Bing/Chapter 10

by Clarence Hawkes

Chapter X

The Long Vigil

For several months after the great flood, Mrs. Browning was not well. In spite of all her efforts, she could not throw off the horror of that great disaster. Whenever it rained and surface water appeared, either in the orchard behind the house or on the common, it made her nervous. The winter that followed was a long and hard one, and all the members of Sunshine Cottage were glad when spring came.

One morning at the breakfast table, late in April, Mrs. Browning greatly surprised her husband by saying, "I wish Bing would stop looking at me so. He makes me nervous."

The little hound that had been gazing at his mistress with adoring eyes at once turned his head and went to Mr. Browning who patted him affectionately.

"You may look at me, Bingsey, just as much as you want to," he said. "I should be glad to have a nice dog like you look at me."

"You don't understand what I mean," replied Mrs. Browning irritably. "I do not mind his looking at me, but he looks as though he saw something."

Mr. Browning laughed. "The fact is, he is seeing a fine-looking woman."

"Stop your joking and be serious! I am, Heaven knows," returned the mistress. "Bing not only looks at me, but he looks through me. He looks as though he saw something standing over me or behind me. Half a dozen times a day I turn about to see what he is looking at."

Mr. Browning looked serious. "Why, you're just tired, Betty," he said. "It's nerves. Bing doesn't see anything that the rest of us do not see."

"But you have often said, Lawrence, that you thought dogs had premonitions of danger to come and that they could even see the death spectre. That's what I mean. I wonder if Bing sees something behind me that neither you nor I can behold," and she concluded the sentence with a little sob.

"Nonsense, fiddlesticks!" replied Mr. Browning, but nevertheless he was deeply troubled over the conversation.

So he was not altogether surprised when, a few days later, his wife announced: "I can't get up this morning, Lawrence. I don't know what the trouble is, but the bed seems to spin around like a top. I'm afraid we are in for it."

"I guess you will be all right," returned the master. "You're just tired out. I'll get up and get things started."

But, instead, he went down-stairs and telephoned for good old Dr. Hampton. The physician made a long and careful examination of Mrs. Browning and asked many questions, then retired to the study for a consultation with Mr. Browning.

"It's typhoid fever or something of the kind," he said. "She's very nervous. We must have a nurse at once."

The nurse came the same afternoon. Her name was Miss Stevenson, and she had just graduated from a large hospital in the city and looked very immaculate in her new uniform. She was brimful of theories and efficiency, but, as Dr. Hampton remarked to Mr. Browning: "She's got about as much love in her make-up as an icicle, and she's just about as sympathetic as a broomstick, but I guess she's a good nurse in her way."

Miss Stevenson early took a dislike to Bing. Whenever he could slip away to the hall up-stairs, the little hound would do so, as he wished to be near his mistress. Whenever the nurse came out of the sick-room, she would glare at him and drive him down-stairs, an act that nearly broke his heart. On several occasions when Mrs. Browning heard the patter of the small dog's feet in the hallway, she would call him in, but the nurse always frowned on this procedure and, as soon as the call was over, she would carefully wash the patient's hands.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Mrs. Browning one day. "Bing's kisses contain nothing but love, and love is not infectious."

"Well," replied the nurse, "perhaps it isn't, but I'll take my chance with sylpho-nathol or carbolic any day."

During this terrible ordeal, Mr. Browning and Bing became greater pals than ever. Often, the master took Bing's part against Miss Stevenson and entreated her to be more thoughtful of him.

One day when they were discussing the case, the nurse spoke to the doctor about the dog.

"Doctor," she said, "have we got to have that dog in the upper hall all the time? I don't like dogs, and he gives me the creeps with his mournful face forever looking at Mrs. Browning's door."

"Bing is a personality," returned the old man gently, "and he has more character than many people. You will find that out, if you see enough of him. I wouldn't disturb him. I am sure that Mrs. Browning would like to have him in the hallway, if she knew. You see, we never can tell just what the golden thread is that holds our loved ones to earth. Often a bit of love, even a dog's love, may do more than medicine and nursing, so I wouldn't be too hard on Bing."

The days that were so full of anxiety for Mr. Browning and Bing dragged slowly by, and there was no improvement in the patient. The little hound finally became so heart-broken that he would scarcely eat a mouthful of food, so each day Mr. Browning took it upon himself to feed the dog, fairly coaxing the dog biscuit down his mouth.

The terrible strain was telling upon both man and dog. Mr. Browning became haggard, and Bing was finally so weak that he tottered when he climbed the stairs to the upper hall.

One morning, about the first of May, the crisis came. The patient lay on the bed as one dead, white as the pillows. Mr. Browning sat by a window, leaning his aching head on his hands. The doctor had done all that he could, and he sat by another window, looking out at the bright May sky. They were waiting, waiting, waiting for they knew not what.

Mr. Browning could not help but notice as he sat by the open window how different the world outside was from the sick-room. From out-of-doors came the heavy fragrance of a syringa-bush in full bloom and the sweet scent of new grass, the pungent aroma of the spice-bush and other indescribable scents which made the May air vital and vibrant. The sunbeams, too, seemed joyous and full of life, and the birds that always flocked to Bird Acre in the spring-time were all there. The robins were busily flying to and fro, chattering and scolding. A bluebird was fluting from the top of the pear-tree and the blithe little oriole was there also, for it was the seventh of May, and this day had been oriole day at Bird Acre for the past fifteen years. Only once had the orioles failed to appear on that day. Life was out there in the open,—life that vibrated and tingled and was glad, but inside the sick-room it was so still that the ticking of a little clock on the mantelpiece seemed to Mr. Browning's overwrought nerves like loudest thunder. There was no sign of life inside the room; instead there was gloom and heartache.

Presently the old doctor once more tiptoed to the bedside and took the thin white hand in his and let his fingers rest for a few seconds on the wrist. Then he quickly laid the hand down, and, stooping, placed his ear over the woman's heart and listened for a few seconds. Then he quickly crossed the room and, taking a small looking-glass from the mantelpiece, hurried back to the bedside and, with trembling hands, held it close to the woman's face for at least thirty seconds, then turned it about. It was as bright as silver; there was not the slightest cloud upon it. Then, with heavy steps the old physician came over and laid his hand on Mr. Browning's shoulder. The doctor said gently: "She is dying." With a moan of unspeakable agony, Mr. Browning sank down on his knees beside the bed and laid his head on the pillow beside that of his wife. The old doctor returned to his seat by the window and sat down heavily. He had fought a good fight, doing the best he could, and was losing. Only he knew how impotent and helpless he felt as he sat looking out at the May sky.

Just at the moment when Mr. Browning had fallen on his knees by the bedside, the woman, lying so still and seemingly lifeless upon the bed, felt the soul of her, her real life, slowly rising from the body, the poor tired body that she was leaving. There was nothing sudden about this going; instead it was very leisurely. She saw Mr. Browning kneeling by the bed, and a great wave of pity for the stricken man swept over her. She wanted to stay with him and comfort him, but she could not, for something above and beyond was calling to her and drawing her with an irresistible force. She saw the old doctor sitting by the window, and she pitied him also. He had worked so hard, and they thought he had lost. There was another figure that she beheld likewise, and that was little Bing in the outer hall. He was sitting on his mat with his forefeet braced, his head held high, with a look of utter agony on his small dog face. He seemed to be looking, or listening for something, she knew not what. She pitied Bing, too, and wished that she might go to him, but the urge from outside was still more insistent. She could not stay, it would not let her; she must answer this call. So she drifted away from Sunshine Cottage and Bird Acre into a great wide world of light and unspeakable beauty. The sunshine in this world was like amber, and the air was more vital than anything she had ever experienced before. She drank in deep impetuous draughts, and it tingled in her veins like old wine. She was no longer tired, but young and glad. Life, such life as she had never known before, was all about her, and she revelled in it and gloried in her new inexhaustible strength.

And this air was also filled with wonderful music, bird-songs, and sounds of running brooks, and voices of little children and their laughter. Presently she noticed that the birds were winging about her head, one of them with an undulating motion that seemed familiar. Then she noted with a little thrill of joy that it was Snip, an old red-crested woodpecker they had fed at Bird Acre for many years. A sparrow-hawk had killed him the year before, but even that did not seem to matter for, here he was, calling "Snip," just as he used to. The little chorister, a marvellous catbird that had sung for them at Bird Acre in years gone by, was there, singing on the top of a fantastic tree. Rabbits were there, hopping about, and squirrels were chattering from the tree-tops. All the wild creatures they had loved and fed at Bird Acre were there.

Presently a familiar figure came bounding towards the woman and she saw to her great surprise that it was old Scotty, Mr. Browning's beloved collie that they had buried in the orchard the year before, when he had been killed by an automobile. But here he was, safe and full of life and overjoyed to see his mistress. Other dogs that they had owned at Bird Acre were also bounding about and barking gleefully. But all the time a great light in the distance seemed calling to the woman, dragging her irresistibly forward.

As she stopped to pat old Scotty on the head, she thought she heard a pathetic sound in the distance, and looking up she saw another dog figure away at the end of a long vista, dim and indistinct. Then for a moment the shadow in the background of this vista opened, and a vast distance away she beheld Bird Acre and Sunshine Cottage and there, in the upper hall, still standing on his mat, was little Bing. His head was up, his eyes wild, and every hair on his back on end, and he was howling as though his heart would break.

At the sight of the little hound that had loved her so long and so faithfully, a great tenderness swept over the woman and, heedless of the beauty and the wonder about her and the bird-songs and all the heavenly atmosphere, she turned and started hurriedly back towards the heart-broken little hound that was calling, calling, calling for her at the end of that interminable vista, such a distance away at Bird Acre.

Not all this beauty and bliss could hold her back, and Bing seemed to see her coming, for he started running towards her in great bounds, his ears flopping up and down as though they would fly off.

Perhaps two minutes had elapsed since that dramatic moment when the old doctor had sat down heavily in his chair by the window and Mr. Browning had thrown himself in unspeakable grief on his knees by the bed, when they heard a quick step in the hallway and Miss Stevenson, the nurse, hurried in and said in an excited stage whisper, "I think Bing is dead."

With his left hand, the doctor motioned solemnly towards the bed while, with an imperious gesture with his right, he fairly pushed the nurse from the room. Very gently she closed the door and they heard her footsteps going slowly down-stairs.

Then something happened in the sick-room that strained to the breaking point the credulity of the two waiting men. If the roof above them had suddenly flown off into space and they had beheld the blue sky, or the floor beneath them had sunk from sight and they had been left sitting in space, they would not have been more astonished. For there was a message from the woman so pale and quiet on the bed. There were words spoken in the faintest kind of a whisper, yet they were as clear and distinct as though they had been shouted from the housetop, and as clean-cut as new coins from the mint, and this is what she said:

"Bing is not dead. He has just brought me back over the Great Divide. Go to him, doctor, for if he dies I shall go back to the Great Beyond; nothing can keep me."

In two steps, the doctor was by the bedside. "My God, Browning, have I been mistaken?" he cried. "I would have taken my oath that she was going. Did you hear that?"

"Yes," said his companion between sobs. "Do what she says."

Now the doctor was an old and experienced physician. Every consideration in the medical code bade him stay by the bedside of this woman who held to life by so slight a thread, yet he was wise in the wisdom which is not of this world, so he hurried from the room.

He found Miss Stevenson in the kitchen, bending over the prostrate form of the little hound. At the sound of his entrance, she lifted a tear-stained face.

"Doctor," she said. "I am a wretch. I am a heartless creature. I hope you despise me; you ought to. For all this time I have been despising this little dog, driving him out of the sick chamber whenever I had a chance and always maligning him; and here he was all the time eating out his little heart for love of his mistress. Doctor, I am a heartless, soulless little wretch!"

"Oh, it is not so bad as that!" returned the doctor. "Don't be too hard on yourself. I said you would respect Bing, once you came to know him. Let me see him. I don't believe he's gone."

"How is Mrs. Browning?" asked the nurse in her professional voice.

"She nearly left us two minutes ago," replied the doctor in an even tone, responsive to that of the nurse.

At this announcement the well-trained nurse from the great hospital gave no sign. She had expected it, and to meet such crises as a soldier was a part of her business.

"I don't think Bing is dead," said the old physician, lifting the small dog's head. "He has just collapsed; he is all worn out. You hold his mouth open, and I'll see if I can get some stimulant down him. Mrs. Browning said I must save him if I wanted to save her."

The young woman gazed at him with open mouth. "I thought you said she was leaving us," she gasped.

"So I did," replied the doctor, "but Bingsey went out over the Great Divide and brought her back."

Now there was nothing in the young woman's training at the hospital or in the advice she had heard in many lectures by great physicians which covered this exigency, so, with a little moan, she swooned and would have fallen had not the old doctor caught her.

"Here, here," he said gently. "Now don't you go flopping over in that way. I have got enough on my hands with a woman who is almost dead and yet talks, and a dog that has apparently died and still breathes, without having you swooning on my hands. So brace up."

These words steadied the nurse, and she knelt to do the doctor's bidding.

A minute later, there was a slight sound on the floor behind them.

"What was that?" asked the nurse, for her nerves were wrought to the breaking point.

"That," replied the doctor with a friendly smile, "was the first note in a pæan of gratitude. Don't you know the song of praise and thanksgiving that a dog can sing with his tail? Listen."

There were two slow and solemn thumps on the floor. Yes, little Bing was coming round, and was telling his friends with his eloquent tail how grateful he was to them all and how glad he was to be alive.

But the old doctor kept on pouring the whiskey down his throat, and in ten minutes more he was able to stand.

"I guess I will take Doctor Bing up to the patient," he said finally, lifting the small hound in his arms and starting for the sick-room. "This is a case where medicine and nursing don't seem to count. The only thing that holds this woman to earth is the golden thread of a small dog's love."

Contrary to all ethics and the usual procedure in the case of a patient who was so near death's door, the old doctor laid the small hound upon the bed by his mistress, and he frantically licked her hands. At this sign from the material world, the world to which she still clung by a thread, Mrs. Browning opened her eyes and smiled at them all.

Then she spoke again in that faint whisper which carried so far and was so distinct. "I love you all," she said, "but it was Bingsey that brought me back."

Again Mr. Browning and the doctor took refuge at their windows, the former that he might not agitate his wife with his emotion that he could scarcely control. So Bingsey and his mistress had it all their own way on the bed.

Presently she spoke again, and this time in a stronger voice. "I am coming back fast," she said. "Somehow it rested me out there in that other world and helped to make me well. I have come back to stay, so don't worry about me any more."

"It is strange," said Mr. Browning to the doctor, "the most wonderful and most beautiful thing I have ever known. And it suggests again the old, old question I have asked philosophers and sages so many times, but none of them knows the answer. It is this: Why was it that when God created the most untiring devotion, the most unflinching loyalty, the most spontaneous forgiveness, and the most perfect love, he put these heavenly qualities, not in the brain of a man, but in the heart of a dog?"