e, _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 coloured; 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--

"The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on its dim and perilous way."

she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the
Psalms of David and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely
odds and ends and scraps of ballads.

Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I
ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affectionate, eager, Scotch
voice--the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the
bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares,
something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in
a "fremyt" voice, and he starting up surprised, and slinking off as if
he were to blame somehow, or had been dreaming he heard; many eager
questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and
on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood.
It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad.
James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as
ever; read to her when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms,
prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way,
showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and
doating over her as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie
wee dawtie!"

The end was drawin