Once only, in this brief summer episode, did Sarah Walker attract the impulsive and general sympathy of Greyport. It is only just to her consistency to say it was through no fault of hers, unless a characteristic exposure which brought on a chill and diphtheria could be called her own act. Howbeit, towards the close of the season, when a sudden suggestion of the coming autumn had crept, one knew not how, into the heart of a perfect day; when even a return of the summer warmth had a suspicion of hectic,--on one of these days Sarah Walker was missed with the bees and the butterflies. For two days her voice had not been heard in hall or corridor, nor had the sunshine of her French marigold head lit up her familiar places. The two days were days of relief, yet mitigated with a certain uneasy apprehension of the return of Sarah Walker, or--more alarming thought!--the Sarah Walker element in a more appalling form. So strong was this impression that an unhappy infant who unwittingly broke this interval with his maiden outcry was nearly lynched. "We're not going to stand that from YOU, you know," was the crystallized sentiment of a brutal bachelor. In fact, it began to be admitted that Greyport had been accustomed to Sarah Walker's ways. In the midst of this, it was suddenly whispered that Sarah Walker was lying dangerously ill, and was not expected to live.
Then occurred one of those strange revulsions of human sentiment which at first seem to point the dawning of a millennium of poetic justice, but which, in this case, ended in merely stirring the languid pulses of society into a hectic fever, and in ****** sympathy for Sarah Walker an insincere and exaggerated fashion.
Morning and afternoon visits to her apartment, with extravagant offerings, were de rigueur; bulletins were issued three times a day; an allusion to her condition was the recognized preliminary to all conversation; advice, suggestions, and petitions to restore the baleful existence, flowed readily from the same facile invention that had once proposed its banishment; until one afternoon the shadow had drawn so close that even Folly withheld its careless feet before it, and laid down its feeble tinkling bells and gaudy cap tremblingly on the threshold. But the sequel must be told in more vivid words than mine.
"Whin I saw that angel lyin' there," said Sarah Walker's nurse, "as white, if ye plaze, as if the whole blessed blood of her body had gone to make up the beautiful glory of her hair; speechless as she was, I thought I saw a sort of longin' in her eyes.
"'Is it anythin' you'll be wantin', Sarah darlint', sez her mother with a thremblin' voice, 'afore it's lavin' us ye are? Is it the ministher yer askin' for, love?' sez she.
"And Sarah looked at me, and if it was the last words I spake, her lips moved and she whispered 'Scotty.'
"'Wirra! wirra!' sez the mother, 'it's wanderin' she is, the darlin';' for Scotty, don't ye see, was the grand barkeeper of the hotel.
"'Savin' yer presence, ma'am,' sez I, 'and the child's here, ez is half a saint already, it's thruth she's spakin'--it's Scotty she wants.' And with that my angel blinks wid her black eyes 'yes.'
"'Bring him,' says the docthor, 'at once.'
"And they bring him in wid all the mustachios and moighty fine curls of him, and his diamonds, rings, and pins all a-glistening just like his eyes when he set 'em on that suffering saint.
"'Is it anythin' you're wantin,' Sarah dear?' sez he, thryin' to spake firm. And Sarah looks at him, and then looks at a tumbler on the table.
"'Is it a bit of a cocktail, the likes of the one I made for ye last Sunday unbeknownst?' sez he, looking round mortal afraid of the parents. And Sarah Walker's eyes said, 'It is.' Then the ministher groaned, but the docthor jumps to his feet.
"'Bring it,' sez he, 'and howld your jaw, an ye's a Christian sowl.' And he brought it. An' afther the first sip, the child lifts herself up on one arm, and sez, with a swate smile and a toss of the glass:
"'I looks towards you, Scotty,' sez she.
"'I observes you and bows, miss,' sez he, makin' as if he was dhrinkin' wid her.
"'Here's another nail in yer coffin, old man,' sez she winkin'.
"'And here's the hair all off your head, miss,' sez he quite aisily, tossin' back the joke betwixt 'em.
"And with that she dhrinks it off, and lies down and goes to sleep like a lamb, and wakes up wid de rosy dawn in her cheeks, and the morthal seekness gone forever."Thus Sarah Walker recovered. Whether the fact were essential to the moral conveyed in these pages, I leave the reader to judge.
I was leaning on the terrace of the Kronprinzen-Hof at Rolandseck one hot summer afternoon, lazily watching the groups of tourists strolling along the road that ran between the Hof and the Rhine.