The Little Red Foot Part 53

I felt a slow heat in my cheeks:

"I have nothing on my mind, sir, save desire to return to duty."

He said in his kindly way: "You would mend more quickly, sir, if your mind were tranquil."

I felt my face flush to my hair:

"Why do you suppose that my mind is uneasy, Doctor?"

"You have asked no questions. A sick man, when recovering, asks many.

You seem to remain incurious, indifferent. Yet, you are in the house of old friends."

He looked at me out of his kind, grave eyes: "Also," he said, "you had many days of fever."

My face burned: I feared to guess what he meant, but now I must ask.

"Did I babble?"

"A feverish patient often becomes loquacious."

"Of--of whom did I--rave?" I could scarce force myself to the question.

Then, as he also seemed embarra.s.sed, I added: "You need not name her, Doctor. But I beg you to tell me who besides yourself overheard me."

"Only your soldier, Nicholas Stoner, and a Saguenay Indian, who squats outside your door day and night."

"n.o.body else?"

"I think not."

"Has Lady Johnson heard me? Or Mistress Swift? Or--Mistress Grant?" I stammered.

"Why, no," said he. "These ladies were most tender and attentive when your soldiers brought you hither; but two days afterward, while you still lay unconscious,--and your right lung filling solid,--there came a flag from General Schuyler, and an escort of Albany Horse for the ladies. And they departed as prisoners the following morning, with their flag, to be delivered and set at liberty inside the British lines."

"They are gone?"

"Yes, sir. Lady Johnson, while happy in her prospective freedom, and hopeful of meeting her husband in New York City, seemed very greatly distressed to leave you here in such a plight. And Mistress Swift offered to remain and care for you, but our military authorities would not allow it."

I said nothing.

He added, with a faint smile: "Our authorities, I take it, were impatient to be rid of responsibility for these fair prisoners, Mr.

Drogue. I know that Schuyler is vastly relieved."

"Has Stephen Watts been taken?" I asked abruptly. "Or Hare, or Butler?"

"Not that I have heard of."

So they had got clean away, that spying crew!--Watts and Hare and Walter Butler! Well, that was better. G.o.d knows I had a million times rather meet Steve Watts in battle than take him skulking here inside our lines a-spying on our camp, exchanging information with his unhappy sister and with Claudia, or slinking about the shrubbery by night to press his sweetheart's waist and lips----

I turned my hot face on the pillow and lay a-thinking. The doctor laid back my blanket, looked at my hurts, then covered me.

"You do well," he said. "In two weeks you shall be out o' bed. Bones must knit and wounds scar before you carry pack again. And before your lung is strong you shall need six months rest ere you take the field."

Aghast at such news, I asked him the true nature of my hurts, and learned that Balty's bullet had broken three ribs into my right lung, then, glancing, had made a hole clean through my thigh, but not splintering the bone.

"That Oneida girl of Thomas Spencer's saved you," said he, "for she picked out the burnt wadding and bits of cloth, cleaned and checked the hemorrhage, and purged you. And there was no gangrene.

"She did all that anybody could have done; but the cold had already seized your lung before she arrived, and it was that which involved you so desperately."

After a silence: "Good G.o.d, doctor! _Six months_!"

"Six months before you take the field, sir."

"A half year of idleness? Why, that can not be, sir----"

"It is better than eternity in a coffin, sir," said he quietly.

Then he came and took my hand, saying that orders had come directing him to join our Northern Army at Crown Point, and that he was to set off within the hour.

"A little nursing and continued rest are all you now require," said he; "and so I leave you without anxiety, Mr. Drogue."

I strove to express my deep grat.i.tude for his service to me; he pressed my hand, smilingly:

"If you would hasten convalescence," said he, "seek to recover that serenity of mind which is a surer medicine than any in my phials."

At the door he turned and looked back to me:

"I think," said he in an embarra.s.sed voice, "that you have really no true reason for unhappiness, Mr. Drogue. If you have, then my experience of men and women has taught me nothing."

With that he went; and I heard his sword and spurs through the hallway, and the outer door close.

What had he meant?

For a long while I pondered this. Then into my mind came another and inevitable question: _What_ had I said in my delirium?

I was hungry when Nick came.

"Well," says he, grinning at me, "our Continental saw-bones permits this fat wild pigeon. And now I hope I shall have no more cursing to endure."

Tears came into my eyes and I held out my hand. It was blanched white, and bony, and lay oddly in his great, brown paw.

"Lord," says he, "what a fright you have given us, John, what with coughing all day and night like a sick bullock----"

"I am mending, Nick."

"So says Major Squills. Here, lad, eat thy pigeon. Does it smack? And here is a little Spanish wine in this gla.s.s to nourish you. I had three bottles of the Continentals ere they marched----"

"Marched! Have they departed?" I demanded in astonishment.