by Ellen Wood
Caroline burst into tears as they laid hold of her, and Sara’s heart began to sink. But the tears were only the effect of the fright and excitement she had gone through. She could give no clear account of the accident or what it had brought forth. All she knew was that there was great banging and bumping of the carriage she was in, but it was not overturned. Two other carriages were; and the engine was lying on its side with all its steam coming out of it. She scrambled up the bank in her terror, as did most of the passengers, and came on with them.
“And Mark?” asked Sara, scarcely daring to put the question.
“Mark! He stayed to look after the wounded,” was her reply. “He said he thought there was nobody seriously hurt. At any rate, there are no lives lost.”
Sara’s heart breathed a word of thankfulness. “Did you see Lady Oswald?” she asked. “She went to Hildon this afternoon, and Mr. Oswald Cray thought she must be in this train, returning.”
“I did not see her,” replied Mrs. Cray. “Lady Oswald in the train! I thought she never travelled by rail.”
“She did this afternoon. One of her carriage-horses is ill. How thankful! — how thankful we must all be that it is no worse!” concluded Sara Davenal.
“Well, this is a fine ending to your wedding-jaunt!” exclaimed Miss Bettina. “What about your luggage, Caroline? Is it safe?”
“As if we gave a thought to our luggage, Aunt Bettina! When people’s lives are at stake they can’t think of their luggage.”
“Nor care either, perhaps,” sharply answered Miss Bettina, who, for a wonder, had caught the words. “It may be lying soused in the engine-water, for all you know!”
“I daresay it is,” equably returned Caroline. “It was in the van next the engine.”
But the full report had to come up yet; and the excited crowd stopped on.
CHAPTER XIII.
PAIN.
CLEAR and distinct lay the lines of rail in the cold moonlight. It was a straight bit of line there, without curve or bend, rise or incline; and why the engine should have gone off the rails remained to be proved. It was lying on its side, the steam escaping as from a fizzing, hissing furnace; the luggage-van was overturned, and its contents were scattered; and two carriages were overturned also: a second-class, which had been next the van, a first-class which had followed it.
But now, as good Providence willed it, in that second-class carriage there had only been three passengers. The train was not a crowded one, and people don’t go close to the engine as a matter of taste. Of these three passengers, two had thrown themselves flat on the floor of the carriage between the seats, and escaped without injury; the other had a broken arm and a bruised head, not of much moment. The first-class carriage was more fully occupied, and several of the passengers, though not fatally or even extensively, were seriously hurt; and of the driver and stoker, the one had saved himself by leaping from his engine, the other was flung to a distance, and lay there as he fell.
Mark Cray, as you have heard, remained to tend the wounded. The first face he distinguished in the moonlight, lying amidst the débris of the overturned first-class carriage, was that of Lady Oswald: and so completely astonished was he to see it, that he thought either his eyes or the moon must be playing him false. He and Caroline had been in a carriage almost at the back of the train, consequently he had not seen her at the Hildon station: and he had believed that Lady Oswald, of all persons, would have been the last to attempt railway travelling, so much was she averse to rails and trains in general. Groaning and moaning by her side was Parkins; and Mr. Cray could doubt no longer.
With assistance, the passengers were extricated and laid upon the bank. Their injuries were unequal; some, after the first shock, could walk and talk, some could do neither; while the first grumbled and complained of their bruises and abrasions, the last lay still, except for groaning. The only perfectly quiet one was Lady Oswald: she lay with her pale face upturned to the moonlight, her eyes closed. It was natural perhaps that Mark Cray should turn his first attention to her. A gentleman, one of the passengers, asked if she was dead.
“No,” said Mark; “she has only fainted. Parkins, suppose you get up and try if you can walk. I’m sure you can’t be hurt if you are able to make that noise. That engine appears not to be over steady. Take care it does not raise itself again and come puffing off this way.”
Parkins, not detecting the ruse, started up with a shriek, and stood rubbing herself all over. “I think I’m killed,” she cried; “I don’t believe I have got a whole bone in me.”
“I’ll see by-and-by,” said Mr. Cray. “Meanwhile come and help your lady. I want her bonnet and cap untied.”
Parkins limped to the spot stiffly with many groans, but wonderfully well considering the belief she had just expressed. At the same moment some one came up with water, procured from a pond in the field, and the driver, who had just come to his legs, brought a lamp. The lamp was held to Lady Oswald’s face, and some of the water poured into her mouth. Between the two she opened her eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Where am I?”
“She’s all right,” whispered Mr. Cray, his warm tone proving that he had not previously felt so assured of the fact “Has anybody got a drop of brandy?” he called out to the passengers, who yet stayed at the scene.
“Goodness me! where am I?” cried Lady Oswald, with a faint shriek. “Parkins, is that you? What has happened? Didn’t we get into the railway carriage?”
“But we are out of it now, my lady,” cried Parkins, sobbing. “There has been an awful upset, my lady, and I don’t know anything more, except that it’s a mercy we are alive.”
“An upset!” repeated Lady Oswald, who appeared to have no recollection whatever of the circumstances. “Is anybody hurt? Are you hurt, Parkins?”
“Every bone in me is broke, my lady, if I may judge by the feel of ‘em. This comes of them sheds.”
“Be quiet, Parkins,” said Mr. Cray, who had succeeded in finding a wicker-cased bottle containing some brandy-and-water. “Help me to raise your lady a little.”
Parkins contrived to give her help in spite of the damaged bones, but the moment Lady Oswald was touched she shrieked out terribly.
“Let me alone! let me alone! Is that Mark Cray? How kind you are to come to see after me, Mr. Cray? Did you come from Hallingham?”
“We were in the same train, Lady Oswald; I and Caroline. I am very glad that it happened to be so.”
“To be sure; I begin to remember: you were to return tonight. I — I feel very faint.”
Mark succeeded in getting her to drink some brandy-and-water, but she positively refused to be touched, though she said she was in no pain. He thought she was exhausted, the effect of the shock, and left her to attend to other sufferers, who perhaps wanted his aid more than Lady Oswald.
Then, after awhile, the carriage came up, bringing the help from Hallingham. Mark Cray saw Dr. Davenal with the greatest pleasure, and he took him at once towards Lady Oswald.
“Are many hurt?” inquired the doctor.
“Astonishingly few,” was the reply; “and the hurts are of a very minor character, I fancy. A broken arm is about the worst.”
“And what of Lady Oswald?”
“I don’t think she’s hurt at all: she’s suffering from the shock. A little exhausted; but that’s natural.”
“To a woman of her age such a shock is no light thing, Mark. However, we must do the best we can for everybody.”
“There has been enough groaning — if that’s anything to judge by,” said Mark; “groaning and complaining too.”
“Glad to hear it,” said the doctor. “When people can complain, the damage is not very extensive.”
“Parkins, for one, keeps protesting that every bone’s broken.
But she ran out of the way pretty quickly when I told her the engine might start up again.”
The doctor smiled, and they came up to Lady Oswald; Oswald Cray had found her out, and wa
s sitting on the bank beside her.
She spoke just a word or two to him, but seemed, as Mr. Cray had said, exhausted. Oswald Cray rose to resign his place to Dr. Davenal, and he took his brother aside.
“Is she much hurt, Mark?”
“O no,” replied Mark. “It has shaken her, of course; but she has been talking as fast as I can.”
He spoke with singular confidence. In the first place, Mark Cray was naturally inclined to look on the bright side of things, to feel confident himself in the absence of any palpable grounds for doing so; in the second, he did not think it at all mattered what information on the point was given to Oswald.
Reassured upon the score of Lady Oswald, Oswald quitted Mark, and went amidst the wounded. Proud man though he was accused of being, though he was, never was there a tenderer heart, a softer hand, a gentler voice for the sick and suffering, than his. All the patients appeared to have been attended to in some degree; and they were in good hands now. Oswald halted by the side of the poor stoker, a swarthy honest-faced man, who was moaning out his pain.
“What, is it you, Bigg?” he said, recognising the man. “I did not know you were back on this part of the line again.”
“I on’y come on it yesterday, sir. It’s just my luck.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“I be scalded awful, sir. I never knew what pain was afore tonight. All my lower limbs is” —
“Take care!” shouted Oswald to a stupid fellow who was running along with a plank in his arms. “Can’t you see there’s a man lying here? What are you about?”
“About my work,” was the rough reply, spoken in an insolent tone. It was one of the men just brought down, a workman from Hallingham station, and Oswald knew him well.
“What is that, Wells?” he quietly asked.
Wells looked round now, surprised at being addressed by name. He pretty nearly dropped his load in consternation when he recognised Mr. Oswald Cray. Full as his hands were, he managed to jerk his hat from his head.
“I beg your pardon, I’m sure, sir. I thought it was nothing but some idler obstructing of me. One does get beset with idlers at these times, asking one all sorts of questions. I shouldn’t have answered that way, sir, if I’d knowed it was you.”
“Go on with your work; there’s no time to talk. And don’t blunder along again without looking where you are going.”
“One can’t see well in the dark, sir.”
“It’s not dark; it is as light as it need be. Quite light enough for you to see your way. Do you call that bright moon nothing?”
“He’d ha’ been right over my legs, but for you, sir,” murmured poor Bigg, the great drops of pain standing out on his brow, black with his occupation. “I don’t know how I be to bear this agony.
That cursed engine” —
“Hush, Bigg,” interrupted Mr. Oswald Cray.
Bigg groaned his contrition. “Heaven forgive me! I know it ain’t a right word for me to-night.”
“Heaven will help you to bear the pain if you will only let it,” said Oswald. “There has been worse pain to bear than even yours, my poor fellow; though I know how hard it is for you now to think so.”
“It may be my death-blow, sir. And what’s to become o’ my wife and little uns? Who’ll work for ‘em?”
“No, no, Bigg. I hope it is not so bad as that I do not think it is.”
“If one might count by pain, sir” —
“Bigg, I can give you a little comfort on that score,” interrupted Oswald Cray. “A friend of mine was very dreadfully burnt, through his bed-clothes catching fire. Awfully burnt: I don’t like, even at this distance of time, to think of it The next day I heard of it, and went to see him. I am not a very good one to witness physical pain, and I remember how I dreaded to witness his, and the spectacle I did not doubt he presented. He was a spectacle, poor fellow — but let that pass. To my great astonishment he saluted me heartily as I went in. ‘Holloa, old friend!’ were his words, not only cheerfully but merrily spoken. I found that he did not suffer pain: had not felt any from the moment he was burnt In my ignorance, I set that down as a most favourable symptom, and felt sure he would get well shortly. When I was leaving him, I met the doctor going in, and said how glad I was to find his patient so well. ‘Well!’ he exclaimed, ‘why, what do you judge by!’ And I said — by his feeling no pain. ‘That’s just it,’ the doctor observed: ‘if he only felt pain there might be a chance for him. I wish I could hear him roar out with it.’ Now, Bigg,” Mr. Oswald Cray added, “I am no surgeon, but I infer that the same theory must hold good in scalds as in burns: that your pain is as favourable a symptom as his want of it was unfavourable. Do not rebel at your pain again, my poor fellow; rather bear it like a man. Were I scalded or burnt, I think I should be thankful for the pain.”
“He was burnt worse, may be, nor me, that there gentleman,” remarked Bigg, who had listened with interest “Ten times worse,” replied Oswald. “Yes, I may say ten times worse,” he emphatically repeated. “Indeed, Bigg, I feel sure that yours is but a very slight hurt, in comparison with what it might have been: and I do not say this to you in the half-false light in which one speaks to a child to soothe it, but as one truthful man would speak to another.”
“God bless you, sir. My heart was a-failing of me sadly. Did he die, that there gentleman?”
“He died at a week’s end: but there had been no hope of him from the first; and there were also certain attendant circumstances in his case, apart from the injury, remarkably unfavourable. In a short while, Bigg, you’ll be on your legs again, as good man as ever. I’ll ask Dr. Davenal to come and have a look at you.”
The name of the far-famed surgeon carried assurance in itself, and Bigg’s face lighted up with eagerness. “Is Dr. Davenal here, sir?”
“Yes. I’ll go and look for him.”
“At the moment that Oswald spoke, Dr. Davenal had left Lady Oswald and encountered Mr. Cray. The latter, whose spirits were rather exalted that night, the effect probably of finding the injuries around him so slight, when he had looked out for all the terrible calamities that flesh is heir to, not to speak of death, stopped to speak to him of Lady Oswald. And he spoke lightly.
“Well? You don’t find her hurt, doctor?”
“I’ll tell you more about it to-morrow, Mark.”
Dr. Davenal’8 tone was so very grave that Mark Cray stared. He thought — Mark Cray almost thought that there was a shade of reproof in it, meant for him.
“I am sure she has no serious hurt,” he exclaimed.
“Well, Mark, I can say nothing positively yet. In the state she is, and in this place, it is not easy to ascertain: but I fear she has.”
“My goodness!” cried Mark, conscious that he was but the veriest tyro beside that man of skill, of unerring practice, Richard Davenal, and feeling very little at the moment “What is the hurt, air?” he asked in a loud tone.
“Hold your tongue about it,” said the doctor. “Time enough to proclaim it abroad when the fact has been ascertained that there is one.”
Oswald Cray came up, having distinguished the doctor in the moonlight “I wish you’d come and look at a poor fellow, Dr. Davenal, who wants a word of cheering. A word of such from you, you know sends the spirits up. You should have seen the man’s face lighten when I said you were here.”
“Who is it?” asked the doctor, turning off with alacrity.
“Poor Bigg the fireman. You know him, I daresay. He is badly scalded and bruised.”
“Oh, his hurts are nothing,” slightingly spoke Mark Cray. “He seems one of those groaners who cry out at a touch of pain.”
“Mark,” said the doctor, stopping, “allow me to tender you a word of advice — do not fall into that, by some, professed to be entertained idea, that nobody can, or ought, to feel pain; or, if they feel it, that they ought not to show it. It is unnatural, untruthful; and to my mind, particularly unbecoming in a medical man. Pain to some natures is all but an impossibility to
bear; it is all that can be imagined of agony; it is as if every moment of its endurance were that of death. The nervous organisation is so sensitively delicate, that even a touch of pain, as you express it, which most people would scarcely feel, would certainly not cry out over, is to them the acutest suffering. As a surgeon and anatomist you ought to know this.”
“He’s only a fireman,” returned Mark. “Nobody expects those rough fellows to be sensitive to pain.”
“Let him be a fireman or a waterman, he will feel it as I describe, be his frame thus sensitively organised,” was the reply of Dr. Davenal, spoken firmly, if not sternly. “What has a man’s condition in life to do with it? It won’t change his physical nature. A duke, sleeping on a bed of down, nurtured in refinement and luxury, may be so constituted that pain will be a mere flea-bite to him; should he be destined to endure the worst that’s known to earth, he will, so to say, hardly feel it: whereas this poor fireman, inured to hard usage, to labour and privation, may be literally almost unable to bear it. For my own part, when I have to witness this distressing sensibility to pain, perhaps have to inflict it as a surgical necessity, I suffer half as much as the patient does, for I know what it is for him. Don’t affect to ridicule pain again, Mark.” Mark Cray looked vexed, annoyed. But every syllable that had fallen from Dr. Davenal’s lips had found its echo in the heart of Oswald Cray. If there was one quality he admired beyond all else, it was sincere open truthfulness: and to Oswald’s mind there was an affectation, a want of sincerity, in the mocking expressions, the shallow opinions, so much in fashion in the present day. There had been a hollow carelessness in Mark’s tone when he ridiculed the notion of the poor stoker’s possessing a sensitiveness to pain, just as if the man had no right to possess it.
“Well, Bigg, and so you must get tossed in this upset!” began the doctor cheerily. “Oh! you’ll do well, by the look of your face; we shall soon have you on the engine again. Let’s get a sight of this grand damage. Who has got a lantern?”
