Johnny always held that he never had so glad a moment in all his life
as that when he saw her countenance light up.
The first word was "Jock !"
Armine's full perceptions were come back, unlike those of Jock, who
was moaning and wandering in his talk, fancying himself still in the
desolation of the moraine, with Armine dead in his arms, and all the
miseries, bodily, mental and spiritual, from which he had suffered
were evidently still working in his brain, though the words that
revealed them were weak and disjointed. Besides, he screamed and
moaned with absolute and acute pain, which alarmed them much, though
Armine was sufficiently himself to be able to assure them that there
had been no hurt beyond the strain.
It was well that Armine was both rational and unselfish, for nothing
seemed to soothe Jock for a moment but his mother's hand and his
mother's voice. It was plain that fever and rheumatism had a hold
upon him, and what or who was there to contend with them in this
wayside inn? The rooms, though clean, were bare of all but the
merest necessaries, and though the young hostess was kind and
anxious, her maids were the roughest and most ignorant of girls, and
there were no appliances for comfort-—nothing even to drink but milk,
bottled lemonade, and a tisane made of yellow flowers, horrible to
the English taste.
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