It
is enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, and that I
think this attack is only the prelude of more serious consequences,
--which expression means you very well know what.
And now the secrets of this life hanging on a thread must surely come
out. If I have made a mystery where there was none, my suspicions will
be shamed, as they have often been before. If there is anything
strange, my visits will clear it up.
I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gentleman's bed, after
giving him some henbane to quiet his brain, and some foxglove, which an
imaginative French professor has called the "Opium of the Heart." Under
their influence he gradually fell into an uneasy, half-waking slumber,
the body fighting hard for every breath, and the mind wandering off in
strange fancies and old recollections, which escaped from his lips in
broken sentences.
----The last of 'em,--he said,--the last of 'em all,--thank God! And
the grave he lies in will look just as well as if he had been straight.
Dig it deep, old Martin, dig it deep,--and let it be as long as other
folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old man,--flat as ever a
straight-backed young fellow was laid under. And then, with a good tall
slab at the head, and a footstone six foot away from it, it'll look
just as if there was a man underneath.
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