The Old Homestead Part 25

"She is delirious; it is the fever. Typhus, I should think, in its worst form," he said. "She must have prompt care."

"She must, indeed," replied the stranger. "The noise, the hot sun, all are making her worse."

"And you do not know her name?"

"No; she has muttered over several names, but I could not tell which was hers."

"Nor her home, of course?"

"No; I found her in the street as I have told you."

"It is strange. She seems like an American. It is a pity to send her to the hospital, but I can do no better."

"You will send her there!" exclaimed the stranger, joyfully, "The policeman talked of the Tombs."

"No, no, she is no person for that, I am certain," exclaimed the Commissioner. "I only wish we had the power of doing more than can be expected at Bellevue; but certainly she shall go to no worse place than that."

"Oh, thank you!" said the stranger, gratefully.

"I will write out an order, with a few lines to the resident physician at Bellevue. Nothing more can be done, I am afraid."

"Oh, that is a great deal--everything, in fact--of course she will have proper attention in an inst.i.tution where you have control."

The Commissioner looked grave, but did not answer that over the Bellevue Hospital his power was merely a name--that he could grant supplies and give directions, but had no real authority over subordinates appointed by the Common Council, and could not, for the most flagrant misconduct, discharge the lowest man about the department of which he was the bonded and responsible head. Shackled in his actions and even in his speech, this truly efficient and good man would pledge himself to nothing, so he merely said:

"Will you, sir--you who have done so much--conduct this poor woman yourself to Bellevue? The van will go up soon, but she does not seem of the usual cla.s.s."

"I will go with her, of course," replied the stranger, resuming his seat in the carriage with benevolent alacrity, while the Commissioner returned to his office and hastily wrote a letter to the resident physician, beseeching him to bestow especial care on the unknown patient who seemed so ill, and so completely alone in the world.

CHAPTER XIV.

BELLEVUE AND A NEW INMATE.

A gloomy home for one like this; So pure, so gentle and so fair,-- Must her sweet life, in weariness, Go out for lack of human care?

The carriage which bore Mrs. Chester paused before the gates at Bellevue. The gloomy and prison-like buildings loomed in heavy and sombre ma.s.ses before the stranger, as he leaned from the carriage to deliver his order to the gatekeeper. The Hospital, with its walls of dark stone blackened by age, its sombre wings sweeping out from the main building and lowering above the ma.s.sive walls, struck him with a feeling of gloom. It seemed like a prison that he was entering.

The Hospitals were drear to him, and the dull, heavy atmosphere seemed full of contagion. He looked at the poor creature thus unconsciously brought there, perhaps to die, and his heart swelled with compa.s.sion.

The gate swung open, and down a paved causeway leading to the water, bounded on one side by a high stone wall, and on the other by a bakery and various workshops belonging to the inst.i.tutions, the carriage was driven. The wharf in which this causeway terminated, was full of lounging inmates; some were attempting to fish in the turbid water; others leaning half asleep against the wall, and some were grouped together, not in conversation, but basking lazily in the sunshine.

Before it reached this wharf the carriage turned and was driven through an iron-studded gate, into an open and paved court that ran along the front of the main Alms House. The hospitals were some distance back of this building, but here the sick and dying must be brought first, for their names were to be registered in the Alms House books before they could be permitted to die in peace.

As the carriage drove in, up came the swarm of idlers from the wharf, dragging themselves heavily along, laughing stupidly at the ponderous gambols and grimaces of a huge idiot boy, who, on seeing a new arrival, rolled rather than walked up from the water with his hand extended, crying out--money--money. It was all the language the poor creature possessed. He had learned to beg, and that was knowledge enough for him. In everything else he was the merest animal that crawled the earth. Yet, the other paupers followed him as they would have chased a dog or tame animal of any kind, whose gambols broke the monotony of their idleness.

Up came this idiot boy to the carriage, leering in upon its inmates, and rolling from side to side, with his hand out, mumbling that one word over and over between his heavy lips: and up came the gang of paupers, gazing in also with stupid curiosity.

It was well for Jane Chester that she could neither see nor hear all this--that the fever had grown strong enough to shut out all the real world to her heated senses! As it was, the sight of these miserable objects did create some new and more harrowing pain. She began to murmur of the torment to which she had been consigned--of the strange, heavy fiends so unwieldy and coa.r.s.e that had taken her in charge.

Every event of that fearful day was absolutely thrusting her a step nearer to the grave.

Just as the driver had dismounted from his seat and was about to open the door, the Alms House van came tumbling along the pavement and into the court with another freight of misery. Along by the carriage and nearer to the entrance rolled the ponderous black vehicle, and out from its tomb-like depths were taken forth the men and women, that an hour before had been lying so helplessly on the benches at the Commissioner's office.

One by one these poor creatures were carried up the steps, and after them rolled the idiot, calling out--money, money--as if the emigrants whom England consigns to our charity, had anything but their own miserable lives to give away.

And now with the heat, the noise, and the motion of the carriage, the poor invalid became almost frantic. She struggled with the stranger--she called wildly for Chester--and would have cast herself headlong to the pavement, for in her hallucination she fancied that the pauper gang were carrying away her husband.

They bore her into the Alms House in a fit of momentary exhaustion.

Her name and history was a blank in the Alms House books. Her lips were speechless--her eyes closed. They only knew that she was nameless, homeless; and thus was her entrance registered.

And now came two men to carry her to the hospital. One was old, with grey hairs, who tottered beneath his burden; and the other a pale lad, who had just recovered from the fever. Out through the back entrance, down a flight of steps into the hot sunshine again, they bore the helpless woman, her garments sweeping the pavement, and her pale hand sometimes striking the stones as they pa.s.sed along.

But there was no rest for her yet; another registering was to be made.

In the Hospital office a pauper clerk had charge, and to his investigation the invalid must be consigned. He was no physician, certainly; but the hospital was divided into wards, each ward having its own cla.s.s of diseases. It was this man's prerogative to decide what particular malady afflicted each patient, and to a.s.sign the proper ward. The two men placed Mrs. Chester in a chair, and the stranger stood behind it supporting her head upon his arm.

The clerk had entered the blank order upon his books, and now came forward to examine the patient.

"Put out your tongue?"

The order was given in a peremptory tone, worthy the captain of a Down-East militia company. Poor Mrs. Chester opened her wild eyes and looked at the man.

"Your tongue, woman! open your mouth--don't you hear?"

Jane Chester unclosed her parched lips and revealed her tongue. The edges were red, as if they had been dipped in blood; and down the centre, like an arrow, lay the dark incrustations peculiar to ship fever.

The clerk shook his head, and laid his hand upon the sinking pulse.

"Low, very low. Just gone of consumption--no doubt of it--phthisis pulmonalis--a bad case--very. Take her to the wing!"

"I should doubt, if you are not a physician, sir," said the stranger, mildly, "I should venture to doubt, if this lady is not suffering from fever. Not half an hour ago her pulse could hardly be counted; now you feel that each beat threatens to be the last! These terrible changes--do they bespeak consumption?"

"I have p.r.o.nounced upon her case!" replied the clerk, "but it makes no difference. Let her go to the fever ward. If the doctor don't agree with your opinion, sir, she can be sent to the wing!"

"I am no physician, but she requires prompt care!" interposed the stranger.

"Then you are not an M. D.," cried the clerk, with a look of annoyance that he should have yielded to anything less than a professional man.

"No, but it is quite certain that all this moving about from place to place is killing the poor lady. She requires the greatest tranquillity, I am sure!"

"Well, well, take her up to number ten," said the clerk, addressing the persons who had brought Mrs. Chester in. "The doctor will see to her when he goes his rounds!"

The two men raised Mrs. Chester in their arms, and carried her up a flight of broad stairs and through a neighboring pa.s.sage, till the stranger, who looked earnestly after them, could no longer detect the faint struggle with which she sought to free herself, or hear the moan as it trembled on her pallid lips.

The stranger drew a deep breath as she disappeared, and turned back to the office greatly oppressed by all that he saw. The clerk was leaning back in his chair, drumming with his fingers upon the seat.

Inured to an atmosphere of misery, he felt but little of the painful compa.s.sion, the mingled horror and pity which almost overwhelmed that benevolent man.