The Complete Tales of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott
When the front of the house became visible a feeling of alarm checked me. I had been long absent from Scotland; my friend was some years older than I; he might have been called to the congregation of the just. I paused, and gazed on the house as if I had hoped to form some conjecture from the outward appearance concerning the state of the family within. I know not how it was, but the lower windows being all closed, and no one stirring, my sinister forebodings were rather strengthened. I regretted now that I had not made inquiry before I left the inn where I alighted from the mail-coach. But it was too late; so I hurried on, eager to know the best or the worst which I could learn.
The brass-plate bearing my friend’s name and designation was still on the door, and when it was opened the old domestic appeared a good deal older, I thought, than he ought naturally to have looked, considering the period of my absence. “Is Mr. Sommerville at home?” said I, pressing forward.
“Yes, sir,” said John, placing himself in opposition to my entrance, “he is at home, but—”
“But he is not in,” said I. “I remember your phrase of old, John. Come, I will step into his room, and leave a line for him.”
John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity. I was some one, he saw, whom he ought to recollect. At the same time it was evident he remembered nothing about me.
“Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room, but—”
I would not hear him out, but passed before him towards the wellknown apartment. A young lady came out of the room a little disturbed, as it seemed, and said, “John, what is the matter?”
“A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing my master.”
“A very old and deeply-indebted friend,” said I, “that ventures to press myself on my much-respected benefactor on my return from abroad.”
“Alas, sir,” replied she, “my uncle would be happy to see you, but—”
At this moment something was heard within the apartment like the falling of a plate, or glass, and immediately after my friend’s voice called angrily and eagerly for his niece. She entered the room hastily, and so did I. But it was to see a spectacle, compared with which that of my benefactor stretched on his bier would have been a happy one.
The easychair filled with cushions, the extended limbs swathed in flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and nightcap, showed illness; but the dimmed eye, once so replete with living fire—the blabber lip, whose dilation and compression used to give such character to his animated countenance—the stammering tongue, that once poured forth such floods of masculine eloquence, and had often swayed the opinion of the sages whom he addressed,—all these sad symptoms evinced that my friend was in the melancholy condition of those in whom the principle of animal life has unfortunately survived that of mental intelligence. He gazed a moment at me, but then seemed insensible of my presence, and went on—he, once the most courteous and wellbred—to babble unintelligible but violent reproaches against his niece and servant, because he himself had dropped a teacup in attempting to place it on a table at his elbow. His eyes caught a momentary fire from his irritation; but he struggled in vain for words to express himself adequately, as, looking from his servant to his niece, and then to the table, he laboured to explain that they had placed it (though it touched his chair) at too great a distance from him.
The young person, who had naturally a resigned Madonna-like expression of countenance, listened to his impatient chiding with the most humble submission, checked the servant, whose less delicate feelings would have entered on his justification, and gradually, by the sweet and soft tone of her voice, soothed to rest the spirit of causeless irritation.
She then cast a look towards me, which expressed, “You see all that remains of him whom you call friend.” It seemed also to say, “Your longer presence here can only be distressing to us all.”
“Forgive me, young lady,” I said, as well as tears would permit; “I am a person deeply obliged to your uncle. My name is Croftangry.”
“Lord! and that I should not hae minded ye, Maister Croftangry,” said the servant. “Ay, I mind my master had muckle fash about your job. I hae heard him order in fresh candles as midnight chappit, and till’t again. Indeed, ye had aye his gude word, Mr. Croftangry, for a’ that folks said about you.”
“Hold your tongue, John,” said the lady, somewhat angrily; and then continued, addressing herself to me, “I am sure, sir, you must be sorry to see my uncle in this state. I know you are his friend. I have heard him mention your name, and wonder he never heard from you.” A new cut this, and it went to my heart. But she continued, “I really do not know if it is right that any should—If my uncle should know you, which I scarce think possible, he would be much affected, and the doctor says that any agitation—But here comes Dr. — to give his own opinion.”
Dr. — entered. I had left him a middle-aged man. He was now an elderly one; but still the same benevolent Samaritan, who went about doing good, and thought the blessings of the poor as good a recompense of his professional skill as the gold of the rich.
He looked at me with surprise, but the young lady said a word of introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor formerly, hastened to complete it. He recollected me perfectly, and intimated that he was well acquainted with the reasons I had for being deeply interested in the fate of his patient. He gave me a very melancholy account of my poor friend, drawing me for that purpose a little apart from the lady. “The light of life,” he said, “was trembling in the socket; he scarcely expected it would ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more was impossible.” He then stepped towards his patient, and put some questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to recognize the friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a faltering and uncertain manner.
The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor approached his patient. “You see how it is with him,” said the doctor, addressing me. “I have heard our poor friend, in one of the most eloquent of his pleadings, give a description of this very disease, which he compared to the tortures inflicted by Mezentius when he chained the dead to the living. The soul, he said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and though retaining its natural and unalienable properties, can no more exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as a free agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed up the incapacities of the paralytic—the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the crippled limbs—in the noble words of Juvenal,—
“‘Omni
Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.’“
As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence seemed to revive in the invalid’s eye—sunk again—again struggled, and he spoke more intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one eager to say something which he felt would escape him unless said instantly. “A question of deathbed, a question of deathbed, doctor—a reduction EX CAPITE LECTI—Withering against Wilibus—about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I pleaded the cause for the pursuer—I, and—and—why, I shall forget my own name—I, and—he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man living—”
The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. “Ay, ay,” he said, “just he—Harry—poor Harry—” The light in his eye died away, and he sunk back in his easychair.
“You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry,” said the physician, “than I dared venture to promise you; and now I must take my professional authority on me, and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should by any chance occur when her uncle can see you.”
What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my offering from my bosom—”if my poor friend,” I said, with accents as broken almost as his own, “should ask where this came from, name me, and say from the most obliged and most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of