CHAPTER VIII

In the Hospital

BERT was not likely to die. His worst injury was a broken rib, and that having been skilfully set, he was likely to do well. He did not suffer acute pain; yet the boy was miserable enough as he lay on his little bed in the hospital ward. He was enduring pangs which he could not describe, and which the best of nurses could not have relieved.

Shakespeare pronounced it "sharper than a serpent's tooth" to have a thankless child, and the sting of the ingratitude that sins against love is under all circumstances hard to bear. Bert could not have put his feelings into words, but his heart ached at the remembrance of how Prin had turned from him. It seemed cruel of her, for she must have known how he had suffered from loneliness and heartache since she went away.

"I could never have treated her so," Bert said to himself; "no, not if I had become the greatest swell that ever was."

It appeared that the Princess had risen in the world. How came she to be driving in that grand carriage with those smartly-dressed children? Had she left Hampshire for good?

"Oh, she might have written and told me," groaned Bert; "and to-day I meant to go down there to see her!"

The boy grew restless and feverish under the strain of his mental trouble. Mr. Corney, who had been greatly distressed to see him borne off to the hospital, and quite at a loss to understand how the accident had happened, had quickly followed him thither, and he came again and again to see him. But he, kind though he was, could not enter into Bert's state of mind. He was convinced that the boy was under a delusion regarding his sister. It was not really Prin, but some one very like her whom he had seen. Bert shook his head, and pressed his lips firmly together at the suggestion.

"It was Prin, and she saw me," he said; and it was impossible to persuade him otherwise.

In vain, Mr. Corney tried to argue with him.

"Don't you remember that I saw some one very like my sister?" he asked. "And yet it was not my sister."

"It may have been," said Bert. "You have not seen her for a long time; she may have altered."

"Oh no; it is impossible that that could have been my sister. Priscilla was a most respectable woman, and that poor woman looked like a person who drank. Besides, you said you knew her. You called her Mrs. Kay."

"Oh yes, I forgot. Of course it was Mrs. Kay," said Bert. But he was no less convinced that he had seen Prin.

"People do change, though," he remarked, somewhat irrelevantly. "I never could have believed that Prin would have looked on me and turned away like that."

"Ay," said old Corney, "it was not like a sister, and that's what makes me think you must be mistaken. Well, there's one Friend will never treat you like that, Bert," and he began to sing softly his favourite hymn,—

"'I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!'"

"Wouldn't He be ashamed of a ragged little chap like me?" asked Bert wistfully.

The old sailor's face brightened with a beaming smile as he shook his head and said,—

"Not He. Neither our rags nor our sins can separate us from the love of Christ. He is not ashamed to call us His brothers."

The thought dropped like balm on Bert's wounded spirit. Long after Mr. Corney had gone, the refrain of his hymn,—

"'I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend!'"

Rang on in Bert's heart. That night, for the first time since his accident, he enjoyed sound, refreshing sleep.

After that, his condition daily improved. When he had been a fortnight in the hospital, he was allowed to sit up, and soon he was able to move about the ward. One day he received a great surprise. Some changes were being made in the arrangement of the beds, and there was wheeled into the ward from an adjoining one a woman who looked very ill, though she evidently belonged to the class of convalescents. Turning to look at her as she went by, Bert recognised, to his astonishment, Mrs. Kay. He watched while the nurse placed her in an easy chair and arranged her pillows comfortably; then, when she was left alone, he walked across the ward and stood beside her.

"Why, Mrs. Kay," he said, "I did not know that you was here."

She started nervously at the sound of his voice, for she was very weak, and when she spoke her words were not gracious.

"Goodness me, boy! No more did I know that you was here; but that's no reason why you should startle me so. I've been very ill, and the least thing goes through me."

"I've been ill, too," said Bert, with some importance. "I met with an accident on Jubilee Day, and they brought me in here."

"Why, I was taken ill at the Jubilee, too," said Mrs. Kay; "I had a kind of a fit, and they could not bring me round, so I was carried to the hospital. I've been awfully bad in my head since; but I'm better now, though I don't feel good for much. No more Jubilees for me. It was the heat and the squeezing that did it."

But as she spoke Mrs. Kay knew well that it was not the heat alone that had caused her illness. Her intemperate habits were accountable for it. One of the medical men had told her this very plainly, and had, moreover, warned her that if she did not give up the drink, her life would soon come to an end. And Mrs. Kay was very depressed and miserable. She shrank from the thought of illness and death, yet she felt powerless to resist the wretched craving, which even now possessed her, for the stimulant in which she had so long indulged.

"You look very bad," said Bert sympathetically; "are you really better?"

"Oh, I suppose so," she said, with a heavy sigh. "They're going to send me home in a day or two."

"Where's your home?" asked Bert.

"That's no business of yours," said she sharply; "it's not much of a home, I'm thinking, for there's no one in it to care whether I die or live."

"Your husband's dead, isn't he?" said Bert.

"Yes, he died many years ago. He was a ship's carpenter at Liverpool. Ah, if you'd seen the home I had when I married—but there! Don't let me think of that. I'm low enough now; but I was once in very different circumstances."

"Did you ever have a brother?" asked Bert, who seemed to be in the mood for asking questions.

"Yes, I'd a brother once, but he turned out a good-for-nothing fellow. He ran away to sea, and broke my mother's heart. Then the ship he was on board of went down, and he with her, and I thought to myself that it was good riddance of bad rubbish; but now—now—I don't know—"

Mrs. Kay's voice faltered; in vain she tried to steady it; then to Bert's consternation her head sank forward on her hands, and she sobbed aloud.

"Oh, Mrs. Kay, what is the matter?" he asked.

"Nothing," she sobbed, "only I'm thinking there wouldn't be much to choose between us now. I never meant to be bad, but things were so against me. My husband died, and my two little children died, and I was left all alone, with no one to care what I did, and so I became what I am."

"There was some One who cared, I suppose," said Bert softly.

But if Mrs. Kay heard his words, she did not understand them. She was ignorant of the love of Jesus, although she could have answered any question as to the doctrines of Christianity. To her Jesus was only a Name, the chief factor in a formula, and her very knowledge of the truth concerning Him seemed to close her heart against Him.

"Mrs. Kay," said Bert, whose love of asking questions was not to be checked, "did you ever know any one of the name of Priscilla?"

"Priscilla!" she exclaimed in astonishment, "why that's my own name! Priscilla Grant I was before I married. Whatever made you think of that?"

Bert did not explain what had caused him to ask the question. Indeed, he was too much surprised at her reply to find anything to say. Such an extraordinary idea had come into his head. What if Mrs. Kay were Mr. Corney's sister after all! Suppose she were his sister, and he had not known her!

Bert fervently hoped that Mr. Corney would come in ere Mrs. Kay was taken back to her own ward. But the thing he so much wished did not come to pass. Contrary to his expectation, the old sailor did not appear that afternoon, and Bert feared that ere the next "visitors' day," Mrs. Kay would have left the hospital.

It was so. Two days later she came into his ward to bid him good-bye. She looked wretchedly ill and tremulous. Indeed, she declared that she felt "all of a shake," and far more fit to be in bed than to be going abroad.

"But they say that I'm better, and shall get on, all right now, if I'm careful, so I suppose it must be so; but I can't help wishing I'd died, for I'm sure my life isn't worth living."

And remembering what he had seen of her life when they had lived under the same roof, Bert was inclined to agree with her; but he was very sorry for her, nevertheless, and would have said something to cheer her if he could. Nothing occurred to him, however, except to say, "Don't talk that way, Mrs. Kay. You'll feel better when you get home. I'll come and see you when I get out of the hospital, if you'll let me."

But she shook her head at the suggestion, and though she bade Bert good-bye with more kindness of manner then she often displayed, she departed without telling him where she lived.

On the following afternoon, the ward was full of visitors, and Bert looked for his friend, Mr. Corney, to make his appearance, but for a while he was disappointed. In despair, he was beginning to persuade himself that his friend must be ill, when, almost at the expiration of the visitors' time, the old sailor appeared at the door of the ward.

Bert uttered an exclamation of joy as he caught sight of him; but as his friend drew nearer, the boy's feelings changed. For something had evidently gone wrong with Mr. Corney. He did not look like himself. His cheerful, beaming expression was gone.

He looked pale and worn and heavy-hearted. His very walk was different. He had passed for an old man before, but a brisk and sprightly one. Now, however, he seemed aged, and bowed by some infirmity, mental or physical.

"Why, Mr. Corney!" exclaimed Bert. "What is the matter? Are you ill?"

"No, no, boy, I'm all right. There is nothing the matter with me. I've had a shock, that is all. How are you?"

"Oh, I am getting on very well. I still have to wear the bandages, you see. When they are taken off, I shall be allowed to go away; but I don't want to go. I like being here."

"Yes, yes," said the old man mournfully, "you might be in a worse place. There are many worse places in the world than this."

"I know there are," said Bert; "but, Mr. Corney, I wish you would tell me what is the matter. I am sure you are in trouble."

"So I am, Bert, so I am," said the old man, shaking his head; "there's no denying it; but it won't make it better to talk of it."

But Bert could not be satisfied without knowing his friend's trouble, and it may be that Mr. Corney was secretly longing for sympathy, for the boy soon won his confidence.

"Bert," he said, "I've found my sister; but I've found her in such a way that I could almost wish I had not found her. But God forbid that I should say that! No, let me rather thank God that I have found her; but it's a bitter disappointment, an awful grief, to find her such an one as she is."

"How did you find her, Mr. Corney?" asked Bert, after a pause so long that he feared the old man was not going to tell him any more.

"Oh," groaned Mr. Corney, "it's a shame even to speak of it! But it was like this. It was very hot last evening, and I went out for a bit of a stroll. I had got into one of the bigger streets, when I saw a crowd at a corner near a public-house. I went across to see what had happened, and there was a woman leaning against the railings—drunk. I never can bear to see a drunken woman. It's bad enough for a man to get drunk; but for a woman, it's an awful fall. Well, when I came to look at her, this was the very woman I saw on Jubilee Day—the one that was taken away on a stretcher, you know."

"Yes—Mrs. Kay," said Bert, full of interest, as he saw what was coming.

"Ay, that was what you called her—her name is really Mackay. I thought her like my sister then; but oh! The horror of it! She is my sister—my sister, Priscilla Mackay, whom I left seventeen years ago, a respectable, well-living woman, the wife of a good Christian man. Oh, I can't tell you what a woman Pris was—a clean, clever housewife—a wee bit pernicketty in her ways, and somewhat sharp of her tongue; but one who was respected by her neighbours, and went to church twice every Sabbath, and was a pattern mother to her two wee bairns. She was ashamed enough of me; she shook me off as a disgrace; and I never meant to go near her again, till the Lord changed my heart. And, strangely enough, intoxicated though she was, she knew me before I knew her, and she cried out to me, calling me by my name. And what do you think she said?

"'Ah, Corney,' she cried, 'it's my turn now. I'm the one that's going to the bad. The Bible says that the first shall be last, and that's how it is with me.'"

"I am not surprised," said Bert; "I began to think that Mrs. Kay was your sister."

"Ah, you don't understand. Even now it seems impossible that it can be so—that Pris can have come to that."

"It's just the drink that has done it," said Bert, speaking with a wisdom beyond his years, born of painful experience. "There's nothing like drink for dragging people down. It brought my father to his grave."

"Say, rather, it is sin," said old Corney. "Sin of any kind means ruin, sorrow, death. I see that now as I never did before."

"Who made sin?" asked Bert. "Was it the devil?"

"Nay, it was rather sin that made the devil; at least, I remember hearing a preacher in Scotland say that it was nothing but sin that made the devil a devil."

Bert was silent for a few moments, his thoughts being such as could not readily find expression.

"Where is Mrs. Kay now, Mr. Corney?" he asked presently.

"At home with me," he said; "I've hired a room for her in the same house. Her own poor things had been sold for the rent while she was in the hospital. Ah, poor soul! Poor soul!"

"Then you love her still?" said Bert.

"Still!" repeated Mr. Corney. "Why, I love her more than ever I did before. How can I help it, when I see her so miserable? And was not I just such a sinner myself, and did not Jesus love me and save me? And He can save her. But I must be going. It is not well to leave her long alone."

And Mr. Corney went away, leaving Bert with his heart full of a new, strange wonder and pain. Long after Mr. Corney had gone, Bert mused over the sad story he had told. He thought of it in the quiet of midnight, when most of the patients were asleep in the dimly-lighted ward, and no sound broke the stillness save an occasional groan from some sleepless sufferer, or the light movements of the nurse as she ministered to the same.

Grave thoughts were in the boy's mind at that hour, thoughts which gradually quickened into dread. His heart turned to Prin, with a sorrowful longing in which there was now no resentment. He was ashamed that he had felt so bitterly towards her. His thoughts grew more and more oppressive. The dark side of life presented itself to his imagination, and he could not shake off the horror of it. He remembered his father's prayer, and the meaning of it was clear now. Suddenly he sat up in bed, and, with clasped hands, breathed forth in a fervent whisper the words:—

"O God, deliver me from evil—and Prin too—for Jesus' sake!"