"I daresay, my man," said the surgeon sadly, "and so we all have; and I fear that when the day comes upon which we are called away, we shall have as much to do as ever."

"But I'm so much better now; all but my head, sir, and I can't quite think as I used to. Things bother me, and when I want to remember one particular matter, I get confused."

"We shall put you all right this time, my man, and then start you off to make room for someone else. We don't want a parcel of great lazy fellows here, fattening on our wine and jelly."

Old Matt smiled grimly as he said: "I say, sir, is it really necessary?"

"Why, of course, my man. We did you a great deal of good last time, did we not?"

"Ye-e-e-s, yes," said Matt; "you did, certainly, sir; but is it necessary that my poor old carca.s.s should be touched again? It ain't for the sake of experiment now, is it, sir? I'm afraid, you know, you'll kill me; and, just for the sake of being fair, as you've had one turn at me, wouldn't it be better to try it on someone else--on some other subject?" And "O, dear!" thought the old man to himself, "what a difference between a Queen's subject and a doctor's subject!"

"Pooh, nonsense, old friend!" said the surgeon, laughing; "we'll make a man of you again; so cheer up, or you'll be working your nerves too much. Why, you've picked up wonderfully this last day or two."

"What's the use of picking up, sir, if you get knocking me down again, eh, sir?"

The surgeon smiled and continued his round, and old Matt sat and grumbled by his bedside, for he was now up, and able to walk about the ward.

"Now let's see," muttered the old man. "I always did fancy, and it always seems so, that the more you try to think straightforward of a thing, the more it bothers you; so let's try and get round to it back-way, if I can. Well, here goes. Now here's Mr Septimus Hardon--a man--well, not clever, but what of that? I hate your clever men; they've no room to be amiable, or time to be generous. He's a good one, and that's sufficient. Well, he's kept, say, for sake of argument, out of his rights by his rogue of an uncle. Now he proves his baptism and his father's marriage, and then he wants to prove the date of his birth to have been after the marriage. Easy enough that seems; but how to do it when t'other party has took possession, and declares all the other way. Doctor's books will do it, failing any other means; and as we do fail other means, why we want the doctor's books. I tell you what it is; I believe we have both bungled the matter from beginning to end, and ought to have gone to a good lawyer. But there, what's the good of talking? We had no money, and people without money always bungle things. Now where's the doctor's books, or the doctor? Doctor's dead-- safe; but then are his books dead--cut up--burnt? That's the question.

I say no, because I'm sure I saw that entry somewhere; and here's the nuisance. When I was situated so that it would have been almost a blessing to be shut up here in hospital, I wasn't ill; now I want all my energies, I'm chained by the leg. I'd give up bothering about the thing, but I'm sure I read it somewhere, and I'm sure, too, I recollected once where it was; and it was while I was so bad," he said, pulling out his tattered memorandum-book, and referring to the hieroglyphics it contained. "No," he said, after a long inspection; "I have read a good deal, and taken some copy in my time, but I never thought I should live to write stuff I couldn't read myself. There, it's of no use; it'll come some day." And he closed his eyes, and leaned his head upon his hand; for his brain seemed weary and restless with his long and painful illness.

A morning or two after, the old man was again seated at his bedside, trying to amuse himself with a book; but with little success, for his eyes were weak.

"I shall let well alone," growled the old man; "and if they want to operate, they may cut and carve someone else. I shall do for the few years I have to live; but they might find a poor fellow a sc.r.a.p of snuff, hang 'em!"

"Here, you Number 19, into bed with you directly!"

"Why, I'm only just up," grumbled Matt, who was the said number.

"Never mind, old fellow," said the speaker; "be smart, for they will be after you directly."

Old Matt shivered and trembled, and his lips moved as he slowly returned to his bed, and there lay waiting. He had almost determined to be content, and bear his burden to the grave; for, said he, "I can't live much longer." But then he thought of the wondrous skill and care of those in whose hands he would be, and of the rest that would afterwards be his were his life spared.

"I won't turn coward now," he muttered, letting his eyes rest upon some flowers in a window near his bed, and gazing at them in a strange earnest way,--"No, I won't turn coward, not even if they kill me. But that's hard to think of, that is. Mine has been a rough life, and I've put up with a deal; but I never tired of it--not to say thoroughly tired of it, though I've been very near more than once; and I should like to keep grinding on for a long time yet. Life's sweet, somehow, when you've got friends, and I seem to have found 'em at last. I should have liked to have helped him out with that entry, though. Where did I see it?"

The old man paused thoughtfully, and kept pa.s.sing his hand across his dew-wet forehead; but the memory was still defective, and he sighed wearily: "Why didn't I begin sooner, or make him begin? Ah, that's it-- that's it! why don't we begin hundreds of things sooner, and not leave them till it's too late!"

The old man paused again, and his lean, bony fingers clutched and clawed restlessly to get at the flowers. But his old train of thought now seemed to have returned, for he continued: "Don't often see anything about hospital operations, but I have had copy about them--`Death from the Administration of Chloroform.' What an ugly word that first is, and what a shiver it seems to give one when we think of it in connection with ourselves, though it seems so little when it has to do with anyone else! Wonder whether any of the old 'stab or piece hands would get hold of it to set, and feel sorry for the battered old stamp they used to laugh at, and whether it would get into the papers if I was to--"

The old man stopped once more, and wiped the dew from his wet forehead.

"Well, well," he said half-aloud, "what is to be will be. G.o.d help me well through it all, for I'm a miserable coward; and if it's to be the end of old Matt, why, I don't think I've been so very bad, and--there, hang it!" he whined, "they might have left me a pinch of snuff. Here, I say, though," he cried, rousing up, "this won't do. I'm on the wrong folio, and shall have to re-set."

"I wonder whether it's hard to die?" he muttered, after another pause.

"Don't seem as if it was, for they look almost as if they were asleep, and wanting to be woke up again. One must go sometime or another; but it would have been happier like to have had hold of someone's hand, and seen two or three faces round one's bed, faces of people sorry I was going--going. There, there," he gasped, "I can't stand it. They sha'n't touch me. It's like running headlong into one's grave. They sha'n't touch me, for I must live and find out about the doctor, for that poor helpless fellow in the Rents; or he'll never do it himself.

They sha'n't touch me, for I am nearly clear now, and I can grub on as I am; while, if my chronics kill me in time, why they do, and there's an end of it. They sha'n't--"

"Now, Number 19," said a voice, and to his dismay poor old Matt saw a couple of porters enter the ward with a stretcher.

The old man moaned and closed his eyes, muttering the whole while as he resigned himself, meekly as a child and without a word of opposition, to the men, who tenderly lifted him upon their portable couch, and then bore him along the whitewashed pa.s.sages, whose walls seemed so familiar to him, and struck him as being so particularly white and clean--white as were ceiling and floor. He only saw one cobweb, and that was out of reach in a far corner; and in his nervous state this greatly attracted his attention, so that he could fancy the large spider grinned at him as if he were a larger kind of fly in the trammels of a net. He felt that he should have liked for the men to set down the stretcher and remove that cobweb, but he stifled the desire to speak. Then he noticed how strangely the hair of his foremost bearer grew, and this, too, troubled him: there were no short hairs on the poll, and for some distance up the back of his neck was a barren land. Then he fell to studying the man's coat-b.u.t.tons, the depth of his collar, and how easily he tramped along with the handles of the portable couch, whose motion was so easy with the light, regular, springy pace of the man; while the dread of what was impending seemed quite to have pa.s.sed away, and he began, now the peril was so near, to think of himself as though he were someone else in whom he took an interest; and then came a very important question:

How would they bring him back?

Would he be lighter with the loss of blood, and would he be gradually stiffening, and growing colder and colder, till the icy temperature of death pervaded him through and through? And then, too, what would they do with him? He had no relations--no one to come and claim his body.

And even this thought seemed to trouble him but little, for he smiled grimly, muttering to himself:

"Cause of science, sir, cause of science; and besides, it won't matter then."

On still, with a light swinging motion and an easy tread, the porters bore their load, and in the minute or two the removal occupied old Matt thought of the last time he had made that journey, and his sensations then: how that he had looked upon it all as a dream, and felt that he should soon wake up to find himself in bed. But the old man's musings ceased as he was borne into the theatre, save for an instant when the thought flashed across his mind, Suppose he died without seeing the entry? and this troubled him for a few moments; but directly after he was gazing up with anxious eye at the tier upon tier of benches, some crowded, some nearly empty, and looking from face to face; but there seemed not one that sympathised with him, as, after a glance when he was first borne in, a quiet light, chatty conversation was carried on in an undertone. Then there was almost perfect silence, and the old man felt himself to be the centre upon which every eye was fixed. His heart told him now that in the low-murmured buzz of conversation that rose, students who had again and again stood at his bedside were discussing his case, and that if the operation were unsuccessful or unskilfully performed, they would merely say that the patient did not rally, and then go home or to their studies, regardless of the little gap left in the ranks of life; while Septimus Hardon would probably never succeed in his endeavours to recover his lost position.

Then he half-smiled as he thought of the importance with which he rated himself, and looked eagerly round. Close by he could see the earnest, study-lined faces of several older men, many of them grey-haired and thoughtful-eyed--men of eminence in their profession, but strongly imbued with the belief of the man of wisdom, that we are ever but learners. Then he looked straight above, even at the skylight, where he could see that the sun illumined the thick ground-gla.s.s; and now once more, in a quiet musing vein, he set to wondering how it would be after the operation.

Plenty of faces round, but mostly cool, calm, and matter-of-fact. Here were the hospital dressers and a.s.sistants, standing by the table--a curious-looking table in the centre of an open s.p.a.ce; and a hasty glance showed him sponges, and water, and cloths, and lint, and mahogany cases, that at another time, if some other sufferer were to have been operated upon, would have caused him to shudder. But all that was past now, and he merely looked earnestly round till his gaze rested upon a stout grey-haired, keen-eyed man, whose black clothes and white neck-tie were spotless, and who now advanced to the table with a quiet business-like aspect, as he bowed somewhat stiffly to the a.s.sembled surgeons and students, and then spoke a few cheering words to the patient as he felt his pulse.

"I hope he won't turn nervous over it," thought Matt. "Be serious to a man in his position, with so many looking on.--Can't I have the chloroform?" he then whispered to a dresser by his side.

"Yes, of course: here he is with it," said the man; and for the second time in his life Matt gazed curiously at a polished mahogany box which was being brought forward.

"I say," whispered Matt earnestly to the man at his side, "if anyone comes afterwards--afterwards, you know, and asks for me, you'll say, `Medicine and attendance,'--there, don't laugh--it's particular--you'll say, `Medicine and attendance;' and that old Matt tried to think it out to the last. You'll do that for me?" he whispered earnestly.

The man repeated the words over, and smiled as he made the required promise.

"Tell him not to give me too much," said Matt, now with the first display of anxiety, as he glanced at the inhaling apparatus.

The time since old Matt had been brought into the theatre might be reckoned by moments; and now, in the midst of a profound stillness, the grey-haired man calmly raised his eyebrows, turned up his sleeves, and then walked a step or two from the patient, now inhaling the wondrous vapour of that simple-looking limpid fluid, whose first effect was to cause him to push away the apparatus and struggle feebly with those who administered it. But there was a strong hand upon his pulse and a pair of stern eyes watching him, and, as the mouthpiece was kept firmly against his face, old Matt gave one or two more inspirations and became insensible. Then every eye was fixed upon the calm, business-like man, whose nerves seemed of kindred material to the blades he drew from their delicate purple-velvet resting-places and quietly inspected for an instant, his eyes flashing brightly as their grey-hued blades--knives whose keen edges were formed of the finest-tempered metal that human skill and ingenuity could produce.

A breathless silence ensued, and the gay thoughtless aspect was gone from the young faces crowding the benches. Here and there an a.s.sumed cynical smile could be seen, but the effects of a strange clutching at the heart, a curious vibration of the nerves, was visible in the pallor of cheeks and fevered aspect of the onlookers of the upper seats. Two young men right at the back surrept.i.tiously drank from small flasks, and when wiping their lips paused, too, to pa.s.s their handkerchiefs over their damp foreheads, before thrusting them in their moist palms as the great surgeon--one who had climbed by slow degrees to his present eminence in the profession, and upon whose knowledge and skill now depended the life of a fellow-creature--gave his quick, sharp orders, and changed the position of one or two a.s.sistants at the operating-table, pointing, like a general preparing for battle, with the keen blade he held in his hand. Short, quick orders as he grasped the flashing steel and made ready for the fight--for the _combat a l'outrance_, with the grim, slow-crawling, dragon disease--a fight where skill and genius took the place of physical force and daring.

A painful silence, and then, while every eye was fixed upon his movements, the great surgeon gave a hasty glance round to see that all was in readiness for the time when moments were more than grains of gold, and would add their weight in one scale of the balance--life or death; but all seemed there, ready hands and the many appliances for checking the rapid flow of life's stream, and then, with almost an air of nonchalance, he stretched out his arms to secure freedom of action.

Not a whisper, not a movement, the spectators of the scene with craning necks, immovable as groups of statuary, as they gazed from their tiers of benches in this modern amphitheatre down upon the gladiatorial combat taking place, even as of old the Roman citizens may have watched some fight for life or death.

A keen bright flash of the blade in the softened light, and the surgeon thoughtfully describing an imaginary curve in the air with the point just above the insensible patient; then, with a satisfied nod, he leaned forward. There was once more a bright flash of the knife, followed by a bold, firmly-directed cut, deep and long, but clear of vital parts in the wondrous organisation. Then came the spouting gush from many a vessel as the old man's life-blood rushed from its maze; busy fingers at work, here upon arteries to stay their waste, there applying sponge; one blade changed for another, more manipulation, and orders performed after being given in a calm impressive whisper; a few more busy moments, and the throbbing flow of life arrested; rapidly-moving fingers with sponges, silk, strapping, towels; and the great surgeon softly wiping his hands, cool, calm, and unruffled.

"Very little loss, Mr Grant," to the next general in command.

"Extremely little," with a bow and a smile; "most successful operation."

"Well, well, I think so," said the great man, unbending somewhat as he arranged his cuffs and brushed off an imaginary speck of dust. He then felt the patient's pulse for a few moments, nodded with a satisfied air, said a few words to the chief of his staff, bowed once more, and by the time the hospital-dressers had finished their task and the patient was lifted back upon his portable conch, the operator was in the brougham waiting in the street.

Then came once more the murmuring buzz of voices, the reaction and the pallor tried to be laughed down, the porters, and then in a few minutes old Matt was once more in his bed and comfortably arranged before he recovered consciousness.

The house-surgeon and an a.s.sistant were beside his bed as he opened his eyes and stared vacantly about, trying to recall what had taken place.

"How sick and faint--what a nasty dream!" he muttered; "but I don't know, sir,--been as well if it had been true."

"What would?" said the surgeon, smiling.

"Why, I dreamed, sir, that--why, so it was--so it was, then," muttered the old man fervently; "thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!"