Poor Tobias still remains upon his bed of sickness. The number of hours at the expiration of which the medical man had expected him to recover were nearly gone. In Colonel Jeffery's parlour three persons, besides himself, were assembled. These three were his friend the captain, Sir Richard Blunt, and Mrs. Ragg. The lady was sitting with a not over clean handkerchief at her eyes, and keeping up a perpetual motion with her knee, as though she were nursing some fractious baby, and Mrs. Ragg had been used of late to go out as a monthly nurse occasionally, which, perhaps, accounted for this little peculiarity. "Now, madam," said the colonel, "you quite understand, I hope, that you are not to mention to any living soul the fact of your son Tobias being with me."
"Oh, dear me, no, sir. Who should I mention it to?"
"That we can't tell," interrupted the captain, "you are simply desired not to tell it."
"I'm sure I don't see anybody once in a week, sir."
"Good God! woman," cried the colonel, "does that mean that when you do see any one you will tell it?"
"Lord love you, sir, it's few people as comes to see you when you are down in the world. I'm sure it's seldom enough a soul taps at my door with a 'Mrs. Ragg, how are you?'"
"Now was there ever such an incorrigible woman as this?"
"If you were to talk to her for a month," said Sir Robert Blunt, "you would not get a direct answer from her. Allow me to try something else—Mrs. Ragg."
"Yes, sir—humbly at your service, sir."
"If you tell any one that Tobias is here, or indeed anywhere within your knowledge, I will apprehend you about a certain candlestick."
"Goodness gracious, deliver us."
"Do you understand that, Mrs. Ragg? You keep silence about Tobias, and I keep silence about the candlestick. You speak about Tobias, and I speak about the candlestick."
Mrs. Ragg shook her head and let fall a torrent of tears, which the magistrate took as sufficient evidence that she did understand him and would act accordingly, so he added—
"Shall we all proceed up stairs? for a great deal will depend upon the boy's first impression when he awakens—and in this case we should not lose a chance."
In pursuance of this sound advice they all proceeded to poor Tobias's bed-room, and there he lay in that profound repose which the powerful opiate administered to him had had the effect of producing. It did not seem as though he had moved head or foot since they had left him. His face was very pale, and when Mrs. Ragg saw him she burst into tears, exclaiming—
"He is dead—he is dead!"
"No such thing, madam," said Colonel Jeffery. "He only sleeps."
"But, oh deary me, what makes him look so old and so strange now? He was bad enough when I saw him last, poor fellow, but not like this."
"He has received ill-usage from someone, and that is precisely what we want to find out. If you can get from him the particulars of what he has suffered, we will take care those who have made him suffer shall not escape."
"Bless you, gentlemen, what's the use of that if my poor boy is killed?"
There was a good home truth in these words from Mrs. Ragg, although, upon the score of general social policy, they might well be answered. An argument with Mrs. Ragg, however, upon such a subject was not very a-propos. The colonel made her sit down by Tobias's bed-side, and he was then upon the point of remarking to his friend, the captain, that it would be as well, since so many hours had passed, to send for the medical man, when that personage made his appearance.
"Has he awakened?" he asked.
"No—not yet."
"Oh, I see you have a nurse."
"It is his mother. We hope that she, by talking to him familiarly, may produce a good effect, and possibly rid him of that bewilderment of intellect under which he now labours. What think you, sir?"
"That it is a good thought. Let us darken the room as much as possible, as twilight will be most grateful to him upon awakening, which he must do shortly."
The curtains of the window were so arranged that the room was in a state of semi-darkness, and then they all waited with no small anxiety for Tobias to recover from the deep and death-like sleep that had come over him. After about five minutes he moved uneasily and uttered a low moan.
"Speak to him, Mrs. a—a—what's your name?"
"Ragg, sir."
"Aye, Ragg, just speak to him; of course he is well acquainted with your voice, and it may have the effect of greatly rousing him from his lethargic condition."
Poor Mrs. Ragg considered that she had some very extraordinary post to perform, and accordingly she collected to her aid all her learning, which, interrupted by her tears, and now and then by a sob, which she had to gulp down like a large globule of castor oil, had certainly rather a droll effect.
"My dear Tobias—my dear—lie a bed, sluggard, you know—well, I never—Put the kettle on, Polly, and let's all have tea. Tobias, my dear—bless us and save us, are you going to stay in bed all day?"
Another groan from Tobias.
"Well, my dear, perhaps you won't mind getting up and just running towards the corner for a bunch of water cresses? Dear heart alive, there goes the muffin-man like a lamplighter!"
It was by such domestic themes that Mrs. Ragg sought to recall the wandering senses of poor Tobias to a cognizance of the present. But alas! his thoughts were still in the dim and misty land of visions. Suddenly he spoke—
Tobias's Delirium.
Tobias's Delirium.
"Hush—hush! There they come!—elephants!—elephants!—on—on—on. Now for the soldiers, and all mad—mad—mad! Hide me in the straw—deep in a world of straw. Hush! He comes. Sing, oh sing again!—and he—he will not suspect."
The surgeon made a sign to Mrs. Ragg to speak again.
"Why, Tobias, my dear, what are you talking about? Do you mean the Elephant and Castle?"
"Call to his remembrance," said the surgeon, "some old scenes."
"Yes, sir, but when one's heart and all that sort of thing is in one's mouth it's very difficult to recollect things oneself. Tobias!"
"Yes—yes. Ha-ha!"
It was a low, plaintive, strange laugh that, that came from the poor boy whose mind had been so overthrown, and it jarred upon the feelings of all who heard it.
"Tobias, do you recollect the little cottage down the lane at Holloway, where we lived, and the cock roaches, and the strange cat, you know, Tobias, that would not go away? Don't you recollect, Tobias, how the coals there were all slates, and how your poor father, as is dead and gone—"
"Yes, I see him now."
Mrs. Ragg gave a faint scream.
"Father!—father!" said Tobias, as he held out his arms, and the big tears rolled down his cheeks. "Father—father, Todd has not got me now. Don't cry so, father. Stand out of the way of the elephants."
"My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Ragg, "do you want to break my heart?"
Tobias rose to a sitting position in the bed, and looked his mother in the face—
"Are you, too, mad?" he said. "Are you, too, mad? Did you tell of Todd?"
"Yes, the only way," said Colonel Jeffery, "for people not to be mad, is to tell of Todd.&quo............