Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate,
and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions on
the absence of her master and Rab and her unnatural freedom from the
road and her cart.

For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed "by the first intention;"
for, as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to beil." The
students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she
liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and
spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her through his eyes,
Rab and James outside the circle,--Rab being now reconciled, and even
cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required
worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratus.

So far well; but four days after the operation my patient had a sudden
and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw her soon
after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored; she was restless,
and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On
looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret: her pulse was
rapid, her breathing anxious and quick; she wasn't herself, as she said,
and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did
everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never out of it; Rab
subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but
his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in
her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in
her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was
never that way afore,--no, never." For a time she knew her head was
wrong, and was always asking our pardon,--the dear, gentle old woman:
then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then
came that terrible spectacle,--