I Come To My Own Again
'Twas a rough, wild journey we made to Portsmouth, my dears, and I think it must have killed me had not my lady been at my side. We were no sooner started than she pulled the curtains and opened her portmanteau, which I saw was near filled with things for my aid and comfort. And I was made to take a spoonful of something. Never, I believe, was medicine swallowed with a greater willingness. Talk was impossible, so I lay back in the corner and looked at her; and now and anon she would glance at my face, with a troubled guess in her own as to how I might stand the night. For we were still in London. That I knew by the trot of our horses, and by the granite we traversed from time to time. But at length we rumbled over a bridge, there was a sharp call back from our post-boy to him of the chaise behind, and then began that rocking and pitching and swaying and creaking, which was to last the whole night long, save for the brief stops at the post-houses.

After an hour of it, I was holding my breath against the lurches, like a sea-sick man against that bottomless fall of the ship's bows on the ocean. I had no pain,--only an over whelming exhaustion,--but the joy of her touch and her presence kept me from failing. And though Aunt Lucy dozed, not a wink of sleep did my lady get through all of those weary twelve hours. Always alert was she, solicitous beyond belief, scanning ever the dial of her watch to know when to give me brandy and physic; or reaching across to feel my temples for the fever. The womanliness of that last motion was a thing for a man to wonder at. But most marvellous of all was the instinct which told her of my chief sickening discomfort, --of the leathery, travelled smell of the carriage. As a relief for this she charged her pocket-napkin with a most delicate perfume, and held it to my face.