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So far well; but four days after the operation my patient had a sudden
and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw her soon
after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored; she was restless,
and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On
looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret: her pulse was
rapid, her breathing anxious and quick; she wasn't herself, as she said,
and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did
everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never out of it; Rab
subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but
his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in
her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in
her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was
never that way afore,--no, never." For a time she knew her head was
wrong, and was always asking our pardon,--the dear, gentle old woman:
then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then
came that terrible spectacle,--

"The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on its dim and perilous way;"

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the
Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely
odds and ends and scraps of ballads.

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I
ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch voice,
the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright
and perilous eye, some wild words, some household cares, something for
James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a "fremyt"
voice, and he starting up, surprised, and slinking off as if he were to
blame somehow, or had been dreaming he heard. Many eager questions and
beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she
seemed to set her all and then sink back ununderstood. It was very sad,
but better than many things that are not called sad. James hovered
about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to her,
when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre,
chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great
knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and doting over her
as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie wee dawtie!"

The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord
was fast being loosed; that animula blandula, vagula, hospes, comesque,
was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for sixty years--
were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking, alone, through
the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all enter; and yet
she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comforting her.

One night she had fallen quiet, and, as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were
shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in
bed, and, taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it
eagerly to her breast,--to the right side. We could see her eyes bright
with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of
clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening out her
night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding over it, and
murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth,
and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her
wasted dying look, keen and yet vague,--her immense love.

"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked backward
and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her
infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor! I declare she's thinkin' it's that
bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and
she's in the Kingdom forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the
pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined
brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a
breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they
were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom.

This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she
whispered, she was "clean silly;" it was the lightening before the final
darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she
said, "James!" He came close to her, and, lifting up her calm, clear,
beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but
shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her
husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes
and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and passed
away so gently that, when we thought she was gone, James, in his old-
fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, one
small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away, and never
returned, leaving the blank clear darkness without a stain. "What is our
life? it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and then
vanisheth away."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 4th Apr 2025, 7:42

Rab and His Friends by John Brown