books.jibble.org

Page 5

Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt it
must kill her, and soon. It could be removed; it might never return; it
would give her speedy relief: she should have it done. She courtesied,
looked at James, and said, "When?" "To-morrow," said the kind surgeon,--
a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that
he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each
other.

The following day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great
stair. At the first landing-place, on a small well-known black board,
was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers
beside it. On the paper were the words, "An operation to-day.--J.B.,
CLERK"

Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places: in they crowded, full of
interest and talk. "What's the case?" "Which side is it?"

Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor worse than you
or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper
work; and in them pity, as an EMOTION, ending in itself or at best in
tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens,--while pity, as a MOTIVE, is
quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature
that it is so.

The operating theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the
cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants
is there. In comes Ailie: one look at her quiets and abates the eager
students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down,
and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her
presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her mutch,
her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine
petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet shoes.
Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the distance, and took
that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and
dangerous; forever cocking his ear and dropping it as fast.

Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her friend
the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut
her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was at
once begun; it was necessarily slow; and chloroform--one of God's best
gifts to his suffering children--was then unknown. The surgeon did his
work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's
soul was working within him; he saw that something strange was going
on,--blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear
was up, and importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp
impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man.
But James had him firm, and gave him a GLOWER from time to time, and an
intimation of a possible kick;--all the better for James, it kept his
eye and his mind off Ailie.

It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the
table, looks for James; then, turning to the surgeon and the students,
she courtesies, and in a low, clear voice begs their pardon if she has
behaved ill. The students--all of us--wept like children; the surgeon
happed her up carefully, and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her
room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes,
crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully
under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for nane o' yer strynge
nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my
stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and clever
and swift and tender as any woman was that horny-handed, snell,
peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he seldom slept;
and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her.
As before, they spoke little.

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he could
be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was
demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally
to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild, declined doing
battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry
indignities, and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back,
and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and went straight to that
door.

Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate,
and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions on
the absence of her master and Rab and her unnatural freedom from the
road and her cart.

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed "by the first intention;"
for, as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to beil." The
students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she
liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and
spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her through his eyes,
Rab and James outside the circle,--Rab being now reconciled, and even
cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required
worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratus.

Previous Page | Next Page

Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Thu 3rd Apr 2025, 13:47

Rab and His Friends by John Brown