The doctor laughed heartily. "Oh, how refreshing a thing it is to fall in with a fellow who speaks his real mind. However, I am not your enemy, am I?"
"No. You are the best friend I ever had--except my mother."
"I am glad you think so; because I have a favor to ask you."
"Granted, before ever you speak."
"I want to know, for certain, whether Simmons was the man who blew you up; and I see but one way of learning it. You must visit him and be kind to him; and then my art tells me, he won't leave the world without telling you. Oblige me by taking him this bottle of wine, at once, and also this sedative, which you can administer if he is in violent pain, but not otherwise."
"Doctor," said the young man, "you always get your own way with me.
And so you ought."
Little stood by Simmons's bedside.
The man's eye was set, his cheek streaked with red, and his head was bandaged. He labored in breathing.
Young Little looked at him gravely, and wondered whether this battered figure was really the man who had so nearly destroyed him.
After some minutes of this contemplation, he said gravely "Simmons, I have brought you some wine."
The man stared at him, and seemed confused. He made no reply.
"Give me a spoon," said Henry.
Mrs. Simmons sat by the bedside rocking herself; she was stupefied with grief; but her sister, a handy girl, had come to her in her trouble: she brought Henry a spoon directly.
He poured out a little wine, and put it to the sufferer's lips. He drank it, and said it was rare good stuff. Henry gave him a little more.
Simmons then looked at him more intelligently and attentively, and gave a sort of shiver. "Who be you?"
"Henry Little; who advised you not to run that stone."
"Ah!" said Simmons, "I thought it was you." He seemed puzzled.
But, after a while, he said, "I wish I had hearkened thee, lad.
Give me some more of yonder stuff. What is it?"
"Port wine." Then he turned to the girl, and gave her a sovereign, and sent her out for some mutton-chops. "Meat and wine are all the physic you are to have, my poor fellow."
"It won't be for long, lad. And a good job too. For I'm a bad 'un.
I'm a bad 'un."
Henry then turned to the poor woman, and tried to say something to console her, but the words stuck in his throat. She was evidently near her confinement; and there lay her husband, worse than in his grave. Little broke down himself, while trying to comfort her.
The sufferer heard him, and said, all of a sudden, "Hold a light here."
Henry took the candle, and held it over him.
"Nay, nay, it is thy face I want to see."
Henry was puzzled at the request, but did as he was asked.
Simmons gave a groan. "Ay," said he, "thou'st all right. And I lie here. That seems queer."
The sister now returned, and Henry wrote her his address, and conversed with her, and told her the whole story of the grindstone, and said that, as he had hindered Simmons from being taken to the infirmary, he felt bound to see he did not suffer by that interference. He gave her his address, and said, if anything was wanted, she must come to him, or to his mother if he should be out.
No doubt the women talked of his kindness by the sick bed, and Simmons heard it.
Early in the morning Eliza Watney called at Little's house, with her eyes very red, and said her brother-in-law wanted to speak to him.
He went with her directly; and, on the road, asked her what it was about.
"I'm ashamed to tell you," said she, and burst out crying. "But I hope God will reward you; and forgive him: he is a very ignorant man."
"Here I am, Simmons."
"So I see."
"Anything I can do for you?"
"No."
"You sent for me."
"Did I? Well, I dare say I did. But gi' me time. Gi' me time.
It's noane so easy to look a man in the face, and tell him what I'm to tell thee. But I can't die with it on me. It chokes me, ever since you brought me yonder stuff, and the women set a-talking. I say--old lad--'twas I did thee yon little job at Cheetham's. But I knew no better."
There was a dead silence. And then Henry spoke.
"Who set you on?"
"Nay, that's their business."
"How did you do it?"
At this question--will it be believed?--the penitent's eye twinkled with momentary vanity. "I fastened a tea-cup to an iron rake, and filled the cup with powder; then I passed it in, and spilt the powder out of cup, and raked it in to the smithy slack, and so on, filling and raking in. But I did thee one good turn, lad; I put powder as far from bellows as I could. Eh, but I was a bad 'un to do the like to thee; and thou's a good 'un to come here. When I saw thee lie there, all scorched and shaking, I didn't like my work; and now I hate it. But I knew no better at the time. And, you see, I've got it worse myself. And cheap served too."
"Oh, Mr. Little," said Eliza Watney; "TRY and forgive him."
"My girl," said Henry, solemnly, "I thought I never could forgive the man who did that cruel deed to me, and I had never injured any one. But it is hard to know one's own mind, let alone another man's. Now I look at him lying pale and battered there, it seems all wiped out. I forgive you, my poor fellow, and I hope God will forgive you too."
"Nay. He is not so soft as thou. This is how He forgives me. But I knew no better. Old gal, learn the young 'un to read, that's coming just as I'm going; it is sore against a chap if he can't read. Right and wrong d--n 'em, they are locked up in books, I think: locked away from a chap like me. I know a little better now.
But, eh, dear, dear, it is come too late." And now the poor wretch began to cry at a gleam of knowledge of right and wrong having come to him only just when he could no longer profit by it.
Henry left him at last, with the tears in his eyes. He promised them all to come every day.
He called on Dr. Amboyne, and said, "You are always right, doctor.
Simmons was the man, he has owned it, and I forgave him."
He then went and told Mr. Holdfast. That gentleman was much pleased at the discovery, and said, "Ah, but who employed him? That is what you must discover."
"I will try," said Henry. "The poor fellow had half a mind to make a clean breast; but I didn't like to worry him over it."