The String of Pearls (1850), p. 222

brightly, and an almond tree in the front garden is not sufficiently umbrageous
in its uncongenial soil to keep the bright rays from resting too strongly upon
the face of the boy. There he lies! His eyes are closed, and the long lashes—for Tobias, poor fellow, was a pretty boy—hung upon his cheek, held down by the moisture of a tear. The face is pale, oh, so pale and thin, and the one arm and hand that lies outside the coverlet of the bed, show the blue veins through the thin transparent skin. And all this is the work of Sweeney Todd. Well, well! heaven is patient! In the room is everything that can conduce to the comfort of the slumbering boy. Colonel Jeffery has kept his word. And now
that we have taken a look at Tobias, tread gently on tip-toe, reader, and come
with us down stairs to the back drawing-room, where Colonel Jeffery, his friend
Captain Rathbone, the surgeon, and Mrs. Ragg are assembled. Mrs. Ragg is
"crying her eyes out," as the saying is.
"Sit down, Mrs. Ragg" said the colonel, "sit down and compose yourself.
Come, now, there is no good done by this immoderate grief."
"But I can't help it."
"You can control it. Sit down."
"But I oughtn't to sit down. I'm the cook, you know, sir."
"Well, well; never mind that, if you are my cook. If I ask you to be seated, you may waive all ceremony. We want to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Ragg."
Upon this Tobias's mother did sit down, but it was upon the extreme edge of
a chair, so that the slightest touch to it in the world would have knocked it from
under her, and down she would have gone on to the floor.
"I'm sure, gentlemen, I'll answer anything I know, and more too, with all the
pleasure in life, for, as I often said to poor Mr. Ragg, who is dead and gone, and
buried accordingly in St. Martin's, as he naturally might, and a long illness he
had, and what with one thing and—
"Yes! yes! we know all that. Just attend to us for one moment, if you
please, and do not speak until you thoroughly understand the nature of the
question we are about to put to you."
"Certainly not, sir. Why should I speak, for as I often and often said,
when—"
"Hush, hush!"
Mrs. Ragg was silent at last, and then the surgeon spoke to her calmly and
deliberately, for he much wished her clearly to understand what he was saying
to her.
"Mrs. Ragg, we still think that the faculties of your son Tobias are not permanently injured, and that they are only suffering from a frightful shock." "Yes, sir, they is frightfully shook."
"Hush! We think that if anything that greatly interested him could be
brought to bear upon the small amount of perception that remains to him he
would recover. Do you now know of anything that might exercise a strong
influence over him?"
"Lord bless you—no, sir."
"How old is he?"
"Fifteen, sir, and you would hardly believe what a time of it I had with
Tobias. All the neighbours said—"Well, if Mrs. Ragg gets over this, she's a
woman of ten thousand; and Mrs. Whistlesides, as lived next door, and had
twins herself, owned she never—"
"Good God, will you be quiet, madam!"
"Quiet, sir? I'm sure I haven't said two words since I've been in the blessed
room. I appeal to the kernel."
"Well! well! it appears then, Mrs. Ragg, you can think of nothing that
is at all likely to aid us in this plan of awakening, by some strong impression,
the dormant faculties of Tobias?"
"No, gentlemen, no! I only wish I could, poor boy; and there's somebody
else wasting away for grief about him; poor little thing, when she heard that