At His Gates. Volume 1

Robert clutched at the hand which the old lady stretched out to him again. 'Has he fainted?' he cried in a whisper. 'Have you had the doctor? Let me go for the doctor. Do you know what it is?'

Poor Mrs Haldane looked down silently and cried. Two tears fell out of her old eyes as if they were full and had overflowed. 'I thought he would notice you,' she said. 'He always was so fond of you. Oh, Mr Drummond, my boy's had a stroke!'

'A stroke!' said Drummond under his breath. All his own visions flitted out of his mind like a shadow. His friend lay before him like a fallen tower, motionless, speechless. 'Good God!' he said, as men do unawares, with involuntary appeal to Him who (surely) has to do with those wild contradictions of nature. 'When did it happen? Who has seen him?' he asked, growing almost as pale as was the sufferer, and feeling faint and ill in the sense of his own powerlessness to help.

'It was last night, late,' said the mother. Oh, Mr Drummond, this has been what was working on him. I knew it was never the lungs. Not one of us, either his father's family or mine, was ever touched in the lungs. Dr Mixwell saw him directly. He said not to disturb him, or I would have had him in bed. I know he ought to be in bed.'

'I'll go and fetch Maurice,' cried Robert. 'I shall be back directly,' and he rushed out of the room which he had entered so jauntily. As he flew along the street, and jumped into the first cab he could find, the bank and his directorship went as completely out of his mind as if they had been a hundred years off. He dashed at the great solemn door of Dr Maurice's house when he reached it and rushed in, upsetting the decorous servant. He seized the doctor by the shoulder, who was seated calmly at breakfast. 'Come along with me directly,' he said. 'I have a cab at the door.'

'What is the matter?' said Dr Maurice. He had no idea of being disturbed so unceremoniously. 'Is Mrs Drummond ill? Sit down and tell me what is wrong.'

'I can't sit down. I want you to come with me. There is a cab at the door,' said Robert panting. 'It is poor Haldane. He has had a fit – come at once.'

'A fit! I knew that was what it was,' said Dr Maurice calmly. He waved his hand to the importunate petitioner, and swallowed the rest of his breakfast in great mouthfuls. 'I'm coming; hold your tongue, Drummond. I knew the lungs was all nonsense – of course that is what it was.'

'Come then,' cried Robert. 'Good heavens, come! don't let him lie there and die.'

'He will not die. More's the pity, poor fellow!' said the doctor. 'I said so from the beginning. John, my hat. Lungs, nonsense! He was as sound in the lungs as either you or I.'

'For God's sake, come then,' said the impatient painter, and he rushed to the door and pushed the calm physician into his cab. He had come to consult him about something? Yes, to be sure, about poor Haldane – not to consult him – to carry him off, to compel, to drag that other back from the verge of the grave. If there was anything more in his mind when he started Drummond had clean forgotten it. He did not remember it again till two hours later, when, having helped to carry poor Haldane up-stairs, and rushed here and there for medicines and conveniences, he at last went home, weary with excitement and sympathetic pain. 'I have surely forgotten something,' he said, when he had given an account of all his doings to his wife. 'Good heavens! I forgot altogether that I went to ask somebody's advice.'