Page:Tom Brown's School Days (6th ed).djvu/342

 haven't you, Geordie?" said he, with a mixture of awe and curiosity, feeling as if his friend had been in some strange place or scene, of which he could form no idea, and full of the memory of his own thoughts during the last week.

"Yes, very. I'm sure the Doctor thought I was going to die. He gave me the sacrament last Sunday, and you can't think what he is when one is ill. He said such brave and tender and gentle things to me; I felt quite light and strong after it, and never had any more fear. My mother brought our old medical man, who attended me when I was a poor, sickly child; he said my constitution was quite changed, and that I'm fit for anything now. If it hadn't, I couldn't have stood three days of this illness. That's all thanks to you, and the games you've made me fond of."

"More thanks to old Martin," said Tom; "he's been your real friend."

"Nonsense, Tom; he never could have done for me what you have."

"Well, I don't know; I did little enough. Did they tell you—you won't mind hearing it now, I know,—that poor Thompson died last week? The other three boys are getting quite round, like you."

"Oh yes, I heard of it."

Then Tom, who was quite full of it, told Arthur of the burial-service in the chapel, and how it had impressed him and, he believed, all the other boys. "And though the Doctor never said a word about it," said he, "and it was a half-holiday and match-day, there wasn't a game played in the close all the afternoon, and the boys all went about as if it were Sunday."

"I'm very glad of it," said Arthur. "But, Tom, I've had such strange thoughts about death lately. I've never told a soul of them, not even my mother. Sometimes I think they're wrong; but, do you know, I don't think in my heart I could be sorry at the death of any of my friends."

Tom was taken quite aback. "What in the world is the young