Chapter 22

THE HOSPITAL

A clean, quiet, airy room, like all the rest; like all the rest filled with rows of beds, the occupants of which had come from the stir of the fight and the bustle of the march, to lie here and be still; from doing to suffering. How much the harder work, I thought; and if it be well done, how much the nobler. And all who know the way in which our boys did it, will bear witness to their great nobleness. Patient, and strong, and brave, where there was no excitement to cheer, nor spectators to applaud; their fortitude and their patience and their generous self-devotion never failed nor faltered, when all adventitious or real helps and stimulants were withdrawn, and patriotism and bravery stood alone.

From the turn of Dr. Sandford's head, I knew on which side I might look to see Preston; and as we slowly passed up the long line of beds, I scanned breathlessly each face. Old and young, grim and fair, gentle and rough; it was a variety. And then I saw, I should hardly have known it, a pale face with a dark moustache and a thick head of dark, glossy hair, which was luxuriant yet, although it had been cropped. His eyes were closed as we came up; opened as we paused by his bed-side, and opened very wide indeed as he looked from the doctor to me.

"How do you do, this morning, Gary?" said my conductor.

"Confoundedly -" was the somewhat careless answer, made while examining my face.

"You see who has come to look after you?"

"It isn't Daisy!" he cried.

"How do you do, Preston?" I said, taking hold of the hand which lay upon the coverlid. He drew the hand hastily away, half raising himself on his elbow.

"What have you come here for?" he asked.

"I have come to take care of you."

"_You_," said Preston. "In this place! Where is mamma?"

"Aunt Gary is far away from here. She could not get to you."

"But you, you were in Switzerland."

"Not since last May."

"Lie down, Gary, and take it quietly," said Dr. Sandford, putting his hand on his shoulder. Preston scowled and submitted, without taking his eyes from my face.

"You are not glad to see me?" I asked, feeling his manner a little awkward.

"Of course not. You ought not to be in this place. What have you got on that rig for?"

"What rig?"

"That! I suppose you don't dress so at home, do you? You didn't use it. Hey? what is it for?"

"It is that I may be properly dressed. Home things would be out of place here."

"Yes; so I think," said Preston; "and you most of all. Where is Aunt Randolph?"

"You do not seem very grateful, Gary," said the doctor, who all this while stood by with an impenetrable countenance.

"Grateful - for what?"

"For your cousin's affection and kindness, which has come here to look after you."

"I am not grateful," said Preston. "I shall not have her stay."

"What has brought _you_ here, Preston?" I asked by way of diversion.

"Me? Powder. It's an infernal invention. If one could fight with steel, there would be some fun in it. But powder has no respect of persons."

"How has it hurt you?" I asked. I had somehow never chosen to put the question to Dr. Sandford; I can hardly tell why. Now it was time to know. Preston's eye fell on me with sudden gentleness.

"Daisy, go away," he said. "You have no business here. It is of all places no place for you. Go away, and don't come again."

"Dr. Sandford," said I, "will you take me with you and give me my lesson? That is the first thing. I must earn my right to the place, it seems."

The doctor looked at me in his turn; I avoided the eye of Preston. He looked at me in a way not hard to read; quite agreeing with Preston in wishing me away, but, I saw also, respecting my qualifications for the work I had come to do. I saw that he gave me a great reverence on account of it; but then, Dr. Sandford always gave me more reverence than belonged to me. I made use of this, and held my advantage. And the doctor seeing that I was calmly in earnest, even took me at my word.

We began a progress through the ward; during which every man's condition was inquired into; wounds examined and dressed; and course of treatment prescribed. I looked on at first as a mere spectator; bearing the revelation of pain and suffering with all the fortitude I could muster; but I found in a little while that it would overmaster me if I continued an idle looker-on; and putting aside the attendant nurse at last with a whisper to which she yielded, I offered myself quietly in her place to do her work. Dr. Sandford glanced at me then, but made no remark whatever; suffering me to do my pleasure, and employing me as if I had been there for a month. He began to give me directions too. It seemed a long age of feeling and experience, the time while we were passing through the ward; yet Dr. Sandford was extremely quick and quiet in his work, and lost no seconds by unnecessary delay. Even I could see that. He was kind, too; never harsh, though very firm in his authority and thorough in his business. I could not help an unconscious admiration for him growing as we went on. That steady, strong blue eye; what a thing it was for doubt and fear to rest on. I saw how doubt and fear rested. I thought I did; though the bearing of all the sufferers there was calm and self-contained to an admirable degree. It was so, I heard, with all our soldiers everywhere.

We came round, last of all, to Preston's couch again; and the doctor paused. He glanced at me again for the first time in a long while. I do not know how I trembled inwardly; outwardly, I am sure, I did not flinch. His eye went to Preston.

"Do you see, you are to have a better nurse than you deserve?" he said.

"It is disgusting!" Preston muttered.

"Some things are," answered the doctor; "not a brave woman, or a gentle man."

"Send Daisy away from this place. You know she ought not to be here; and you can forbid it."

"You overstate my power, my friend," said the doctor. "Shall we see how you are getting along to-day."

Preston's eye came to me again, silently, with reluctance and regret in it. I was touched more than I chose to show, and more than it was safe to think about."

"Does she know?" he asked.

"She does not know. Your cousin, Miss Randolph, has given one of his arms for his cherished cause."

"And one of my legs too," said Preston. "If it would do the cause any good, I would not care; but what good does it do? That's what I don't like about powder."

I had much ado to stand this communication. The work of examining and dressing Preston's wounds, however, immediately began; and in the effort to do my part, as usual, I found the best relief for overstrained nerves. I think some tears fell upon the bandages; but no word of remark was made by either physician or patient, till the whole business was concluded. Dr. Sandford then carried me off to a nice, warm, comfortable apartment, which he told me I might always hold as my own whenever I had time to be there; he seated me in a chair, and a second time poured me out a glass of wine, which he took from a cupboard.

"I do not drink it," I said, shaking my head.

"Yes, you do, - to-day."

"I never drink it," I said. "I cannot touch it, Dr. Sandford."

"You must take something. What is the matter with the wine? Is it disagreeable to you?"

"I will not help anybody else drink it," I said, looking at him and forcing a smile; for I was tired and very sick at heart.

"Nobody will know you take it."

"Not if I do not take it. They will if I do."

"Are you going upon that old childish plan of yours?" said the doctor, sitting down beside me and looking with a wistful kind of tenderness into my face. "Are you bent still upon living for other people, Daisy?"

"You know, the Master I follow did so; and His servants must be like him," I said, and I felt my smile was stronger and brighter this time. Dr. Sandford arose, summoned an attendant and sent him off for a cup of tea for me; then saw me take it.

"Now," said he, "are you fixed in the plan of devoting yourself to the care of this ungracious cousin?"

"Of him, and of others," I said.

"He does not deserve it."

"Suppose we waited to give people their deserts, Dr. Sandford?"

"Some people deserve to be allowed to take care of you," said the doctor, getting up and beginning to pace up and down the floor. "They deserve it; and find it hard work; or denied them altogether."

"You do take care of me," I said gratefully. "You always did, Dr. Sandford. You are doing it now; and I am thanking you all the time in my heart."

"Well," said he abruptly, standing still before me, - "you are one of those who are born to command; and in your case I always find I have to obey. This room you will use as you please; no one will share it with you; and you need a retiring-place for a breath of rest when you can get it. I shall see you constantly, as I am going out and in; and anything you want you will tell me. But you will not like it, Daisy. You can stand the sight of blood, like other women, whose tenderness makes them strong; but you will not like some other things. You will not like the way you will have to take your meals in this place."

I had finished my cup of tea, and now stood up to let the doctor take me back to my place beside Preston; which he did without any more words. And there he left me; and I sat down to consider my work and my surroundings. My cousin had forgotten his impatience in sleep; and there was a sort of lull in the business of the ward at that hour.

I found in a few minutes that it was a great comfort to me to be there. Not since papa's death, had so peaceful a sense of full hands and earnest living crept into my heart. My thoughts flew once or twice to Mr. Thorold, but I called them back as soon; I could not bear that; while at the same time I felt I was nearer to him here than anywhere else. And my thoughts were very soon called effectually home from my own special concerns, by seeing that the tenant of one of the neighbouring beds was restless and suffering from fever. A strong, fine- looking man, flushed and nervous on a fever bed, in helpless inactivity, with the contrast of life energies all at work and effectively used only a little while ago, in the camp and the battlefield. Now lying here. His fever proceeded from his wounds, I knew, for I had seen them dressed. I went to him and laid my hand on his forehead. I wonder what and how much there can be in the touch of a hand. It quieted him, like a charm; and after a while, a fan and a word or two now and then were enough for his comfort. I did not seem to be Daisy Randolph; I was just - the hospital nurse; and my use was to minister; and the joy of ministering was very great.

From my fever patient I was called to others, who wanted many various things; it was a good while before I got round to Preston again. Meanwhile, I was secretly glad to find out that I was gaining fast ground in the heart of the other nurse of the ward, who had at first looked upon me with great doubt and mistrust on account of my age and appearance. She was a clever, energetic New England woman; efficient and helpful as it was possible to be; thin and wiry, but quiet, and full of sense and kindliness. With a consciousness of her growing favour upon me, I came at last to Preston's bedside again. He looked anything but amicable.

"Where is Aunt Randolph?" were his first words, uttered with very much the manner of a growl. I replied that I had left her in New York.

"I shall write to her," said Preston. "How came she to do such an absurd thing as to let you come here? and whom did you come with? Did you come alone?"

"Not at all. I came with proper company."

"Proper company wouldn't have brought you," Preston growled.

"I think you want something to eat, Preston," I said. "You will feel better when you have had some refreshment."

It was just the time for a meal and I saw the supplies coming in. And Preston's refreshment, as well as that of some others, I attended to myself. I think he found it pleasant; for although some growls waited upon me even in the course of my ministering to him, I heard from that time no more remonstrances; and I am sure Preston never wrote his letter. A testimonial of a different sort was conveyed in his whispered request to me, not to let that horrid Yankee spinster come near him again.

But Miss Yates was a good friend to me.

"You are looking a little pale," she said to me at evening. "Go and lie down a spell. All's done up; you ain't wanted now, and you may be, for anything anybody can tell, before an hour is gone. Just you go away and get some rest. It's been your first day. And the first day's rather tough."

I told her I did not feel tired. But she insisted; and I yielded so far as to go and lie down for a while in the room which Dr. Sandford had given to me. When I came back, I met Miss Yates near the door of the room. I asked her if there were any serious cases in the ward just then.

"La! half of 'em's serious," said she; "if you mean by that they might take a wrong turn and go off. You never can tell."

"But are there any in immediate danger, do you think?"

She searched my face before she answered.

"How come you to be so strong, and so young, and so - well, so unlike all this sort of thing? - Have you ever, no you never have, seen much of sickness and death, and that?"

"No; not much."

"But you look as calm as a field of white clover. I beg your pardon, my dear; it's like you. And you ain't one of the India rubber sort, neither. I am glad you ain't, too; I don't think that sort is fit to be nurses or anything else."

She looked at me inquiringly.

"Miss Yates," I said, "I love Jesus. I am a servant of Christ. I like to do whatever my Lord gives me to do."

"Oh!" said she. "Well I ain't. I sometimes wish I was. But it comes handy now, for there's a man down there - he ain't a going to live, and he knows it, and he's kind o' worried about it; and I can't say nothing to him. Maybe you can. I've written his letters for him, and all that; but he's just uneasy."

I asked, and she told me, which bed held this sick man, who would soon be a dying one. I walked slowly down the ward, thinking of this new burden of life-work that was laid upon me and how to meet it. My very heart sank. I was so helpless. And rose too; for I remembered that our Redeemer is strong. What could I do?

I stood by the man's side. He was thirsty and I gave him lemonade. His eye met mine as his lips left the cup; an eye of unrest.

"Are you comfortable?" I asked.

"As much as I can be." - It was a restless answer.

"Can't you think of Jesus, and rest?" I asked, bending over him. His eye darted to mine with a strange expression of inquiry and pain; but it was all the answer he made.

"There is rest at His feet for all who trust in Him; - rest in His arms for all who love Him."

"I am not the one or the other," he said shortly.

"But you may be."

"I reckon not, - at this time of day," he said.

"Any time of day will do," I said tenderly.

"I guess not," said he. "One cannot do anything lying here - and I sha'n't lie here much longer, either. There's no time now to do anything."

"There is nothing to do, dear friend, but to give your heart and trust to the Lord who died for you - who loves you - who invites you - who will wash away your sins for His own sake, in His own blood, which He shed for you. Jesus has died for you; you shall not die, if you will put your trust in Him."

He looked at me, turned his head away restlessly, turned it back again, and said, -

"That won't do."

"Why?"

"I don't believe in wicked people going to heaven."

"Jesus came to save wicked people; just them."

"They've got to be good, though, before they" - he paused, - "go - to His place."

"Jesus will make you good, if you will let him."

"What chance is there, lying here; and only a few minutes at that?"

He spoke almost bitterly, but I saw the drops of sweat standing on his brow, brought there by the intensity of feeling. I felt as if my heart would have broken.

"As much chance here as anywhere," I answered calmly. "The heart is the place for reform; outward work, without the heart, signifies nothing at all; and if the heart of love and obedience is in any man, God knows that the life would follow, if there were opportunity."

"Yes. I haven't it," he said, looking at me.

"You may have it."

"I tell you, you are talking - you don't know of what," he said vehemently.

"I know all about it," I answered softly.

"There is no love nor obedience in me," he repeated, searching my eyes, as if to see whether there were anything to be said to that.

"No; you are sick at heart, and dying, unless you can be cured. Can you trust Jesus to cure you? They that be whole need not a physician, He says, but those that are sick."

He was silent, gazing at me.

"Can you lay your heart, just as it is, at Jesus' feet, and ask him to take it and make it right? He says, Come."

"What must _I_ do?"

"Trust Him."

"But you are mistaken," he said. "I am not good."

"No," said I; and then I know I could not keep back the tears from springing; - "Jesus did not come to save the good. He came to save you. He bids you trust Him, and your sins shall be forgiven, for He gave His life for yours; and He bids you come to Him, and He will take all that is wrong away, and make you clean."

"Come?" - the sick man repeated.

"With your heart - to his feet. Give yourself to Him. He is here, though you do not see Him."

The man shut his eyes, with a weary sort of expression overspreading his features; and remained silent. After a little while he said slowly -

"I think - I have heard - such things - once. It is a great while ago. I don't think I know - what it means."

Yet the face looked weary and worn; and for me, I stood beside him and my tears dripped like a summer shower. Like the first of the shower, as somebody says; the pressure at my heart was too great to let them flow. O life, and death! O message of mercy, and deaf ears! O open door of salvation, and feet that stumble at the threshold! After a time his eyes opened.

"What are you doing there?" he said vaguely.

"I am praying for you, dear friend."

"Praying?" said he. "Pray so that I can hear you."

I was well startled at this. I had prayed with papa; with no other, and before no other, in all my life. And here were rows of beds on all sides of me, wide-awake careless eyes in some of their occupants; nurses and attendants moving about; no privacy; no absolute stillness. I thought I could not; then I knew I must; and then all other things faded into insignificance before the work Jesus came to do and had given me to help. I knelt down, not without hands and face growing cold in the effort; but as soon as I was once fairly speaking to my Lord, I ceased to think or care who else was listening to me. There was a deep stillness around; I knew that; the attendants paused in their movements, and words and work I think were suspended during the few minutes when I was on my knees. When I got up, the sick man's eyes were closed. I sat down with my face in my hands, feeling as if I had received a great wrench; but presently Miss Yates came with a whispered request that I would do something that was required just then for somebody. Work set me all right very soon. But when after a while I came round to Preston again, I found him in a rage.

"What _has_ come over you?" he said, looking at me with a complication of frowns. I was at a loss for the reason, and requested him to explain himself.

"You are not Daisy!" he said. "I do not know you any more. What has happened to you?"

"What do you mean, Preston?"

"Mean!" said he with a fling. "What do _you_ mean? I don't know you."

I thought this paroxysm might as well pass off by itself, like another; and I kept quiet.

"What were you doing just now," said he savagely, "by that soldier's bedside?"

"That soldier? He is a dying man, Preston."

"Let him die!" he cried. "What is that to you? You are Daisy Randolph. Do you remember whose daughter you are? _You_ making a spectacle of yourself, for a hundred to look at!"

But this shot quite overreached its mark. Preston saw it had not touched me.

"You did not use to be so bold," he began again. "You were delicate to an exquisite fault. I would never have believed that _you_ would have done anything unwomanly. What has taken possession of you?"

"I should like to take possession of you just now, Preston, and keep you quiet," I said. "Look here, - your tea is coming. Suppose you wait till you understand things a little better; and now - let me give you this. I am sure Dr. Sandford would bid you be quiet; and in his name, I do."

Preston fumed; but I managed to stop his mouth; and then I left him, to attend to other people. But when all was done, and the ward was quiet, I stood at the foot of the dying man's bed, thinking, what could I do more for him? His face looked weary and anxious; his eye rested, I saw, on me, but without comfort in it. What could I say, that I had not said? or how could I reach him? Then, I do not know how the thought struck me, but I knew what to do.

"My dear," said Miss Yates, touching my shoulder, "hadn't you better give up for to-night? You are a young hand; you ain't seasoned to it yet; you'll give out if you don't look sharp. Suppose you quit for to- night."

"O no!" I said hastily - "Oh no, I cannot. I cannot."

"Well, sit down, any way, before you can't stand. It is just as cheap sittin' as standin'."

I sat down; she passed on her way; the place was quiet; only there were uneasy breaths that came and went near me. Then I opened my mouth and sang -

"There is a fountain filled with blood, "Drawn from Immanuel's veins; "And sinners plunged beneath that flood, "Lose all their guilty stains."

"The dying thief rejoiced to see "That fountain in his day; "And there may I, as vile as he, "Wash all my sins away."

I sang it to a sweet simple air, in which the last lines are repeated and repeated and drawn out in all their sweetness. The ward was as still as death. I never felt such joy that I could sing; for I knew the words went to the furthest corner and distinctly, though I was not raising my voice beyond a very soft pitch. The stillness lasted after I stopped; then some one near spoke out -

"Oh, go on!"

And I thought the silence asked me. But what to sing? that was the difficulty. It had need be something so very simple in the wording, so very comprehensive in the sense; something to tell the truth, and to tell it quick, and the whole truth; what should it be? Hymns came up to me, loved and sweet, but too partial in their application, or presupposing too much knowledge of religious things. My mind wandered; and then of a sudden floated to me the refrain that I had heard and learned when a child, long ago, from the lips of Mr. Dinwiddie, in the little chapel at Melbourne; and with all the tenderness of the old time and the new it sprung from my heart and lips now -

"In evil long I took delight, "Unawed by shame or fear; "Till a new object struck my sight, "And stopped my wild career."

"O the Lamb - the loving Lamb! "The Lamb on Calvary "The Lamb that was slain, but lives again, "To intercede for me."

How grand it was! But for the grandeur and the sweetness of the message I was bringing, I should have broken down a score of times.

As it was, I poured my tears into my song, and wept them into the melody. But other tears, I knew, were not so contained; in intervals I heard low sobbing in more than one part of the room. I had no time to sing another hymn before Dr. Sandford came in. I was very glad he had not been five minutes earlier.

I followed him round the ward, seeking to acquaint myself as fast as possible with whatever might help to make me useful there. Dr. Sandford attended only to business and not to me, till the whole round was gone through. Then he said, -

"You will let me take you home now, I hope."

"I am at home," I answered.

"Even so," said he smiling. "You will let me take you _from_ home then, to the place my sister dwells in."

"No, Dr. Sandford; and you do not expect it."

"I have some reason to know what to expect, by this time. Will you not do it at my earnest request? not for your sake, but for mine? There is presumption for you!"

"No, Dr. Sandford; it is not presumption, and I thank you; but I cannot. I cannot, Dr. Sandford. I am wanted here."

"Yes, so you will be to-morrow."

"I will be here to-morrow."

"But, Daisy, this is unaccustomed work; and you cannot bear it, no one can, without intermission. Let me take you to the hotel to-night. You shall come again in the morning."

"I cannot. There is some one here who wants me."

"Your cousin, do you mean?"

"Oh no. Not he at all. There is one who is, I am afraid, dying."

"Morton," said the doctor. "Yes. You can do nothing for him."

But I thought of my hymn, and the tears rose to my eyes.

"I will do what I can, Dr. Sandford. I cannot leave him."

"There is a night nurse who will take charge. You must not watch. You must not do that, Daisy. I command here."

"All but me," I said, putting my hand on his arm. "Trust me. I will try to do just the right thing."

There must have been more persuasion in my look than I knew; for Dr. Sandford quitted me without another word, and left me to my own will. I went softly down the room to the poor friend I was watching over. I found his eyes watching me; but for talk there was no time just then; some services were called for in another part of the ward that drew me away from him; and when I came back he seemed to be asleep. I sat down at the bed foot and thought my hymn all over, then the war, my own life, and lastly the world. Miss Yates came to me and bent down.

"Are you tired out, dear?"

"Not at all," I said. "Not at all - tired."

"They'd give their eyes if you'd sing again. It's better than doctors and anodynes; and it's the first bit of anything unearthly we've had in this place. Will you try?"

I was only too glad. I sang, "Jesus, lover of my soul" - "Rock of Ages" - and then, -

"Just as I am, without one plea, "But that Thy blood was shed for me, "And that Thou bidst me come to Thee, "O Lamb of God, I come."

And stillness, deep and peaceful seeming, brooded over all the place in the pauses between the singing. There were restless and weary and suffering people around me; patient indeed too, and uncomplaining, in the worst of times; but now even sighs seemed to be hushed. I looked at the man who was said to be dying. His wide open eyes were intently fixed upon me; very intently; and I thought, less ruefully than a while ago. Then I sang, -

"Come to Jesus just now -"

As I sang, a voice from the further end of the room took it up, and bore me company in a somewhat rough but true and manly chorus, to the end of the singing. It rang sweet round the room; it fell sweet on many ears, I know. And so I gave my Lord's message.

I sang no more that night. The poor man for whose sake I had begun the singing, rapidly grew worse. I could not leave him; for ever and again, in the pauses of suffering, his eyes sought mine. I answered the mute appeal as I best could, with a word now and a word then. Towards morning the struggle ceased. He spoke no more to me; but the last look was to my eyes, and in his, it seemed to me, the shadow had cleared away. That was all I could know.