The Pioneers; Or, The Sources of the Susquehanna. Джеймс Фенимор КуперЧитать онлайн книгу.
sir; and be cautious that no cotton gets in, or it may p'izen the wound. The shirt has been made with cotton thread, but you can easily pick it out.”
Richard assumed the office, with a nod at his cousin, that said quite plainly, “You see this fellow can't get along without me;” and began to scrape the linen on his knee with great diligence.
A table was now spread with phials, boxes of salve, and divers surgical instruments. As the latter appeared in succession, from a case of red morocco, their owner held up each implement to the strong light of the chandelier, near to which he stood, and examined it with the nicest care. A red silk handkerchief was frequently applied to the glittering steel, as if to remove from the polished surfaces the least impediment which might exist to the most delicate operation. After the rather scantily furnished pocket-case which contained these instruments was exhausted, the physician turned to his saddle-bags, and produced various phials, filled with liquids of the most radiant colors. These were arranged in due order by the side of the murderous saws, knives, and scissors, when Elnathan stretched his long body to its utmost elevation, placing his hand on the small of his back as if for sup port, and looked about him to discover what effect this display of professional skill was likely to produce on the spectators.
“Upon my wort, toctor,” observed Major Hartmann, with a roguish roll of his little black eyes, but with every other feature of his face in a state of perfect rest, “put you have a very pretty pocket-book of tools tere, and your toctor-stuff glitters as if it was petter for ter eyes as for ter pelly.”
Elnathan gave a hem—one that might have been equally taken for that kind of noise which cowards are said to make in order to awaken their dormant courage, or for a natural effort to clear the throat; if for the latter it was successful; for, turning his face to the veteran German, he said:
“Very true, Major Hartmann, very true, sir; a prudent man will always strive to make his remedies agreeable to the eyes, though they may not altogether suit the stomach. It is no small part of our art, sir,” and he now spoke with the confidence of a man who understood his subject, “to reconcile the patient to what is for his own good, though at the same time it may be unpalatable.”
“Sartain! Dr. Todd is right,” said Remarkable, “and has Scripter for what he says. The Bible tells us how things may be sweet to the mouth, and bitter to the inwards.”
“True, true,” interrupted the Judge, a little impatiently; “but here is a youth who needs no deception to lure him to his own benefit. I see, by his eye, that he fears nothing more than delay.”
The stranger had, without assistance, bared his own shoulder, when the slight perforation produced by the pas sage of the buckshot was plainly visible. The intense cold of the evening had stopped the bleeding, and Dr. Todd, casting a furtive glance at the wound, thought it by no means so formidable an affair as he had anticipated. Thus encouraged, he approached his patient, and made some indication of an intention to trace the route that had been taken by the lead.
Remarkable often found occasions, in after days, to recount the minutiae of that celebrated operation; and when she arrived at this point she commonly proceeded as follows: “And then the doctor tuck out of the pocket book a long thing, like a knitting-needle, with a button fastened to the end on't; and then he pushed it into the wound and then the young man looked awful; and then I thought I should have swaned away—I felt in sitch a dispu't taking; and then the doctor had run it right through his shoulder, and shoved the bullet out on tother side; and so Dr. Todd cured the young man—Of a ball that the Judge had shot into him—for all the world as easy as I could pick out a splinter with my darning-needle.”
Such were the impressions of Remarkable on the subject; and such doubtless were the opinions of most of those who felt it necessary to entertain a species of religious veneration for the skill of Elnathan; but such was far from the truth.
When the physician attempted to introduce the instrument described by Remarkable, he was repulsed by the stranger, with a good deal of decision, and some little contempt, in his manner.
“I believe, sir,” he said, “that a probe is not necessary; the shot has missed the bone, and has passed directly through the arm to the opposite side, where it remains but skin deep, and whence, I should think, it might be easily extracted.”
“The gentleman knows best,” said Dr. Todd, laying down the probe with the air of a man who had assumed it merely in compliance with forms; and, turning to Richard, he fingered the lint with the appearance of great care and foresight. “Admirably well scraped, Squire Jones: it is about the best lint I have ever seen. I want your assistance, my good sir, to hold the patient's arm while I make an incision for the ball. Now, I rather guess there is not another gentleman present who could scrape the lint so well as Squire Jones!”
“Such things run in families,” observed Richard, rising with alacrity to render the desired assistance. “My father, and my grandfather before him, were both celebrated for their knowledge of surgery; they were not, like Marmaduke here, puffed up with an accidental thing, such as the time when he drew in the hip-joint of the man who was thrown from his horse; that was the fall before you came into the settlement, doctor; but they were men who were taught the thing regularly, spending half their lives in learning those little niceties; though, for the matter of that, my grandfather was a college-bred physician, and the best in the colony, too—that is, in his neighborhood.”
“So it goes with the world, squire,” cried Benjamin; “if so be that a man wants to walk the quarter-deck with credit, d'ye see, and with regular built swabs on his shoulders, he mustn't think to do it by getting in at the cabin windows. There are two ways to get into a top, besides the lubber-holes. The true way to walk aft is to begin forrard; tho'f it be only in a humble way, like myself, d'ye see, which was from being only a hander of topgallant sails, and a stower of the flying-jib, to keeping the key of the captain's locker.”
Benjamin speaks quite to the purpose,' continued Richard, “I dare say that he has often seen shot extracted in the different ships in which he has served; suppose we get him to hold the basin; he must be used to the sight of blood.”
“That he is, squire, that he is,” interrupted the cidevant steward; “many's the good shot, round, double-headed, and grape, that I've seen the doctors at work on. For the matter of that, I was in a boat, alongside the ship, when they cut out the twelve-pound shot from the thigh of the captain of the Foodyrong, one of Mounsheer Ler Quaw's countrymen!” *
* It is possible that the reader may start at this declaration of
Benjamin, but those who have lived in the new settlements of America
are too much accustomed to hear of these European exploits to doubt
it.
“A twelve-pound ball from the thigh of a human being:” exclaimed Mr. Grant, with great simplicity, dropping the sermon he was again reading, and raising his spectacles to the top of his forehead.
“A twelve-pounder!” echoed Benjamin, staring around him with much confidence; “a twelve-pounder! ay! a twenty-four-pound shot can easily be taken from a man's body, if so be a doctor only knows how, There's Squire Jones, now, ask him, sir; he reads all the books; ask him if he never fell in with a page that keeps the reckoning of such things.”
“Certainly, more important operations than that have been performed,” observed Richard; “the encyclopaedia mentions much more incredible circumstances than that, as, I dare say, you know, Dr. Todd.”
“Certainly, there are incredible tales told in the encyclopaedias,” returned Elnathan, “though I cannot say that I have ever seen, myself, anything larger than a musket ball extracted.”
During this discourse an incision had been made through the skin of the young hunter's shoulder, and the lead was laid bare. Elnathan took a pair of glittering forceps, and was in the act of applying them to the wound, when a sudden motion of the patient caused the shot to fall out of itself, The long arm and broad hand of the operator were now of singular service; for the latter expanded itself, and caught the lead, while at the same time an extremely