When the Corporal, followed by Billy, entered the gloomy hall of the
Castle, they found two or three country people conversing in a low but
eager voice together, who speedily turned towards them, to learn if the
doctor had come.
“Here 's all I could get in the way of a doctor,” said Craggs, pushing
Billy towards them as he spoke.
“Faix, and ye might have got worse,” muttered a very old man; “Billy
Traynor has the lucky hand.'”
“How is my lord, now, Nelly?” asked the Corporal of a woman who,
with bare feet, and dressed in the humblest fashion of the peasantry,
appeared.
“He's getting weaker and weaker, sir; I believe he's sinking. I'm glad
it's Billy is come; I'd rather see him than all the doctors in the
country.”
“Follow me,” said Craggs, giving a signal to step lightly; and he led
the way up a narrow stone stair, with a wall on either hand. Traversing
a long, low corridor, they reached a door, at which having waited for a
second or two to listen, Craggs turned the handle and entered. The room
was very large and lofty, and, seen in the dim light of a small lamp
upon the hearthstone, seemed even more spacious than it was. The oaken
floor was uncarpeted, and a very few articles of furniture occupied the
walls. In one corner stood a large bed, the heavy curtains of which had
been gathered up on the roof, the better to admit air to the sick man.
As Billy drew nigh with cautious steps, he perceived that, although
worn and wasted by long illness, the patient was a man still in the
very prime of life. His dark hair and beard, which he wore long, were
untinged with gray, and his forehead showed no touch of age. His dark
eyes were wide open, and his lips slightly parted, his whole features
exhibiting an expression of energetic action, even to wildness. Still he
was sleeping; and, as Craggs whispered, he seldom slept otherwise, even
when in health. With all the quietness of a trained practitioner, Billy
took down the watch that was pinned to the curtain and proceeded to
count the pulse.
“A hundred and thirty-eight,” muttered he, as he finished; and then,
gently displacing the bedclothes, laid his hand upon the heart.
With a long-drawn sigh, like that of utter weariness, the sick man moved
his head round and fixed his eyes upon him.
“The doctor!” said he, in a deep-toned but feeble voice. “Leave me,
Craggs--leave me alone with him.”
And the Corporal slowly retired, turning as he went to look back towards
the bed, and evidently going with reluctance.
“Is it fever?” asked the sick man, in a faint but unfaltering accent.
“It's a kind of cerebral congestion,--a matter of them membranes that's
over the brain, with, of course, _febrilis generalis_.”
The accentuation of these words, marked as it was by the strongest
provincialism of the peasant, attracted the sick man's attention, and he
bent upon him a look at once searching and severe.
“What are you--who are you?” cried he, angrily.
“What I am is n't so aisy to say; but who I am is clean beyond me.”
“Are you a doctor?” asked the sick man, fiercely.
“I'm afear'd I'm not, in the sense of a _gradum Universitatis_,--a
diplomia; but sure maybe Paracelsus himself just took to it, like me,
having a vocation, as one might say.”
“Ring that bell,” said the other, peremptorily.
And Billy obeyed without speaking.
“What do you mean by this, Craggs?” said the Viscount, trembling with
passion. “Who have you brought me? What beggar have you picked off the
highway? Or is he the travelling fool of the district?”
But the anger that supplied strength hitherto now failed to impart
energy, and he sank back wasted and exhausted. The Corporal bent over
him, and spoke something in a low whisper, but whether the words were
heard or not, the sick man now lay still, breathing heavily.
“Can you do nothing for him?” asked Craggs, peevishly--“nothing but
anger him?”
“To be sure I can if you let me,” said Billy, producing a very ancient
lancet-case of boxwood tipped with ivory. “I'll just take a dash of
blood from the temporal artery, to relieve the cerebrum, and then we'll
put cowld on his head, and keep him quiet.”
And with a promptitude that showed at least self-confidence, he
proceeded to accomplish the operation, every step of which he effected
skilfully and well.
“There, now,” said he, feeling the pulse, as the blood continued to flow
freely, “the circulation is relieved at once; it's the same as opening a
sluice in a mill-dam. He 's better already.”
“He looks easier,” said Craggs.
“Ay, and he feels it,” continued Billy. “Just notice the respiratory
organs, and see how easy the intercostials is doing their work now.
Bring me a bowl of clean water, some vinegar, and any ould rags you
have.”
Craggs obeyed, but not without a sneer at the direction.
“All over the head,” said Billy; “all over it,--back and front,--and
with the blessing of the Virgin, I'll have that hair off of him if he is
n't cooler towards evening.”
So saying, he covered the sick man with the wetted cloths, and bathed
his hands in the cooling fluid.
“Now to exclude the light and save the brain from stimulation and
excitation,” said Billy, with a pompous enunciation of the last
syllables; “and then _quies_--rest--peace!”
And with this direction, imparted with a caution to enforce its
benefits, he moved stealthily towards the door and passed out.
“What do you think of him?” asked the Corporal, eagerly.
“He 'll do--he 'll do,” said Billy. “He's a sanguineous temperament, and
he'll bear the lancet. It's just like weatherin' a point at say. If you
have a craft that will carry canvas, there's always a chance for you.”
“He perceived that you were not a doctor,” said Craggs, when they
reached the corridor.
“Did he, faix?” cried Billy, half indignantly. “He might have perceived
that I did n't come in a coach; that I had n't my hair powdered, nor
gold knee-buckles in my smallcloths; but, for all that, it would be
going too far to say that I was n't a doctor! 'T is the same with physic
and poetry--you take to it, or you don't take to it! There's chaps,
ay, and far from stupid ones either, that could n't compose you ten
hexameters if ye'd put them on a hot griddle for it; and there's
others that would talk rhyme rather than rayson! And so with the _ars
medicatrix_--everybody has n't an eye for a hectic, or an ear for a
cough--_non contigit cuique adire Corintheum_. 'T is n't every one can
toss pancakes, as Horace says.”
“Hush--be still!” muttered Craggs, “here's the young master.” And as he
spoke, a youth of about fifteen, well grown and handsome, but poorly,
even meanly clad, approached them.
“Have you seen my father? What do you think of him?” asked he, eagerly.
“'Tis a critical state he's in, your honor,” said Billy, bowing; “but I
think he 'll come round--_deplation, deplation, deplation--actio, actio,
actio_; relieve the gorged vessels, and don't drown the grand hydraulic
machine, the heart--them's my sentiments.”
Turning from the speaker with a look of angry impatience, the boy
whispered some words in the Corporal's ear.
“What could I do, sir?” was the answer; “it was this fellow or nothing.”
“And better, a thousand times better, nothing,” said the boy, “than
trust his life to the coarse ignorance of this wretched quack.” And in
his passion the words were uttered loud enough for Billy to overhear
them.
“Don't be hasty, your honor,” said Billy, submissively, “and don't be
unjust. The realms of disaze is like an unknown tract of country, or a
country that's only known a little, just round the coast, as it might
be; once ye're beyond that, one man is as good a guide as another,
_coeteris paribus_, that is, with 'equal lights.'”
“What have you done? Have you given him anything?” broke in the boy,
hurriedly.
“I took a bleeding from him, little short of sixteen ounces, from the
temporial,” said Billy, proudly, “and I'll give him now a concoction of
meadow saffron with a pinch of saltpetre in it, to cause diaphoresis,
d'ye mind? Meanwhile, we're disgorging the arachnoid membranes with cowld
applications, and we're relievin' the cerebellum by repose. I challenge
the Hall,” added Billy, stoutly, “to say is n't them the grand
principles of 'traitment.' Ah! young gentleman,” said he, after a few
seconds' pause, “don't be hard on me, because I 'm poor and in rags, nor
think manely of me because I spake with a brogue, and maybe bad grammar,
for, you see, even a crayture of my kind can have a knowledge of disaze,
just as he may have a knowledge of nature, by observation. What is
sickness, after all, but just one of the phenomenons of all organic and
inorganic matter--a regular sort of shindy in a man's inside, like a
thunderstorm, or a hurry-cane outside? Watch what's coming, look out
and see which way the mischief is brewin', and make your preparations.
That's the great study of physic.”
The boy listened patiently and even attentively to this speech, and when
Billy had concluded, he turned to the Corporal and said, “Look to him,
Craggs, and let him have his supper, and when he has eaten it send him
to my room.”
Billy bowed an acknowledgment, and followed the Corporal to the kitchen.
“That's my lord's son, I suppose,” said he, as he seated himself, “and
a fine young crayture too--_puer ingenuus_, with a grand frontal
development.” And with this reflection he addressed himself to the
coarse but abundant fare which Craggs placed before him, and with an
appetite that showed how much he relished it.
“This is elegant living ye have here, Mr. Craggs,” said Billy, as he
drained his tankard of beer, and placed it with a sigh on the table;
“many happy years of it to ye--I could n't wish ye anything better.”
“The life is not so bad,” said Craggs, “but it's lonely sometimes.”
“Life need never be lonely so long as a man has health and his
faculties,” said Billy; “give me nature to admire, a bit of baycon for
dinner, and my fiddle to amuse me, and I would n't change with the King
of Sugar 'Candy.'”
“I was there,” said Craggs, “it's a fine island.”
“My lord wants to see the doctor,” said a woman, entering hastily.
“And the doctor is ready for him,” said Billy, rising and leaving the
kitchen with all the dignity he could assume.