LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2636, 18 September 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

TWELVE OUNOK3 OF BLOOD. (Continued,) Tha whole day there was no thought in Tim's mind but of the wrong he had ■ ufferel, and of the wrong doer, Jacob. Ho did not know he was hungry, though he bad had no food since the previous day ; he did not know he was thirsty until, iu tha evening, a cater offered him 'a drink' if ho would hold his ttam a moment } then he discovered that be whs parched, That draught of ale had a surprising eff-ot upon him. His brain reeled; he no longer distinguished perams or things. Jaoob was everybody and everybody waa : Jacob ; and he was prepared to fight everybody as> Jacob. A firebrand when cast among inflammable material ia apt to create a fire ; therefore it is easy to imagine how, rome half-hour later, Tim had become the hero of a street fight. Two adversaries had been demolished, and a frantlo crowd ot cdmirera had laid their money on Tim when tho poMce appeared. But there were only two; and Tun, £B>me aWI, though his head waa bleeding and his ncse had suffered, defied two polloemen contemptuously. Every nerva in his body was alive ; he was like a Hon at bay. While the police shrilly whistled for ail, tha crowd parted and hustled Tim through ; their favorite should not end his triumph ia a polios court. A doctor's oarrlage, which waa passing, had been stopped by the crowd. Tim, as in a hnl -stupid way he suffered himself to be hidden behind it, looked up, and seeing the doctor gazing out of the oarriage window at him, was ttartled in recognising a look of Intereat upon his face that was of a very different kind from that shown by his surrounding admirers, The orowd Waa dispersing as rapidly ss might be, so the carriage drove off, and Tim baing told to run for his lifa, for some mounted police were coming down the next street, took to hia heels and followed the oarriage, muoh as a stray dog might have followed if, merely because it waa something to run after; partly, perhapa, beoauee tho dootor's faoe had impressed his now cooling mind. Dr. Featherstone had Indeed admired the physique and pluck of the street hero, but still he might not have cared to think of Tim sleeping that night in the wood yard Tim did it, though, and the following ntght; but on the third morning, seeing the dootor walking about in hfa little garden, ho came innocently to the front gate and asked for work. 11 r. Featherstone recognised him, and was interested. Tim, loeking into his face, thought he • was sympathetic, but he was mistaken. Dr. Featherstone was always interested iu everything on principle, but he had scarcely • grain of sympathy in his composition. He was a clever man, rising into notice principally through his wide and ruthless experiments for tbe obtaining of medical atd surgical knowledge. He drew from Tim his whole history, and saw by his emotional face,,that tbe tale was a true one. He heartily despised the great stupid Mlow, but it occurred to him that suoh a brawny martyr might be of-use to him some day. He was a bachelor, and reigned supreme in his little demesne, so there was no one to objeot to his making Tim temporary undergirdener, wood chopper, Ac Dr. Featherstone soon found he had made a good investment. Tim would do anything, having given his allegiance to the dootor, whose intellectual powers oppresse 1 and awed him j he obeyed him like a well-trained Newfonndland. At the same time there was a sullenness still upon him—a manner as If an angry temper and a desperate abandonment were only held in reserve, whioh made the dootor think it wise to-keep, him as far as possible without any money in hia pockets. Six months of Tim's life passed quietly away in that fashion. He had then become saoh an invaluable factotum to the dootor , (who had found he could so train him to save himself many disagreeable portions of his various experiments) that he raised him a step in the domestic world, and Tim became a qnlst, respectable servant, with a bedroom and a suit of clothes of his own. Dr. Featherstone could not discover that be had any other ambition. A oertain sullen sobriety appeared to have come upon him as'a final sta'.e in place of his old joviality and happytempered reoklessneas. And so the months passed by and gradually added themselves up until the lapse of a couple of yoars made Tim's presence In the doctor's queer hsußehold an old recognised fact. One dreary autnmn evening the doctor came home from his rounds, and passing Tim, who was sweeping up the fallen leaves in the garden; paused. 'Tim,'said he, ' I want to speak to you. Will yon-'o.-me Into my study in a fsw minutest' < Yes, air,' said Tim, and wont on sweeping, as Dr. Featherstone proceeded to the house. Tim's, dull brain was not set working by this request, Dr. Featherstone often had him in his study, to explain something which he wanted done. So ho quietly completed his leaf-heap, and put by his broom and went in, as Dr. Featherstone looked at at the big 'fellow with more interest in his eyes than usual, as Tim entered the room. 'Tim.' aaid the dootor. 'I am going to try and explain something to yon, because you ban be of great use to me, and to a patient of mine, as well ss to yourself, it you are willing.' Tim placed himself in an attitute of attention, and the dootor proceeded : ' A gentleman who has been under my eare for some little time is now in such a state of weakness that medicine is useless. He seems to have no living blood in his veins, no vitality in his body. There is no life in him to be aroused j he la now in a state of syncope— that Is, he is quite unoonsclous and I am afraid he Will hardly live even another day,' unless I am enabled to try a last resource.' This resource is the actual introduction lr»t"> his veins of some blood from the arm of a living man—such a man as yon, Tim,''said the doctor, looking at him with some admiration in his oold eyes, 'a man'whose' blood has plenty of life in it, and who has plenty of it to spare. I thick a little bipod-letting might improve your health, tTim; you have'nfc indulged in it, I think, since that memorable day on which I 'fiat saw'y«n.' The dootor smiled, bnt Tim did not; he only looked attention ; so the doctor proceeded : * Now it struck me you were the very man for the purpose. Twelve onnoes of that red blood of'yours ought to give my patient a fresh lease of life.- You shall have £lO down, Tim, if you will be ready to go with me to his house In a couple of hours.' 'Certainly, sir,' said Tim. The doctor knew very well that a £lO- - would be an event- In Tim's existence, and would put him into a propitious mood. And in this he! calculated well. While the dootor -had his dinner, quietly, Tim went into the kitchen and regaled himself with unwonted joviality, and about seven ia the evening, whe a the brougham waited at the gate of the little suburban garden, both were ready. They drove into London, and stopped at a house in one of the more fashionable streets. Dr. Featherstone and Tim entered; the doctor turned ioto tha open dining room, which was lighted, and apparently occupied by several gentlemen, who were laughing and talking and drinking wine. This seemed a little odd to unsophisticated Tim, In the house of a dying man, as he stood in the hall and listened. Presently Dr. Featherstone and these gentlemen came out of the dining-room and I went up-stairs, toning down their demeanor j a little as they asoended. Dr. Featherstone ' told Tim, aa he passed him, to sit down till he was sent for, so he sat himself upon a hall chair, while the company of doctors went up to the sick man. In a very few minutes a man servant summoned him, and Tim, feeling considerably abashed by the grandeur of the surroundings and the oddnoes of his own position, followed him up tiie soft-carpeted stairs. He aee-ned to enter into a subdued and almost oppressive atmosphere. It was quiet and all the lights were low, and when the servant gently pushed open a door and whispered Tim to enter the dim-lighted, gorgeously furnished room, with its heavy sense of sickness upon the air, he scarce dared raise his eyes as he stepped in. One glance he gave, and seeing Dr. Featherstone beckoning he made towards him without looking round any further, fee'ing him to be a refuge from all this strangeness of surroundings. In that one look he had jast caught that Dr.' featherstone and the other doctors were gathered in a olrcle by the side f of a heavily curtained bed, The curtains

were only partially drawn back, revealing merely a faint outline of a human form lying within it, and just indicated by a sort of stiff ridge under the white coverings. Poor Tim, quite overcome by all this solemnity of behaviour, stood humbly at Dr Featherstono's elbow 5 and, at his bidding bared his brawny arm. Cne of the doctors leaned fortvad and felt the firm bicpa with a kind of amuaed Interest, while Pr. Featherstone tightly tied a bandage high up on the arm. This was a much beloved experiment of 1.-r. Ftatherstone'a, one which he h»d often tried with arimals; but he had seldom had the opportunity of witnessing its effect upon the human subj o*. Only one of the doctors present understood the operation beside himself; thi* man now stepped forward to place the oaourb:tula up: n Tim's arm, wl i e Dr. Featherstone turned to the bed and uncovered the patient's thin and and neshlesß limb. 11m saw the arm, as Dr. Featherstone bent over it, deciding where to out the akin with the bistoury ho held in his hand. That arm made lim unoomfortable; he felt a sort of sarging within him, bnt he only said to himself, 'Poorohap! whit a pass he's come to !' He looked to see the slok man's face, now that he felt interested in him, bnt his head lay heavily back lu the soft pillows and from where Tim stood, a little behind the bed oartaln, was Invisible. He was afraid even to bend his head to look round the curtain, with the strange dootor doing mysterious things to bim; so he dropped his eyes to see what was gologon. The dootots all brought their wise heads to a circle to and so Tim watched tos. The stranee doctor took the apparatus from a vessel of water in which it was immersed. ' See,' he said to the others who stood round him, "this is tbe grand principle of lions' el's method. I keep the apparatus fall of water, and by that means preveot any contact of the precious highly vitalised blood with the air ; the water drives the air before it when I let It escape. Everything depends on introducing the blood in a living state from one body to the other ; the animal fluid mußt be in an unaltered condition. This trantfaaer being formed of natural caoutchouc, the blood is uninjured by its contact, so that if our ope-ation is as successful as it promises to be we shall send the blood of this fine fellow at a stream of actual lifs, uncoolcd, unmedioated or altered, into our patient,*d veins. Are you ready, Dr. Featherstone V

(To be continued.')