e sat supporting his head. She had
oftentimes heard in days that were gone, how doctors would lift the hand
of an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if the person were
dead. She waited for the awful moment when the doctors might lift this
hand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall.

The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to his
examination, 'Who brought him in?'

'I brought him in, sir,' answered Lizzie, at whom all present looked.

'You, my dear? You could not lift, far less carry, this weight.'

'I think I could not, at another time, sir; but I am sure I did.'

The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with some
compassion. Having with a grave face touched the wounds upon the head,
and the broken arms, he took the hand.

O! would he let it drop?

He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently down,
took a candle, looked more closely at the injuries on the head, and at
the pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle and took the
hand again. Another surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper,
and the second took the hand. Neither did he let it fall at once, but
kept it for a while and laid it gently down.

'Attend to the poor girl,' said the first surgeon then. 'She is quite
unconscious. She sees nothing and hears nothing. All the better for
her! Don't rouse her, if you can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poor
girl! She must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be feared
that she has set her heart upon the dead. Be gentle with her.'

Chapter 7

BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN

Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars were yet visible,
but there was dull light in the east that was not the light of night.
The moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks of the river,
seen through which the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the water
was the ghost of water. This earth looked spectral, and so did the
pale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to heat or
colour, with the eye of the firmament quenched, might have been likened
to the stare of the dead.

Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on the brink
of the lock. For certain, Bradley Headstone looked that way, when a
chill air came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if it
whispered something that made the phantom trees and water tremble--or
threaten--for fancy might have made it either.

He turned