that, Mrs. Boulby. Here’s my principle—My house is open to my blood, so long as he don’t bring downright disgrace on it, and then any one may claim him that likes I won’t give him money, because I know of a better use for it; and he shan’t ride my beasts, because he don’t know how to treat ‘em. That’s all.”

“And so you keep within the line of your duty, sir,” the widow summed his speech.

“So I hope to,” said the farmer.