His Big Opportunity
Copyright© 2024 by Amy Le Feuvre
Chapter 10: A Cripple
It was all over; two doctors had been closetted in the bedroom for a very long time, and then Dudley and Rob, sitting on the garden steps, were told that everything had been successfully carried out, and Roy was as well and better than had been expected.
“I never saw such fortitude and calm self-control in my life,” said Miss Bertram to her mother; “it was unnatural for a child of his age!”
“He is a true Bertram in spirit,” said the grandmother, proudly; then she added with a sigh, “but, alas, not in body.”
“Nurse,” said Dudley that night as he was creeping into bed under her charge; “is Roy going to die?”
“I hope not,” answered nurse, a little tearfully. “Doctor Grant says he’ll make a good recovery, but he whispered himself to me—Master Roy did just before he took the sleeping draught—’Nurse I’ll have my leg buried with me!’ he says.”
Dudley was silent for a minute, then he asked, solemnly, “And where is it, nurse?”
Nurse turned upon him tearfully and angrily,
“I believe as how you haven’t one speck of feeling for that blessed darling, you naughty boy! To talk of such a thing in such a way with not a tear on your face! And to think of him laying there a helpless cripple, and him the owner of the biggest estate in the county!”
Dudley crept into bed feeling he had no more tears to shed, wondering when he would be allowed to see Roy again, and also wondering who was the possessor of his lost leg.
It was a fortnight before he was allowed to see the little invalid, and when the boys met, Dudley gazed with deep pity on Roy’s white little face, looking smaller and whiter than ever. But he welcomed him with a smile.
“It’s years since you were here, old chap.”
“Yes,” responded Dudley, “and it’s been the most miserablest years of my life.”
“I thought I was going to die then,” continued Roy, with still the same smile; “but God wouldn’t let me. He was determined I should live, and do you know I’ve been thinking it out. I really believe it is because He is going to let me do something great still. And Doctor Grant has been telling me of a man in Parliament who took all the house by storm, and brought in a most wonderful law that thousands of people blessed him for, and he—he had a cork leg!”
Certainly Roy had not lost his buoyancy of spirits. Dudley drew a deep breath of relief, and for the first time began to see brighter times ahead.
“And I’m going to have a cork leg,” went on Roy, “a leg that if I press a spring I can kick out. Think of that!”
Dudley looked beaming, exclaiming, —
“And it will be very convenient to have a leg with no feeling, won’t it, especially about the knee when you’re crawling along a wall with broken bottles.”
“I’m going to see Rob to-morrow,” announced Roy, after a little more conversation. “Has he learned to read while I have been ill?”
Dudley shook his head.
“No, we tried one afternoon on the wall, but we were too miserable, so we stopped.”
“Well, I can teach him here in bed. That’s one thing you don’t want a leg to do!”
“I say, Roy,” Dudley asked, very cautiously; “don’t you feel very funny without it?”
Roy looked away for a minute without answering, and then he said slowly:
“I try and not think about it. It will be worse when I get up—people might think when they see me in bed that I’m all right, but they’ll know the truth when I’m up.”
Then he added more cheerfully, “It’s awfully queer, but do you know I’d never know it wasn’t there as far as the feeling goes. Why I can feel the pain right down to my toes now. And at night I’m always dreaming I’m running races with you as fast as I can, and then I wake and can’t believe I’ll never run again.”
As Roy grew stronger he had more visitors; Rob came to him every day for a reading lesson, and old Principle brought him books and sweets. Ben was allowed an interview, and the old groom, with tears running down his cheeks, besought Roy to forgive him.
“I never ought to allowed you, and ‘twas me that egged you on and sent you to your death!”
“No, it was my own fault, Ben,” said Roy, humbly, “and the thing that pains me most—more than breaking my leg—is to think that I should be the first Bertram who has failed. Dudley did it, and I didn’t, and of course I shall never be able to try it again. Perhaps I was too proud of what I could do. We have a picture in the nursery of a boy standing on the top of a bridge, and then tumbling in the water; it’s called ‘Pride must have a fall.’ I’ve had a fall, haven’t I, Ben?”
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