The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866

Perhaps sickness is in some sort insanity. At any rate, he no sooner found himself alone than the desire to see the great Dr. Killmany came upon him with all the force of insanity; his intention probably being to go and return within an hour, and keep his little secret to himself. Perhaps, too, he wished to have it to say at home that he had seen the great man for himself, and decided against him of his own knowledge.

Dr. Killmany was found without much difficulty; but his rooms were crowded with patients, and there was no possibility of access to him for hours.

"It cannot be that so many are deceived," thought Hobert. "I will wait with the rest." Then came the encouraging hope, "What if I should go home cured, after all!" He felt almost as if Dr. Shepard had defrauded him out of two or three days, and talked eagerly with one and another, as patient after patient came forth from consultation with Dr. Killmany, all aglow with hope and animation. It was near sunset when his turn came. He had waited five hours, but it was come at last; and with his heart in his mouth, and his knees shaking under him, he stood face to face with the arbitrator of his destiny. There was no smile on the face of the man, no sweetness in his voice as he said, looking at Hobert from under scowling brows, "What brings you, sir? Tell it, and be brief: time with me is money."

Then Hobert, catching at a chair to sustain himself, for he was not asked to sit, explained his condition as well as fright and awkwardness would permit him to do; going back to the commencement of his disease, and entering unnecessarily into many particulars, as well as making superfluous mention of wife and mother. "It isn't with your wife and mother that I have to deal," interposed Dr. Killmany;—"dear to you, I dare say, but nothing to me, sir,—nothing at all. I have no time to devote to your relatives. Open your shirt, sir! there, that'll do! A mere trifle, sir, but it is well you have come in time."

"Do you mean to say you can cure me?" inquired Hobert, all his heart a-flutter with the excitement of hope.

"Exactly so. I can remove that difficulty of yours in five minutes, and have you on your feet again,—operation neglected, death certain within a year, perhaps sooner. Done with you sir. You now have your choice, make way!"

Hobert went staggering out of the room, feeling as if the raven of his dream already had its beak in his heart, when a pert official reached out his hand with the demand, "Consultation fee, if you please, sir."

"How much?" asked Hobert, leaning against the wall, and searching for his pocket-book.

"Fifty dollars, sir,"—and the official spoke as though that were a trifle scarcely worth mentioning. The hands of the sick man trembled, and his eyes grew blind as he sought to count up the sum; and as his entire treasure was formed out of the smallest notes, the process was a slow one, and before it was accomplished it seemed to him that not only Fleety was turning to a shadow, but the whole world as well.

Somehow, he hardly knew how, he found himself in the fresh air, and the official still at his elbow. "You are not going to leave us this way?" he said. "You will only have thrown your money away." And he pocketed the sum Hobert had just put in his hand.

"Better that than more," Hobert answered, and was turning sadly away.

"Allow me to detain you, sir, one moment, only just one moment!" And the official, or rather decoy, whispered in his ear tales of such wonderful cures as almost dissuaded him from his purpose.

"But I am resolved to go home on the Arrow," he said, making a last stand, "and I must have something to leave my poor Jenny."

And then the official told him that he could go home aboard the Arrow, if he chose, and go a well man, or the same as a well man; and what could he bring to his wife so acceptable as himself, safe and sound! And then he told other tales of sick men who had been carried to Dr. Killmany on their beds, and within a few hours walked away on their feet, blessing his name, and publishing his fame far and wide.

Hobert began to waver, nor is it strange; for what will not a man give for his life? The world had not loosened its hold upon him much as yet; the grass under his feet and the sunshine over his head were pleasant things to him, and his love for his good little wife was still invested with all the old romance; and to die and go he knew not where, there was a terror about that which his faith was not strong enough to dissipate. The decoy watched and waited. He contrasted the husband returning home with haggard cheek and listless step and the shadow of dark doom all about him, having a few hundred dollars in his pocket, with a husband empty-handed, but with bright cheeks, and cheerful spirits, and with strong legs under him! Then Hobert repeated the story he had told to Dr. Shepard,—all about the little treasure with which he had set out, how hardly it had been gathered together, what had been already fruitlessly expended, and just how much remained,—he told it all as he had told it in the first instance, but with what different effect!

Dr. Killmany never touched any case for a sum like that! Indeed, his services were in such requisition, it was almost impossible to obtain them on any terms; but he, the decoy, for reasons which he did not state, would exert to the utmost his own personal influence in Hobert's favor. "I cannot promise you a favorable answer," he said; "there is just a possibility, and that is all. A man like Dr. Killmany, sir, can't be haggling about dollars and cents!" And then he intimated that such things might be well enough for Dr. Shepard and his sort of practice.

There was some further talk, and the time ran by, and it was night. Against his will almost, Hobert had been persuaded. He was to sleep in the Doctor's office that night, and his case was to be the first attended to in the morning. "You can rest very well on the floor, I suppose," the decoy had said, "taking your saddle-bags for a pillow. The whole thing will be over in half an hour, and I myself will see you aboard the Arrow before ten o'clock, and so you need take no more thought for yourself."

That night, when at last Hobert made a pillow of his saddle-bags and coiled himself together, he felt as if a circle of fire were narrowing around him, and yet utter inability to escape.

"You need take no more thought for yourself." These words kept ringing in his ears like a knell, and the mistletoe striking through his bosom, and the beak of the raven in his heart,—these were the sensations with which, long after midnight, he drowsed into sleep.

When he awoke, there was a rough hand on his shoulder and a harsh voice in his ear. The room was light with the light of morning, but dark with the shadow of coming doom. There came upon him a strange and great calmness when he found himself in the operating-room. There were all the frightful preparations,—the water, the sponges, the cloths and bandages, the Doctor with his case of instruments before him, and looking more like a murderer than a surgeon. Almost his heart misgave him as he looked around, and remembered Jenny and the little ones at home; but the carriage that was to take him aboard the Arrow already waited at the door, and the sight of it reassured him.

"You will hardly know where you are till you find yourself safe in your berth," said Dr. Killmany; "and to avoid any delay after the operation, from which you will necessarily be somewhat weak, you had perhaps better pay me now." And these were the most civil words he had yet spoken.

So Hobert paid into his hand the last dollar he had.

"Now, sir," he said; and Hobert laid himself down on the table. A minute, and of what befell him after that he was quite unconscious. It was as the doctor had told him; he knew not where he was until he found himself in his berth aboard the Arrow. "Where am I?" was his first inquiry, feeling a sense of strangeness,—feeling, indeed, as though he were a stranger to himself.

"You are going home, my poor friend,—going home a little sooner than you expected,—that is all."

Then the sick man opened his eyes; for he had recognized the tender voice, and saw Dr. Shepard bending over him, and he knew where he was, and what had happened; for he was shivering from head to foot. The sleeve of his right arm was red and wet, and there was a dull, slow aching in his bosom. "Ay, Doctor," he answered, pressing faintly the hand that held his, "I am going home,—home to a better country. 'T is all like a shadow about me now, and I am cold,—so cold!" He never came out of that chill, and these were the last words he ever spoke.

"That man has been just the same as murdered, I take it!" exclaimed the captain of the Arrow, meeting Dr. Shepard as he turned away from the bedside.

"I must not say that," replied the Doctor; "but if I had performed the operation, under the circumstances, I should think myself his murderer."

"And if you had taken his money, you would perhaps think yourself a thief, too! At any rate, I should think you one," was the answer of the captain. And he then related to Dr. Shepard how the man, in an almost dying condition, had been brought aboard the Arrow by one of Dr. Killmany's menials, hustled into bed, and so left to his fate; and he concluded by saying, "And what are we to do now, Doctor?"

What the Doctor's reply was need not be reported at length. Suffice it to say, that the departure of the Arrow was deferred for an hour, and when she sailed the state-room in which Hobert had breathed his last was occupied by a lively little lady and two gayly-dressed children, and on the wall from which the fur hat and the saddle-bags had been removed fluttered a variety of rainbow-hued scarfs and ribbons, and in the window where the shadow had been a golden-winged bird was singing in the sunshine.

Some two or three weeks went by, and the farmer who had driven to town when Hobert was about to set out on his long journey, starting so smartly, and making so light of the farewells, drove thither again, and this time his wagon-bed was empty, except for the deep cushion of straw. He drove slowly and with downcast looks; and as he returned, a dozen men met him at the entrance of the village, and at sober pace followed to the meeting-house, the door of which stood wide.

A little low talk as they all gathered round, and then four of them lifted from the wagon the long box it contained, and bore it on their shoulders reverently and tenderly within the open gate, through the wide door, along the solemn aisle and close beneath the pulpit, where they placed it very softly, and then stood back with uncovered heads, while a troop of little girls, who waited, with aprons full of flowers, drew near and emptied them on the ground, so that nothing was to be seen but a great heap of flowers; and beneath them was the body of Hobert Walker.

MY FARM: A FABLE

Within a green and pleasant land
I own a favorite plantation,
Whose woods and meads, if rudely planned,
Are still, at least, my own creation.
Some genial sun or kindly shower
Has here and there wooed forth a flower,
And touched the fields with expectation.

I know what feeds the soil I till,
What harvest-growth it best produces.
My forests shape themselves at will,
My grapes mature their proper juices.
I know the brambles and the weeds,
But know the fruits and wholesome seeds,—
Of those the hurt, of these the uses.

And working early, working late,
Directing crude and random Nature,
'T is joy to see my small estate
Grow fairer in the slightest feature.
If but a single wild-rose blow,
Or fruit-tree bend with April snow,
That day am I the happiest creature!

But round the borders of the land
Dwell many neighbors, fond of roving;
With curious eye and prying hand
About my fields I see them moving.
Some tread my choicest herbage down,
And some of weeds would weave a crown,
And bid me wear it, unreproving.

"What trees!" says one; "whoever saw
A grove, like this, of my possessing?
This vale offends my upland's law;