 | CHAPTER XV. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
To find thee in this pale society
Of ghosts so soon.
The Brothers.
Though little of a physician, I yet saw that something
must be done for her relief instantly, in this almost
complete suspension of her powers, or she must
perish; and procuring a lancet which was fortunately
in the house, made an opening in one of her arms.
The results were hardly satisfactory. A few drops
of jellied and almost black blood, oozed from the
opening, and had no visible effect upon her situation.
I opened a vein in the other arm but with little better
success. Warm fomentation and friction were next
resorted to, but to no advantage; and, leaving the patient
to the charge of the mother, I mounted my
horse and rode with all speed to the nearest physician—a
man named Hodges, an ignorant, stupid fellow,
but the best, which, at this time, our neighborhood
could afford. He was one of those accommodating
asses, who have the one merit at least, if they
one; and gladly, at all times, would he prefer
taking the opinion of another to the task of making,
or the responsibility of giving, one of his own. I
have heard him ask an old lady if she had jalap and
calomel in the house; and when she replied that she
had not, but she “had some cream of tartar,” answer
“that will do ma'am,” and give the one medicine
in lieu of the other. There was little to be
looked for at the hands of such a creature; but what
were we to do? I had already exhausted all my little
stock of information on such subjects; and ignorance,
in a time of emergency, is compelled to turn, even
to licensed stupidity, for the relief which it cannot
find itself.
Dr. Hodges came and did nothing. He re-opened
the veins without advantage, repeated the warm
water fomentations, took an extra chew of tobacco,
shook his empty head and remained silent. I ventured
a suggestion of the merits of which I had
only a partial guess.
“Would not a blister to the head help her, Doctor?”
“I think it would, Mr. Hurdis—I think you had
better try it.”
Cursing the oaf in the bitterness of my heart, I
went to work, with the help of the old lady, and we
prepared a blister. When it was ready, we proceeded
raven hair, the glistening loveliness of which we
could not but admire, even while we consigned it
to destruction. But we were not suffered to proceed
in this work. Ere the scissors had swept
away one shred, the unhappy maiden awakened
from her stupor; but she awakened not to any mental
consciousness. She was mad—raving mad; and
with the strength of madness she rushed from the
couch where she was lying and flew at her mother
like a tigress. I was fortunately nigh enough to interfere,
and save the old lady from her assaults, or
the effects might have been seriously hurtful. I
clasped her in my arms and held her, though with
some difficulty. Her strength was prodigious under
the terrible excitement which raged in her bosom,
and, though rather a strong man, I found that
I dared not relax for a single instant in my hold, or
she became free. Yet she complained not that I
held her. She uttered no word whatsoever. She
knew nothing—she spoke to none. Sometimes, a
slight moaning sound escaped her lips, but she had
no other form of language. Her eyes were fixed
and fiery; yet they never seemed to look upon
any one of us. I observed that they seemed instinctively
to avoid the light, and that they shone
with a less angry lustre when turned towards the
darker sections of the apartment, and from the windows.
her curtains and exclude as much of the light as
possible—this done, it seemed to relieve the intensity
of her stare and action. But she was as little disposed
to be quiet as before. The moment I yielded
in my grasp, that moment did she make new
exertions to escape; and when she failed in her object,
that same slight moaning, perhaps, once or twice
repeated, was all the acknowledgment given by
her lips to the annoyance which the constraint evidently
put upon her. In the mean time, what a terrible
loveliness shone in her countenance and form.
The pythoness, swelling with the voluminous fires
of the god, were but a poor comparison to the divinity
of desolation, such as she appeared at that moment
to my eyes. Her long black tresses which we
had let loose in order to cut, were thrown all around
her own neck, and partially over my shoulders as I
held her. Her eyes were shooting out from their
spheres—the whites barely perceptible as the dilating
orbs seemed to occupy entirely the dry and fiery
cells, from which they yet threatened momently to
dart. Purple lines and blotches gleamed out upon, and
as suddenly disappeared from, her face—the consequence,
probably, of her restraint, and the violent exertions
which she made to get herself free from it; and
her teeth and lips were set as resolutely as if death's
last spasm had been already undergone. If they
heart piercing moan—so faint—so low—yet so
thrilling, that it seemed to indicate at every utterance
the breaking of some vital string. In this
way she continued full two hours without intermitting
her struggles. My arms had grown weary of
the rigid grasp which I had been compelled to keep
upon her, and sheer exhaustion must have soon compelled
me to relax my hold. But, by this time,
she, too, had become exhausted—her efforts grew
fainter, though the insane direction of her mind was
not a whit changed. Gradually, I felt her weight
increase upon me, and her own exertions almost entirely
cease; and I thought at length that I might
safely return her to the couch. It was with some
difficulty that I did so, for her poor mother—miserable
and infirm, not to say terrified—could give
me no help; and the doctor, no less terrified than
she, had hurried off, on the first exhibition of the
maiden's fury, to procure her, as he promised, some
medicine which was to be potential for every thing.
But the doctor knew not the disease of his patient.
With all his “parmaceti” he could do nothing for that
“inward bruise,” which was mortifying at her heart.
When fairly placed in the bed, I found it still
somewhat difficult to keep her there; and in order
to avoid giving her pain which the grasp of my hand
might do, I contrived to fold the bed clothes in such
but to enable us, by sitting upon either side,
to keep her down. An old negro servant was called
in to assist in this duty, and with the mother's aid,
I was partially relieved. With a few struggles more,
her eyes gradually closed, and her limbs seemed to
relax in sleep. An occasional moan from her lips
alone told us that she suffered still; and a sudden
opening and flashing of her eye at other moments,
still served to convince us that her show of sleep
was deceptive. She slept not, and we were compelled
to be watchful still.
While she remained in this situation our doctor
returned to my great surprise, bringing with him a
score of bottles with one nostrum or another. He
seemed a little more confident now in what he should
do, having, most probably during his absence, consulted
some book of authority in the circle of his limited
reading. Thus prepared, he compounded a dose
from some two or three bottles, one of which—assafœtida—soon
declared its quality to our nostrils,
and left no hope to Doctor Hodges of making a medical
mystery—a practice so common among small
practitioners—of the agent by which he was to work
the salvation of the patient. I had no great hope of
the potion which he brought, for I had no great
faith in the doctor, but I readily took the wine-glass
in which he compounded it, and addressed myself
of the poor sufferer. It was an arduous task, indeed!
Her teeth were riveted together, and she seemed to
have just sense enough to close them more tenaciously
in defiance to our prayer that she might open
them. Here was a difficulty; but as Hodges insisted
upon the vital importance of the dose, cruel as
the operation seemed, I determined to do all that I
could to make her take it. In our efforts we were
at length forced to pry her teeth apart with our fingers,
and to force the glass between them. It was
an error to have used the wineglass in such a situation;
and the reflection of a single instant would
have taught us to transfer the medicine to a spoon.
We were taught this lesson by an incident of startling
terror; for no sooner had we put the edge of the
glass between her divided teeth, than they closed
upon it crunching it into the minutest fragments.
Fortunately, I was prompt enough to prevent the
worst consequences of this act. I dropped the fragment
of the glass which remained in my hands, and
grasped her instantly by the throat. I grasped her almost
as tightly as I should have done a mortal
foe. It was a desperate resort for a desperate situation.
I nearly strangled her, but it was the only
thing that could have saved her from swallowing
the broken particles. With my fingers, while the
jaws were stretched apart, I drew out the bits of
cutting her mouth and gums in a shocking manner.
The blood ran from her mouth, and over the side
of her pallid face, staining its purity; and her tongue,
bleeding also the while, hung over the lips, and yet
she seemed to feel none of the pain. No cry escaped
her—no struggle was made—and the occasional
moan which now and then continued to escape her,
was the acknowledgment of a greater agony than
any for which we labored to provide remedies.
Dr. Hodges persevered in his physic, but we
might as well have spared the poor girl the pain of
forcing it down her throat, for it did no good. Her
madness, it is true, was no longer hysterical; but this
change was probably quite as much the result of exhaustion
as of the medicine we gave her. She
seemed conscious of none of our labors. Yet she
studiously kept her eyes from the spectator, and
fixed them upon the darkest part of the wall of
her chamber. Her grief was speechles in all other
respects; she seemed not to hear, and she answered
none of our inquiries. In hope to arouse and
provoke her consciousness, I even ventured to
speak to her of her lover, and the cruel fate which
had befallen him. I named to her the bitter words
of death which I had shrunk before to utter. But
the ear seemed utterly obtuse. She moved neither
limb nor muscle, and the stupor of complete mental
Thus she continued throughout that day. Night
came on, and yet there was no change. It was a
dismal night to me. I sat up with her and watched
her with a degree of nervous irritation and anxiety
which led me to fear, at moments, that I might fall
into some condition of insanity like that I witnessed.
The poor old mother strove to sleep, but she could
not subdue the nature within her; and that raised
her every moment to look into the face of her child,
whose unconscious eyes were yet bright and unblessed
by sleep. Besides these, there were no interruptions
to the general silence of the night, unless
that slight and now scarcely sensible moan,
which continued at intervals to escape the lips of
the sufferer, might be called one. Day dawned upon
us, and found her still in the same condition. We
gave her the prescribed physic, but I felt while pouring
it down her throat that our labors were as cruel
as they were idle. We administered the little nourishment
which she took, in the same manner—
by violence. She craved nothing—she asked for
nothing—and what we gave her brought no nourishment
in consequence. The day and night passed
in the same manner with the preceding. I snatched
a few hours of sleep during the day, and this enabled
me again to sit up with her the night following. But
there were other watchers beside myself around her
terrible picture of affliction present in my eyes, there
were other thoughts and feelings of a far differing
character, mingling among them, and operating
upon my mind. Mary Easterby sat by the bed-side
of the invalid, and our eyes and hands met more
than once during the night, which to me, though
not less painful, was far less wearisome, than that
which I had passed before. Such is the nature of
man. We foster our petty affections even at the
grave of our friend's sweetest hopes. Our plans and
promises for self, desert us no where—they mingle
in with our holiest emotions—they pile the dust of
earth upon the very altars of heaven. Perhaps, it is
only right that such should be the case. Our nature
while on earth must be, to a certain extent, earthy.
It may be, too, that our pride undergoes some restraint
when it discovers that base necessities and
narrow aims clog the loftiest wing, and dazzle the
most eagle-eyed of the soaring spirits among men.
But why linger upon a painful narrative like this?
Why record throbs and agonies? I will hasten to a
conclusion which the reader may readily anticipate.
Katharine Walker died. In three days more she
was silent forever! Her hopes, her fears, her pangs
—all were silent—all buried. Five days did she
live in this state of suspended consciousness—taking
no nourishment save that which we poured down
proved her less able to oppose us in our labors of
doubtful kindness. She sank just after that last paroxysm
in which she crushed the brittle glass between
her teeth. Our man of art had exhausted his
slender resources of skill, and with a modesty that
did not shake a confident head of power to the last
moment, he soon declared his inability to help her
more. But we needed not his words to give us
painful assurance to this effect. We saw it with our
own eyes, while looking into the fast glazing orbs
of hers. We knew, from every symptom, that she
must die. Perhaps it was as well—what should she
live for?
It was on the sixth day after her attack, when her
powers had been so far exhausted that it became
somewhat doubtful at moments whether she breathed
or not, and when, up to that time she had given no
sort of heed to any of the circumstances going on
around her, that she suddenly started, as if out of a
deep sleep, and turned her sad but still bright eyes,
now full of divine intelligence, upon me. There
was “speculation” in their orbs once more. The
consecrating mind had returned to its dwelling
though it were only to set all in order, and then dispose
of it forever. I bent forward as I saw the glance
which she gave me, and breathlessly asked her how
she felt.
“Quite well,” she answered in a scarcely perceptible
whisper—“quite well, Richard; but it is so
dark. Do put aside that curtain, if you please. Mother
has shut every thing up. I don't know whether
it's day light or not.”
I rose and put aside the curtain; and the waiting
sunlight, the broken but bright beams that he
sprinkled through the leaves, came bounding into
the chamber. Her eyes brightened as if with a natural
sympathy, when she beheld them. She made
an effort to raise herself in the bed, but sunk back
with an expression of pain, which slightly impressed
itself upon her countenance, even as a breath
passes over the mirror giving a momentary stain to
its purity. It was one breath of the approaching
tyrant—to her the consoler. Seeing that she desired
to be raised, I lifted, and sustained her head
upon my bosom. Her mother asked her if she felt
better.
“Well, quite well,” was her answer. A minute
did not elapse after that, when I felt a slight shiver
pass over her frame, which then remained motionless.
Her breathing was suspended. I let her head
sink back gradually upon the pillow, and looking
in her face, I saw that her pure, yet troubled spirit,
had departed forever. My watching was ended.
| CHAPTER XV. Richard Hurdis, or, The avenger of blood : a tale of Alabama | |