A Noble Life | Page 4

expression in her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost
mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her days--as it was.
The minister shook hands with her silently--she had gone through sore
affliction--but the lawyer addressed her in his quick, sharp, business
tone, under which he often disguised more emotion than he liked to
show.
"You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamilton told you not to
attempt it."
"Na, na, sir, I didna try," answered Janet, sadly and gently.
"That is well. I'm a father of a family myself," added Mr. Menteith,
more gently: "I've six of them; but, thank the Lord, ne'er a one of them
like this. Take it on your lap, nurse, and let the minister look at it! Ay,
here comes Dr. Hamilton!"
Mr. Cardross knew Dr. Hamilton by repute--as who did not? Since at
that period it was the widest-known name in the whole medical
profession in Scotland. And the first sight of him confirmed the
reputation, and made even a stranger recognize that his fame was both
natural and justifiable. But the minister had scarcely time to cast a

glance on the acute, benevolent, wonderfully powerful and thoughtful
head, when his attention was attracted by the poor infant, whom Janet
was carefully unswathing from innumerable folds of cotton wool.
Mrs. Campbell was a widow of only a month, and her mistress, to
whom she had been much attached, lay dead in the next room, yet she
had still a few tears left, and they were dropping like rain over her
mistress's child.
No wonder. It lay on her lap, the smallest, saddest specimen of infantile
deformity. It had a large head--larger than most infants have--but its
body was thin, elfish, and distorted, every joint and limb being twisted
in some way or other. You could not say that any portion of the child
was natural or perfect except the head and face. Whether it had the
power of motion or not seemed doubtful; at any rate, it made no
attempt to move, except feebly turning its head from side to side. It lay,
with its large eyes wide open, and at last opened its poor little mouth
also, and uttered a loud pathetic wail.
"It greets, doctor, ye hear," said the nurse, eagerly; "'deed, an' it greets
fine, whiles."
"A good sign," observed Dr. Hamilton. "Perhaps it may live after all,
though one scarcely knows whether to desire it."
"I'll gar it live, doctor," cried Janet, as she rocked and patted it, and at
last managed to lay it to her motherly breast; "I'll gar it live, ye'll see!
That is God willing."
"It could not live, it could never have lived at all, if He were not
willing," said the minister, reverently. And then, after a long pause,
during which he and the two other gentlemen stood watching, with sad
pitying looks, the unfortunate child, he added, so quietly and naturally
that, though they might have thought it odd, they could hardly have
thought it out of place or hypocritical, "Let us pray."
It was a habit, long familiar to this good Presbyterian minister, who
went in and out among his parishioners as their pastor and teacher,

consoler and guide. Many a time, in many a cottage, had he knelt down,
just as he did here, in the midst of deep affliction, and said a few simple
words, as from children to a father--the Father of all men. And the
beginning and end of his prayer was, now as always, the expression and
experience of his own entire faith--"Thy will be done."
"But what ought we to do?" said the Edinburg writer, when, having
quitted, not unmoved, the melancholy nursery, he led the way to the
scarcely less dreary dining-room, where the two handsome,
bright-looking portraits of the late earl and countess still smiled down
from the wall --giving Mr. Cardross a start, and making him recall, as if
the intervening six weeks had been all a dream, the last day he and Mr.
Menteith dined together at that hospitable table. They stole a look at
one another, but, with true Scotch reticence, neither exchanged a word.
Yet perhaps each respected the other the more, both for the feeling and
for its instant repression.
"Whatever we decide to do, ought to be decided now," said Dr.
Hamilton, "for I must be in Edinburg tomorrow. And, besides, it is a
case in which no medical skill is of much avail, if any; Nature must
struggle through--or yield, which I can not help thinking would be the
best ending. In Sparta, now, this poor child would have been exposed
on Mount--what was the place? to be saved by any opportune death
from the still greater