The hospital ward looked cheery and sunny when the padre entered. His keen gray eyes scanned the patients, and he nodded a smiling greeting to them in his progress up the ward.
A nurse who had caught sight of the visitor hurried towards him. Drawing him aside, she said in a low tone: “I want to ask if you will do something for me, Mr. Santley. Poor young Grainger ought to be told what is really the matter with him. And yet I can’t do it―I can’t! He is so patient and quiet, will you?”
She looked up pleadingly, and the padre stood silent for a moment or two.
“You ask a hard thing, Sister, but I am here to help both him and you. I will tell him.”
Making his way to a bed where the patient lay, his head and eyes swathed in bandages, Mr. Santley uttered his usual kindly greeting, and taking the hand stretched out, sat down by the lad.
“Well, Grainger, have you had a good night? I hope the others didn’t keep you awake.”
“No thank you, sir. I had better rest than for some time,” was the quiet reply.
“Good. Has the doctor seen you yet?”
“Not since yesterday. He made a thorough examination then.”
“Have they told you the verdict?”
“No, I suppose they will soon.”
“Do you wish to know, Grainger?” asked Mr. Santley, laying a hand sympathetically on his arm.
There was a pause. The lad replied slowly:
“I think I ought to know, sir.”
“Then I will tell you, my boy.”
In steady tones, which yet were full of sympathy and understanding, the clergyman told him all there was to know. Grainger lay silent for a time. Then he said quietly: “Thank you, sir. Good-bye. If you are round again tomorrow, I will tell you how I feel about it.”
So with a parting handshake Mr. Santley left him. The next morning he once more approached Grainger’s bedside. “Well, my lad, how do you feel today?”
Grainger smiled a wistful smile.
“This is how I feel, sir. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of life, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.’”
For a moment or two the clergyman was unable to reply, so moved was he. He knew at what cost the lad lying there had uttered those words. For he was blind.
Firenze.