If I get well, safe
and sound, I'll go to her; and, if I'm going to die, I'll send for her;
so I'll wait,"--which he did.
He found, however, that it was a great deal easier making the decision,
than keeping it when made. Sallie, hearing nothing from him,--supposing
him still in the South,--fearful as she had all along been that she
stood on uncertain ground,--Mrs. Surrey away in New York,--and Robert
Ercildoune, as the papers asserted in their published lists, mortally
wounded,--having no indirect means of communication with him, and
fearing to write again without some sign from him,--was sorrowing in
silence at home.
The silence reacted on him; not realizing its cause he grew fretful and
impatient, and the fretfulness and impatience told on his leg,
intensified his fever, and put the day of recovery--if recovery it was
to be--farther into the future.
"See here, my man,"--said the quick little surgeon one day, "you're
worrying about something. This'll never do; if you don't stop it, you'll
die, as sure as fate; and you might as well make up your mind to it at
once,--so, now!"
"Well, sir," answered Jim, "it's as good a time to die now, I reckon, as
often happens; but I ain't dead yet, not by a long shot; and I ain't
going to die neither; so, now, yourself!"
The doctor laughed. "All right; if you'll get up that spirit, and keep
it, I'll bet my pile on your recovery,--but you'll have to stop
fretting.
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