She knelt
by her son when we laid him down, and wiped off a spot or two of blood
from his forehead, and then kept his hand in hers, kissing it often. We
had sent on before to warn the village doctor, and he visited Guy alone
in his room.
Powell had been a surgeon's mate in his youth, and was serving under
Collingwood at Trafalgar when his ship stood first into action, and,
like a sovereign of the old days, led the van of the battle. There was
no shape of shattered and maimed humanity with which he had not been
familiar, and my last hope died away when I saw him come forth,
trembling all over, his rugged features convulsed with grief.
"I saw him born," the old man sobbed out. "I never thought to see him
die--and die _so_!"
Guy had received a mortal injury in the spine, though how long he might
linger none could tell.
There broke from Lady Catharine's white lips one terrible heart-broken
cry--"If God would only take me first!" Then her self-control returned,
and she went into her son's room, outwardly quite calm.
I have never tried to fancy what passed at the meeting of those two
strong hearts, after the one had been brought suddenly, face to face,
with an awful death, the other with a yet more awful sorrow.
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