The One Moss-Rose | Page 7

again. Water was all he craved, but Aggie was at last obliged to give over, and say she was afraid to give him any more.
James Courtenay's state was speedily made known to his father, and in a few minutes, from old Aggie's conversation with him, the groom was on his way to a neighbouring town to hasten the family physician. The latter soon arrived, and, after a few minutes with James Courtenay, pronounced him to be in brain fever--the end of which, of course, no man could foresee.
And a fearful fever indeed it was. Day after day passed in wild delirium. The burden of all the poor sufferer's cries and thoughts was, that he was a murderer. He used to call himself Cain, and to try to tear the murderer's mark out of his forehead. Sometimes he rolled himself in the sheet, and thought that he was dressed in a funeral cloak attending Jacob Dobbin's funeral, and all the while knowing that he had caused his death. At times the poor patient would attempt to spring from his bed; and now he fancied that he was being whipped with the thorny branches of rose trees; and now that he was being put in prison for stealing from a poor man's garden. At one time he thought all the tenants on the estate were hunting him off it with hounds, while he was fleeing from them on his gray pony as fast as her legs could carry her; and the next moment his pony was entangled hopelessly in the branches of little Dobbin's rose tree, and the dogs were on him, and the huntsmen were halloing, and he was about to be devoured. All these were the terrible ravings of fever; and very awful it was to see the young squire with his hair all shaved off, and vinegar rags over his head, tossing his arms about, and endeavouring at times to burst from his nurses, and leap out upon the floor. The one prevailing thought in all the sick boy's ravings was Jacob Dobbin's rose bush. Jacob, or his rose bush in some form or other, occupied a prominent part in every vision.
Ah, how terrible are the lashings of conscience! how terrible the effects of sin! For what a small gratification did this unhappy youth bring so much misery upon himself! And is it not often thus? The apostle says, "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?" And what fruit of pleasure had James Courtenay from his plunder of Jacob Dobbin's rose? Where was that rose? It had long since faded; its leaves were mingled with the dust upon which it had been thrown; yet for the sake of the transient enjoyment of possessing that flower a few days before abundance would have made their appearance in his own garden, he had brought upon himself all this woe. Poor, very poor indeed, are the pleasures of sin; and when they have been enjoyed, they are like the ashes of a fire that has burned out. Compare James Courtenay's present troubles,--his torture of mind, his pain of body, his risk of losing his life, and the almost momentary enjoyment which he had in plundering his poor neighbour of his moss-rose,--and see how Satan cheats in his promises of enjoyment from sin.
Dear young reader! let not Satan persuade you that there is any profit in sin--momentary pleasure there may indeed be, but it is soon gone, and then come sorrow and distress. Sin is a sweet cup with bitter dregs, and he who drinks the little sweet that there is, must drink the dregs also. Moments of sin may cause years of sorrow.
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For many days James Courtenay hung between life and death; night and day he was watched by skilful physicians, but they could do very little more than let the disease run its course. At length a change for the better appeared; the unhappy boy fell into a long sleep, and when he opened his eyes his disease was gone. But it had left him in a truly pitiable state. It was a sad sight to see the once robust boy now very little better than a skeleton; to hear the once loud voice now no stronger than a mere whisper; and instead of the mass of brown curly hair, to behold nothing but linen rags which swathed the shaven head.
But all this Squire Courtenay did not so much mind; his son's life was spared, and he made no doubt but that care and attention would soon fatten him up again, and the curly locks would grow as luxuriantly as they did before. Old Aggie, too, was full of joy; the boy that she had nursed so tenderly, and for whom