Chapter 27 - Page 2

have
let her have her wish; it can only do her harm."

"That is another curious thing," replied the doctor. "It does not seem
to have done her harm; rather it has turned her from being a dour,
silent crittur into a talkative one, and that, I take it, is a sign of
grace."

He sighed, and added: "Not that I can get her to talk of herself and her
mother. (There is a mystery about them, you understand.) No, the
obstinate brat will tell me nothing on that subject; instead of
answering my questions she asks questions of me--an endless rush of
questions, and all about Ballingall. How did I know he was dying? When
you put your fingers on their wrist, what is it you count? which is the
place where the lungs are? when you tap their chest what do you listen
for? are they not dying as long as they can rise now and then, and dress
and go out? when they are really dying do they always know it
themselves? If they don't know it, is that a sign that they are not so
ill as you think them? When they don't know they are dying, is it best
to keep it from them in case they should scream with terror? and so on
in a spate of questions, till I called her the Longer Catechism."

"And only morbid curiosity prompted her?"

"Nothing else," said the confident doctor; "if there had been anything
else I should have found it out, you may be sure. However, unhealthily
minded though she be, the women who took their turn at Ballingall's
bedside were glad of her help."

"The more shame to them," McLean remarked warmly; but the doctor would
let no one, save himself, miscall the women of Thrums.

"Ca' canny," he retorted. "The women of this place are as overdriven as
the men, from the day they have the strength to turn a pirn-wheel to the
day they crawl over their bed-board for the last time, but never yet
have I said, 'I need one of you to sit up all night wi' an unweel body,'
but what there were half a dozen willing to do it. They are a grand
race, sir, and will remain so till they find it out themselves."

"But of what use could a girl of twelve or fourteen be to them?"

"Use!" McQueen cried. "Man, she has been simply a treasure, and but for
one thing I would believe it was less a morbid mind than a sort of
divine instinct for nursing that took her to Ballingall's bedside. The
women do their best in a rough and ready way; but, sir, it cowed to see
that lassie easying a pillow for Ballingall's head, or changing a sheet
without letting in the air, or getting a poultice on his back without
disturbing the one on his chest. I had just to let her see how to do
these things once, and after that