‘Not a bit of good,’ said Number Two.
‘And I’m sure I’d be very thankful to be got into a place, or got
abroad,’ said the Chief.
‘And so should I,’ said Number Two. ‘Truly thankful, I should.’
Oakum Head then rose, and announced as an entirely new idea, the
mention of which profound novelty might be naturally expected to
startle her unprepared hearers, that she would be very thankful to
be got into a place, or got abroad. And, as if she had then said,
‘Chorus, ladies!’ all the Skirmishers struck up to the same
purpose. We left them, thereupon, and began a long walk among the
women who were simply old and infirm; but whenever, in the course
of this same walk, I looked out of any high window that commanded
the yard, I saw Oakum Head and all the other Refractories looking
out at their low window for me, and never failing to catch me, the
moment I showed my head.
In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden
time as youth, the prime of life, or a hale old age. In ten
minutes, all the lights of womankind seemed to have been blown out,
and nothing in that way to be left this vault to brag of, but the
flickering and expiring snuffs.
And what was very curious, was, that these dim old women had one
company notion which was the fashion of the place. Every old woman
who became aware of a visitor and was not in bed hobbled over a
form into her accustomed seat, and became one of a line of dim old
women confronting another line of dim old women across a narrow
table. There was no obligation whatever upon them to range
themselves in this way; it was their manner of ‘receiving.’ As a
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, or to look at
the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently working their
mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. In some of these wards, it
was good to see a few green plants; in others, an isolated
Refractory acting as nurse, who did well enough in that capacity,
when separated from her compeers; every one of these wards, day
room, night room, or both combined, was scrupulously clean and
fresh. I have seen as many such places as most travellers in my
line, and I never saw one such, better kept.
Among the bedridden there was great patience, great reliance on the
books under the pillow, great faith in GOD. All cared for
sympathy, but none much cared to be encouraged with hope of
recovery; on the whole, I should say, it was considered rather a
distinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a
worse way than the rest. From some of the windows, the river could
be seen with all its life and movement; the day was bright, but I
came upon no one who was looking out.
In one large ward, sitting by the fire in arm-chairs of
distinction, like the President and Vice of the good company, were
two old women, upwards of ninety years of age. The younger of the
two, just turned ninety, was deaf, but not very, and could easily
be made to hear. In her early time she had nursed a child, who was
now another old woman, more infirm than herself, inhabiting the
very same chamber. She perfectly understood this when the matron
told it, and, with sundry nods and motions of her forefinger,
pointed out the woman in question. The elder of this pair, ninetythree,
seated before an illustrated newspaper (but not reading it),
was a bright-eyed old soul, really not deaf, wonderfully preserved,
and amazingly conversational. She had not long lost her husband,
and had been in that place little more than a year. At Boston, in
the State of Massachusetts, this poor creature would have been
individually addressed, would have been tended in her own room, and
would have had her life gently assimilated to a comfortable life
out of doors. Would that be much to do in England for a woman who