The prison
warder, seeing at once that he was a clergyman, did not suppose he was
shamming, as he might have done in the case of an old gaol-bird; he
therefore sent for the doctor. When this gentleman arrived, Ernest was
declared to be suffering from an incipient attack of brain fever,
and was taken away to the infirmary. Here he hovered for the next
two months between life and death, never in full possession of his
reason and often delirious, but at last, contrary to the expectation
of both doctor and nurse, he began slowly to recover.
It is said that those who have been nearly drowned find the return
to consciousness much more painful than the loss of it had been, and
so it was with my hero. As he lay helpless and feeble, it seemed to
him a refinement of cruelty that he had not died once for all during
his delirium. He thought he should still most likely recover only to
sink a little later on from shame and sorrow; nevertheless from day to
day he mended, though so slowly that he could hardly realise it to
himself. One afternoon, however, about three weeks after he had
regained consciousness, the nurse who tended him, and who had been
very kind to him, made some little rallying sally which amused him; he
laughed, and as he did so she clapped her hands and told him he
would be a man again.
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