His wife was in
great pain, and had taken next to nothing all day. Late as it was,
he went for a doctor, who would give no opinion as to the nature of
the disease then, but merely ordered her some kind of sedative
mixture, which happily gave her a little sleep. Zachariah was a
working man and a poor man. Occasionally it does happen that a
working man and a poor man has nerves, and never does his poverty
appear so hateful to him as when he has sickness in his house.
The mere discomforts of poverty are bad enough--the hunger and cold
of it--but worse than all is the impossibility of being decently ill,
or decently dying, or of paying any attention to those who take it
into their heads to be ill or to die. A man tolerably well off can
at least get his wife some help when she is laid up, and when she is
near her end can remain with her to take her last kiss and blessing.
Not so the bricklayer's labourer. If his wife is in bed, he must
depend upon charity for medicine and attendance. And although he
knows he will never see her again, he is forced away to the job on
which he is employed; for if he does not go he will lose it, and must
apply to the parish for a funeral.
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