never going away?’ was the natural inquiry. ‘Most of them are
crippled, in some form or other,’ said the Wardsman, ‘and not fit
for anything.’ They slunk about, like dispirited wolves or
hyaenas; and made a pounce at their food when it was served out,
much as those animals do. The big-headed idiot shuffling his feet
along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable
object everyway.
Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick women in
bed; groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs
day-rooms, waiting for their dinners; longer and longer groves of
old people, in up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God
knows how – this was the scenery through which the walk lay, for
two hours. In some of these latter chambers, there were pictures
stuck against the wall, and a neat display of crockery and pewter
on a kind of sideboard; now and then it was a treat to see a plant
or two; in almost every ward there was a cat.
In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were
bedridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting on their
beds half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of bed, and
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sitting at a table near the fire. A sullen or lethargic
indifference to what was asked, a blunted sensibility to everything
but warmth and food, a moody absence of complaint as being of no
use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be left alone again,
I thought were generally apparent. On our walking into the midst
of one of these dreary perspectives of old men, nearly the
following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being
immediately at hand:
‘All well here?’
No answer. An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a
form at the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his
cap a little to look at us, claps it down on his forehead again
with the palm of his hand, and goes on eating.
‘All well here?’ (repeated).
No answer. Another old man sitting on his bed, paralytically
peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head and stares.
‘Enough to eat?’
No answer. Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs.
‘How are YOU to-day?’ To the last old man.
That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man of
very good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes forward
from somewhere, and volunteers an answer. The reply almost always
proceeds from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or
spoken to.
‘We are very old, sir,’ in a mild, distinct voice. ‘We can’t
expect to be well, most of us.’
‘Are you comfortable?’
‘I have no complaint to make, sir.’ With a half shake of his head,
a half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile.
‘Enough to eat?’
‘Why, sir, I have but a poor appetite,’ with the same air as
before; ‘and yet I get through my allowance very easily.’
‘But,’ showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it; ‘here is a
portion of mutton, and three potatoes. You can’t starve on that?’
‘Oh dear no, sir,’ with the same apologetic air. ‘Not starve.’
‘What do you want?’
‘We have very little bread, sir. It’s an exceedingly small
quantity of bread.’
The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the questioner’s elbow,
interferes with, ‘It ain’t much raly, sir. You see they’ve only
six ounces a day, and when they’ve took their breakfast, there CAN
only be a little left for night, sir.’
Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bed-clothes,
as out of a grave, and looks on.
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‘You have tea at night?’ The questioner is still addressing the
well-spoken old man.
‘Yes, sir, we have tea at night.’
‘And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it?’
‘Yes, sir – if we can save any.’
‘And you want more to eat with it?’
‘Yes, sir.’ With a very anxious face.
The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little