A
ball, with a dead man in one of the bedrooms, would be dreadful.
With a dying man it was bad enough;--but then a dying man is always
also a living man! Lord Rufford had already telegraphed for a
first-class surgeon from London, it having been whispered to him
that perhaps Old Nokes from Rufford might be mistaken. The surgeon
could not be there till four o'clock in the morning by which time
care would have been taken to remove the signs of the ball; but if
there was reason to send for a London surgeon, then also was there
reason for hope; and if there were ground for hope, then the
desirability of putting off the ball was very much reduced. "He's
at the furthest end of the corridor," the Lord said to his sister,
"and won't hear a sound of the music."
Though the man were to die why shouldn't the people dance? Had the
Major been dying three or four miles off, at the hotel at Rufford,
there would only have been a few sad looks, a few shakings of the
head, and the people would have danced without any flaw in their
gaiety. Had it been known at Rufford Hall that he was lying at that
moment in his mortal agony at Aberdeen, an exclamation or two,--
"Poor Caneback!"--"Poor Major!"--would have been the extent of the
wailing, and not the pressure of a lover's hand would have been
lightened, or the note of a fiddle delayed.
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