pair of large scissors to the bearers, and bade
them cut off poor Allan's clothes, as easily as
they could, while she put clean sheets upon
his bed. The doctors had already been sent
for. One or two prudent neighbours asked
her, in a whisper, who would pay expenses;
to which she replied that she would see about
that afterwards. It was terrible work moving
him from the hurdle upon the bed, after the
difficult business of getting him up the narrow
stairs. She did not shrink from the sight,
though she perceived, at once, that the knees
and the toes were dislocated. The sufferer
did not seem aware of this; his complaint
being of his back. The surgeons presently
arrived. They could not, at present, be sure
about the extent of the injury to the spine;
but they thought it would be soon fatal; and
they declined attempting anything with the
limbs meanwhile.

Next came the husband and son home to
dinner. Ewing was much disturbed that the
poor fellow had been brought here. What
could they do with him? It was not so much
further to the workhouse; and he ought to
have been taken there. The expenses would
be very great; and who was to pay? And
how was the house to go on, with the poor
fellow groaning there, night and day? The
wife answered little in words, beyond pleading
that Allan had begged to be brought hither.
She had no doubt she could manage to nurse
him. His brother might be expected any
time now; and with him they might arrange
about the future. To satisfy Mr. Ewing's
mind, the clergyman, who came as soon as he
heard of the accident, wrote to Allan's family.
Alas! no comfort was sent back in answer.
When Mr. Franklin's letter arrived, the family
were already in deep affliction. Allan's brother
had been killed by the caving in of the
mine where he was at work. Who should
tell Allan this piece of news? Mr. Franklin
would have done it; but "mother" was not
afraid to do it; and some favourable opportunity
might present itself, in the course of
her daily and nightly watch. She did find an
opportunity; and, whether it was her method
of doing it, or her steady temper of acquiescence
in all events communicating itself to
him, or whether his own fearful pain of body
rendered him less sensible to other kinds of
suffering, Allan bore the tidings better than
could have been hoped. When he spoke of
his brother, it was of his being out of his
pain; the greatest good, perhaps, that, at that
time, poor Allan could conceive of.

Night and day did "Mother " nurse the
groaning stranger thus thrown upon her
charity. For many months Allan scarcely
slept; for there was no complete intermission
of his pain. How she did it, nobody could
understand. The mere washing of the linen
would have been work enough for some
women; for the sheets and shirts required
very frequent changing, while the treatment
of the case was going on. The doctors said
that no sick room they ever entered was in
better condition. Her husband, though
discontented and anxious, could not say that he
was neglected, nor the children either. Mrs.
Ewing only said that Jane was growing up
to be a nice little help; and that it was good
for the boys to have to help too. And they
really were good little boys; quiet, and willing
to give up their play, and lend a hand in any
way they could. As for the expenses, it was
some time before any money could be obtained
from any quarter; but at last, Allan's claim
was so pressed upon the Railway Company
by Mr. Franklin, that they decreed an allowance
of ten shillings a week. This was,
perhaps, as much as they could be expected
to give; but it was very far from being a
repayment even of Allan's expenses, without
considering the nursing. The one article
of clean linen would have used up the half of
it, in any other house.

At the end of six months, when the spring
was coming on, Allan declared himself no
better; and his groaning was almost
as terrible to hear as at first. But the doctors
assured the Ewings and Mr. Franklin that
the pain was very much lessened; and that it
would lessen still more, till the lower half of the
body would be wholly insensible. Poor Allan
was quite sincere in believing that he suffered
as much as ever. It was a case in which such
a mistake often occurs, when a habit of
groaning—a mood of fixed misery—keeps up,
in a degree, the original sensations. If Allan
could think himself easier, he would find he
was so. "Mother" had for some time suspected
this; suspected that this was the
turning point when the pain of body was
becoming disease of mind. Not for one
moment did she think of relieving herself of
a burden now clearly shown to be hopeless.
If Allan was neither to recover nor die,—if
he was to lie there year after year, she must
lay her plans for a continuance; she must
enter upon a higher kind of nursing than
he had yet needed. She must minister to
his mind, even more carefully than to his
body.

She led him to observe, as from his own
sensations, the total paralysis of his legs and
the lower part of his body; and when he said
he feared he should never again leave his bed,
she did not contradict him, but spoke cheerfully
of it as the condition of his life. The
tears streamed down the poor fellow's face,
and she had much ado to restrain her own
when he sobbed out, "O! Mother, shall
I never see the sun again?" Then, he had
fits of thirst for the wind on the cliffs. If he
could feel the breeze upon his face on the
cliffs, he thought he could rest and be happy.
But this was what he could not have; for, as
has been said, it was only by peeping up from
the window that the ridge of the cliff and a
strip of sky could be seen. She did not
rebuke him, and preach to him, and go into
the sunshine, and leave him to cry in bed—