Raffles returns to Stone Court and dies there

Raffles returns to Stone Court gravely ill and dies there despite Tertius Lydgate’s treatment. The episode brings Caleb Garth’s practical compassion into direct contact with Nicholas Bulstrode’s fear of the man who knows his past; as Bulstrode assumes responsibility for Raffles’s care, his conduct becomes entangled with the death he had inwardly hoped would release him from exposure.

Raffles Is Brought to Stone Court

Caleb tells Bulstrode that a stranger named John Raffles is very ill at Stone Court and needs a doctor. Bulstrode’s shock is visible, though he responds aloud with apparent compassion and asks how Raffles came to be there. Caleb explains that he encountered Raffles after the man had left a coach and was walking beyond the turning from the toll-house. Recognizing Caleb from an earlier meeting at Stone Court, Raffles asked him for a ride. Caleb saw that he was ill and considered it right to take him under shelter.

Caleb’s explanation makes the immediate cause of Raffles’s return plain: he has not been brought there by a plan of Bulstrode’s, but by Caleb’s decision to help a sick traveler. Caleb rises to leave after urging that medical advice be obtained without delay. Bulstrode sends a messenger with a note for Lydgate and says that he will ride to Stone Court himself. Yet, once Caleb is standing before him, Bulstrode’s private calculation turns to what Raffles may have told him: he hopes Caleb has learned nothing of their history and thinks of his own usefulness to the man who has just acted out of simple concern.

Lydgate’s Treatment and Bulstrode’s Responsibility

Lydgate examines Raffles and orders that he be put to bed and kept as quiet as possible. He considers the illness serious, but does not initially expect the attack to be fatal: Raffles has a robust constitution, although complications may alter the outlook. Lydgate directs that the patient be watched and attended carefully, and says he will return the next morning.

The treatment reflects Lydgate’s considered medical judgment, not merely a routine response. He is opposed to the common practice of giving alcohol and repeatedly administering large doses of opium in cases of alcoholic poisoning. On his return, sleeplessness leads him to prescribe only very moderate doses of opium, with precise instructions about how much to give and when to stop. He stresses the danger of continuing too long and repeats that Raffles must receive no alcohol. In his assessment, excessive narcotism is the principal risk; he thinks Raffles has enough strength to survive even with little food.

Bulstrode stays at Stone Court, presenting his presence as necessary because the household staff lack experience with this responsibility. Lydgate entrusts the instructions to him and explains that Mrs. Abel may seek further directions if needed. The arrangement gives Bulstrode practical authority over the patient’s care, while leaving the doctor dependent on the household’s account of what happens between visits. When Mrs. Abel remarks that Raffles may need strong drink and recalls giving wine and brandy to a former employer, Bulstrode hands her the key to the wine-cooler and tells her there is plenty of brandy there. This directly contradicts Lydgate’s repeated instruction to give none.

A Fatal Night

Raffles sleeps fitfully and wakes in distress, repeatedly saying that he is sinking away. At six o’clock Bulstrode begins administering the opium according to Lydgate’s directions. After half an hour or more, he tells Mrs. Abel that he is too exhausted to keep watch and repeats the instructions about the doses. She, who had previously prepared whatever Bulstrode requested without knowing Lydgate’s prescriptions, asks what else she should do. Bulstrode tells her to offer soup or soda-water, to ask her husband for help if needed, and that he himself will not return to the room that night unless there is an important change.

Mrs. Abel again argues for stronger support, citing her experience nursing a former master and offering the rum kept for her own household. Bulstrode does not answer at once. He then gives her access to the brandy in the wine-cooler. The sequence matters: this is not a direction from Lydgate, nor does the doctor learn of it before Raffles’s condition turns. Bulstrode has the medical instructions, has repeated them to the nurse, and nonetheless permits alcohol to be given.

Early the next morning, after prayer, Bulstrode listens to Raffles’s breathing and learns from Mrs. Abel that the patient has been deeply asleep since sometime between three and four. When Bulstrode goes upstairs, he recognizes that this is not sleep from which Raffles will recover, but a deepening approach to death. He sees the brandy bottle and the nearly empty opium phial, hides the phial, and takes the brandy downstairs, locking it away again. The acts establish what is present in the room, but do not by themselves settle what caused the decline. The account leaves the precise administration and medical effect uncertain.

Death and Unresolved Responsibility

Lydgate arrives at half-past ten and witnesses the final pause in Raffles’s breathing. He watches in silence before saying that it is over. Bulstrode tells him that he did not keep watch during the night because he was worn out, and that Mrs. Abel said Raffles had fallen into sleep between three and four. Lydgate asks when the change began, but does not pursue the account with further questions.

The death unsettles Lydgate. He had not expected the case to end this way, and the expression with which he regards the dying man suggests that he recognizes his own earlier judgment was mistaken. Yet he cannot determine whether ignorance or imprudence hastened the death, and he knows that his own understanding of the case may be wrong. The practical difficulty of accusing anyone after the patient is dead compounds the uncertainty: he has no clear basis for questioning Bulstrode, and an inquiry into Mrs. Abel’s actions might imply blame without establishing it.

Bulstrode’s response is also morally divided. He has thought of Raffles’s death as a possible release from the threat of disgrace, and the narrative connects that hope with his earlier willingness to let the sick man remain in his care. But Bulstrode’s inward wish cannot establish that he caused the death. When he and Lydgate ride back to Middlemarch, they speak of other matters; Bulstrode mentions arranging a grave for Raffles in the Lowick churchyard and says that, as far as he knows, Raffles has no connections except Rigg, whom Raffles described as unfriendly. The conversation leaves the death’s medical cause unresolved even as Bulstrode resumes the public language of responsibility.

Narrative Significance

The episode turns a chance act of aid into a test of care under conditions of mistrust. Caleb brings Raffles to shelter because he sees a sick man in need; Lydgate supplies restrained, specific medical directions; Bulstrode, whose private interests are bound up with Raffles’s silence, becomes the person responsible for carrying them out. The contrast is not simply between compassion and cruelty: Bulstrode remains at the bedside and undertakes the work of care, while his fear and wish for release coexist with that conduct.

The narrative also refuses a clean verdict. The forbidden brandy, the opium instructions, Bulstrode’s exhausted withdrawal, and Lydgate’s surprise all bear on the reader’s understanding, but the doctor himself cannot say whether Raffles might have been saved or whose action determined the outcome. Raffles’s death thus intensifies the danger of Bulstrode’s concealed past without making the immediate cause of death certain. It leaves responsibility suspended between observable acts, private motives, and the limits of medical knowledge.