The Old Worcester Jug by Eglanton Thorne

HURRYING upstairs with many prickings of heart for having left him so long to himself, Mrs. Griffin came breathless to her husband's bedside. She found him looking flushed and uneasy.

"Who have you been chattering to down in the shop? " he asked, very crossly. "I should think you might have cut short your gossip for once."

John Griffin was far from being ill-tempered; but even the most good-humoured of men are apt to get rather bearish when enduring severe pain.

"It was such a dear little girl," began Mrs. Griffin, scarcely heeding his irritable tones in her eagerness to tell the news; "she's brought your plates, and oh, John, her mother's dead!"

"What do you mean? Whose mother's dead? " he asked, his tone sharper than before.

"Why, you know that poor widow who sold you the jug you was so pleased with," said Mrs. Griffin; "and the plates we thought you wouldn't get, the child has brought just now. The reason she did not bring them before was because her mother died that very night."

"What night? " he asked.

"Why, Monday night, of course, after they got back from here," said his wife; "the poor soul was lodging at Mrs. Cook's. Her death must have been awful sudden. The child says she broke a blood-vessel. You noticed that she looked very ill, and you remember how she coughed. The poor little girl says she is to be taken to the workhouse, for she's left all alone in the world with no one to look to."

Mrs. Griffin's words were checked by a deep groan from her husband.

"What's the matter? " she asked, anxiously. "Is the pain worse?"

"Mortal bad," he replied; "it cuts me like a knife."

"Dear, dear," said his wife, full of pity; "I'll get you another hot poultice; p'raps that 'll ease it."

And as she hurried about to attend to his wants, she said no more of the widow or her child. Griffin could not have heeded her words had she spoken. All his powers of mind and body were held captive by acute pain. But his wife's words had had their effect on him. The news of little Maggie's sudden bereavement had suggested to him the possibility that death might be near for him also.

The doctor looked grave when he came that evening, and found old Griffin worse; graver still the next morning, when the patient's temperature was higher than before, whilst his strength was diminished by a restless night of pain.

Dr. Thornton was a young and handsome man, but with the thoughtful, quiet demeanour which befitted his profession. He was very kind-hearted, and his straightforward manner quickly won the confidence of his patients. He had not been long in practice, and his work lay mainly amongst the poorer classes; but he did not think it beneath him to give poor people his best attention, nor to employ for their advantage every alleviation which his knowledge and skill could devise. He cherished an enthusiastic belief that his profession was the finest one in the world, and he shrank from no self-denial which its pursuit might demand. Leslie Thornton's friends often spoke of him as a "good fellow," and never was the epithet more justly applied.

When he had carefully examined his patient, and given the wife every instruction she needed, he stood silent by the bed for a few minutes, his face wearing a look of grave deliberation. He had sent Mrs. Griffin away, that he might feel free to speak as he would to his patient; but still he hesitated, debating with himself whether it would be better to tell the old man what a critical point his malady had reached, or to leave him unprepared to meet death, if death should come. Whilst he hesitated, old Griffin's voice decided the question for him.

"I be very bad, doctor," he said feebly; "I never felt anything like it before. I'm as weak as a baby. But I suppose you're going to set me up again. I haven't got to the end yet?"

His last words were uttered as a question, and the doctor could not meet them with equivocation.

"I don't give up hope for you, Griffin," he said; "I've seen men pull through worse illnesses than this; but at your age such an attack is a serious thing. It is only right I should tell you that it may be beyond my power to save you."

The change which passed over old Griffin's face was very slight. His eyelids drooped, his lips quivered for a moment, that was all.