Tried for Her Life Part 50

"I shall know her, however," muttered Mr. Berners to himself, as he raised his hat and followed the doctor into the cell, leaving Beatrix alone in the hall.

It was near midnight, and Miss Pendleton having been very properly turned out of the sick-room, and having been then forgotten, even by herself, had no place on which to lay her head.

When Mr. Berners, following the doctor, entered the cell, he found it but dimly lighted by one of the wax candles with which his care had supplied his wife.

In one corner sat Miss Tabby, whimpering, with more reason than she had ever before whimpered in her life, over the new-born baby that lay in her lap.

Near by stood old Mrs. Winterose, busy with her patient.

That patient lay, white as a lily, on her bed.

"How is she?" inquired the doctor, approaching.

"Why, just the same--no motion, no sense, hardly any breath," answered the nurse.

"Sybil, my darling! Sybil!" murmured her heart-broken husband, bending low over her still and pallid face.

She rolled her head from side to side, as if half-awakened by some familiar sound, and then lay still again.

"Sybil! my dearest wife! Sybil!" again murmured Lyon Berners, laying his hand on her brow.

She opened her eyes wide, looked around, and then gazed at her husband's face as if it had been only a part of the wall.

"Sybil, my dear, my only love! Sybil!" he repeated, trying to meet and fix her gaze.

But her eyes glanced off and wandered around the room, and finally closed again.

"I told you she would not know you," sighed the doctor.

"So best, so best, perhaps. Heaven grant that she may know nothing until her eyes shall open in that bright and blessed land, where

'The wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest!'"

said Lyon Berners, bowing his head.

But he remained standing by the bedside, and gazing at the pale, still face of his wife, until at length Miss Tabby came up to him, with the babe in her arms, and whimpered forth:

"Oh, Mr. Lyon, won't you look at your little daughter just once? Won't you say something to her? Won't you give her your blessing? n.o.body has said a word to her yet; n.o.body has welcomed her; n.o.body has blessed her!

Oh! my good Lord in heaven! to be born in prison, and not to get one word of welcome from anybody, even from her own father!"

And here Miss Tabby, overcome by her feelings, sobbed aloud; for which weakness I for one don't blame her.

"Give me the child," said Mr. Berners, taking the babe from the yielding arms of the nurse. "Poor little unfortunate!" he continued, as he uncovered and gazed on her face. "May the Lord bless you, for I, wretch that I am, have no power to bless."

At this moment Mrs. Winterose came up, and addressing the doctor, said:

"Sir, I have done all I can do in this extremity. Tabby is fully equal to anything that may happen now. But as for me, sir, I _must_ leave."

"Leave? What are you thinking of, woman?" demanded the doctor, almost angrily.

"Sir, I left my poor old husband at the very point of death! I would not have left him, for any other cause on earth but this. And now I must go back to him, or he may be dead before I get there."

"Good Heaven, my dear woman, but this is dreadful!"

"I know it is, sir. But I couldn't help it. My child here ill and in prison, and I called to help her in her extremity, and my husband on his death-bed. Well, sir, I couldn't help my poor old man much, because he was so low he didn't know one face from another, and I could help my poor imprisoned, suffering child; and so I left my dying husband to the care of my darter Libby, and I comes to my suffering child! But now she's over the worst of it, I must leave her in the care of Tabby, and go back to my dying husband. Please G.o.d I may find him alive!" said the poor woman, fervently clasping her hands.

"My good soul, here is indeed a most painful case of a divided duty,"

said the doctor, in admiration.

"Yes, sir; but the Lord fits the back to the burden," sighed Mrs.

Winterose, resignedly.

"Have you _two_ backs?" wickedly inquired the doctor.

"What was it, sir?" asked Mrs. Winterose, doubting her own ears.

"Nothing. But just see what a storm is coming up! You'll be caught in it if you venture out."

"Law, sir, I'm not sugar, nor likewise salt, to get melted in a little water. And I must go, sir, please, if I am ever to see my old man alive again," said the nurse resolutely, putting on her bonnet and shawl.

"But how are you going six miles through night and storm?"

"Mr. Lyon will not begrudge me the use of the carriage and horses and driver as brought me here, to take me back to my husband's death-bed, I reckon," said the old woman confidently.

"No, indeed; nor any help I can give you, dear Mrs. Winterose," said Mr.

Berners, feeling himself appealed to.

"Thanky, sir; I knowed it. And this I say: When the breath is outen my poor old man's body I will come back to my child, holding it always more dutiful to attend to the living as can suffer, rather than to the dead as are at rest. And now, if you please, Mr. Lyon, to see me into the carriage, and order Joe to drive me home, I will be obleeged to you,"

said the old woman.

Lyon Berners gave her his arm, with as much respect as if she had been a d.u.c.h.ess, and led her from the room.

When they reached the outer door, which the warden, in consideration of the necessity, ordered to be opened at this unusual hour, they found the rain pouring in torrents from a sky as black as pitch.

"A wild night to take the road, Mrs. Winterose," said Mr. Berners, as he hoisted a large umbrella over her head.

"I don't know as I remember a wilder one, sir, since the flood of ninety, and that was when I was a young 'oman, which wasn't yesterday.

And you'll hardly remember that, sir?"

"No," answered Lyon, hurrying her into the carriage and hastily clapping to the door.

The turnkey on duty that night went with the carriage to unbar the outer gate for it to pa.s.s. Notwithstanding his large umbrella he came back drenched with rain.

"Good Lord! an't it comin' down? Another Noah's flood! Bird Creek is boiling like a pot. It is all up in a white foam! so white that you can see it through the darkness; and listen! you can hear it from here!"

said the turnkey as he entered the hall, shook himself, making a rain shower around him, and proceeded to bar the entrance again.

"You won't want this door opened again to-night, will you, Doctor?"

inquired the man, rather impatiently, of the physician, who had stepped to the door.