'
'I'll bide wi' ye till we see what can be dune for ye. What's the
maitter wi' ye? I'm a doctor noo.'
There was not a chair or box or stool on which to sit down. He
therefore kneeled beside her. He felt her pulse, questioned her,
and learned that she had long been suffering from an internal
complaint, which had within the last week grown rapidly worse. He
saw that there was no hope of her recovery, but while she lived he
gave himself to her service as to that of a living soul capable of
justice and love. The night was more than warm, but she had fits of
shivering. He wrapped his coat round her, and wiped from the poor
degraded face the damps of suffering. The woman-heart was alive
still, for she took the hand that ministered to her and kissed it
with a moan. When the morning came she fell asleep. He crept out
and went to his grandmother's, where he roused Betty, and asked her
to get him some peat and coals. Finding his grandmother awake, he
told her all, and taking the coals and the peat, carried them to the
hut, where he managed, with some difficulty, to light a fire on the
hearth; after which he sat on the doorstep till Betty appeared with
two men carrying a mattress and some bedding. The noise they made
awoke her.
'Dinna tak me,' she cried. 'I winna do 't again, an' I'm deein', I
tell ye I'm deein', and that'll clear a' scores--o' this side ony
gait,' she added.
They lifted her upon the mattress, and made her more comfortable
than perhaps she had ever been in her life.
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