HARRY FAIRFIELD GROWS UNEASY.
A few days later Harry Fairfield rode from Wyvern into the
picturesque little town of Wykeford, and passing the steep, narrow
bridge, pulled up near the church, at the door of Dr. Willett. Harry
had something to say to the doctor, but, like a good diplomatist, that
shrewd dealer in horses preferred letting the doctor talk a bit on his
own account first.
He found him in slippers and dressing-gown, clipping the evergreens
that grew in front of his house, the hour of his forenoon excursion
not having yet arrived.
“Woodman, spare that tree,” said Harry, quoting a popular song,
facetiously.
The doctor looked up.
“And how is Doctor Willett this morning?” said Harry.
“Oh! oh! Is that you?” said the doctor, straightening his back with a
little effort, for he had been stooping to his task, and old backs
don’t unbend in a moment.
“Quite well, thank you--so are you, I see.”
“Can’t complain.”
“And how’s the old Squire?” said the doctor.
“How’s the old house?” answered Harry; “staunch and straight, and like
to stand for ever. I see no change in him. And all well over at
Carwell?”
“Far from it,” said the doctor.
“And who’s sick?”
“The poor young mother--very ill indeed,” said he--“nervous, low, and
feverish, she has been, and yesterday, when I saw her, it was plainly
fever--quite declared.”
“What sort of fever?” asked Harry.
“Well, the nerves are very much engaged,” began the doctor--
“Take care it ain’t typhus,” said Harry. “The baby ha’n’t got it, I
hope?”
“No, the child’s all safe.”
“There’s typhus down at Gryce’s mill, and a child in scarlatina in the
glen, I hear.”
“Is there? ha! It has been going a good deal at that side, I’m told,”
said Dr. Willett. “There’s Lady Wyndale at Oulton--very good-natured
she seems to be--wouldn’t she take the child and nurse it for a while?
It’s a nice place, well enclosed, and lies high--not likely to get in
there. I attended a patient there in dropsy, once, when it was let,
and the Wyndales away in India.”
“Ay, she’s good-natured; she’d have the mother and child together,
with a welcome, but she says she won’t take no one’s babby to nurse
away from its people, and she’s right, I think, so the young chap must
stand his ground, and bide the fortune o’ war, you know. What time
shall you be there to-day?” he inquired.
“Three o’clock.”
“Very well, then, I’ll be passin’ at the mill end o’ the glen about
that time, and I’ll ride up, and look in, just to hear what you have
to say, and I’ll get home by Cressley Common. It will do me as well as
t’other way. I turned aside a bit to reach you, and hear the news, and
I must be joggin’ again. Good-bye, doctor. Is your church clock
right?” said Harry, looking up at the old tower and pulling out his
watch to compare.
“‘The clock goes as it pleaseth the clerk,’ the old saw tells us, but
we all go by the clock here, and it does keep right good time,” said
old Dr. Willett, with his hand over his eyes, reading its golden hands
and figures, as Harry was.
“Well, then, doctor, good-bye, and God bless ye,” said Harry, and away
he rode, without hearing the doctor’s farewell.
At Carwell Grange, at three o’clock, there was the gloom and silence
of a sick house.
The tiptoe tread of old Dulcibella, and her whisperings at the door,
were scarcely audible, and now and then a weary moan was heard in the
darkened room, and the wail and squall of a little child from another
room not far off.
Old Mildred Tarnley had undertaken the charge of the child, while
Dulcibella, with the aid of a neighbour brought in for the occasion,
took charge of the sick lady.
Before three o’clock came, to the surprise of this sad household,
Harry Fairfield arrived. He did not come riding; he arrived in a
tax-cart. He had got through more real work that day than many men who
were earning their bread by their labour.
“Give this one a feed, Tom; and how’s all here?” said he, throwing the
apron off and jumping down.
“Bad enough, I’m afraid, sir.”
“_Worse?_”
“I don’t know, sir, till the doctor comes; but can’t be no better, for
I heard Mrs. Crane say she didn’t close an eye all night.”
“I hope they’re not forgetting the child in the hurry?” said Harry.
“Mrs. Tarnley and Lilly Dogger looks after it, turn about.”
“That wouldn’t do nohow, you know,” said Harry--“and give her a good
feed, Tom, good dog, good bone. She came at a good lick, I can tell
you, up the glen. The doctor will be here soon.”
“Ay, sir.”
“Well, I’ll stay till I hear what he says; and there’s sickness in
Carwell Glen here, I’m told.”
“I dessay, sir, there’s a good deal going, I hear.”
“Ye needn’t take her out of the shafts, Tom. Fix her head in a halter
by the gate--in the ring there, if ye have a nose-bag at hand--and
come in here. She’s as quiet as a lamb; I want to talk to you a bit.
I’m goin’ to buy two or three fillies, and think of any you may have
seen down about here. Old Tarnley’s in the kitchen now, is she?”
“I think she is, sir.”
“Well, think of them fillies if you can; there’s business to be done
if I can get ’em to suit.”
So in marched Harry, and tapped at the kitchen window, and nodded and
smiled to Mrs. Tarnley.
“So you’re all sick down here, I’m told; but sickness is better than
sadness. That’s all I can say, lass,” said Harry, pacing, much in his
usual way, into the kitchen, and clapping his big hand down on
Mildred’s shoulder.
“Sick, sore, and _sorry_ we be, sir. Your brother’s not that long
buried that there should be no sadness in the Grange, his own house
that was, and his widow’s that is--sickness may well be better than
sadness, but ’taint turn about wi’ them here, but one and t’other,
both together. And that slut upstairs, Miss Dogger, if you please, out
of the scullery into the bed-chamber, she’s no more use to me than the
cock at the top o’ Carwell steeple. I never knew such times in Carwell
Grange; I’m wore off my old feet--I can’t stan’ it long, and I wish
twenty times in a day I was quiet at last in my grave.”
“A gruntin’ horse and a grumblin’ wife, they say, lasts long. Never
you fear, you won’t die this time, old girl, and I wouldn’t know the
Grange if _you_ wasn’t here. ’Twill all be right again soon, I
warrant--no wind blows long at the highest, ye know, and we’ll hear
what the doctor says just now.”
“Hoot! what can the doctor say but just the old thing? The leech to
the physic and God to the cure, and death will do as God allows, and
sickness shows us what we are, and all fears the grave as the child
does the dark. I don’t know much good he’s doin’, or much he did for
Master Charles--not but he’s as good as another, and better than many
a one, maybe--but he costs a deal o’ money, and only Lady Wyndale came
over here yesterday--poorly though she is, and not able to get out o’
her coach--and saw Mrs. Crane, and lent a fifty-pun note to keep all
straight till the young lady, please God, may be able to look about
her, and see after ’em herself, we’d a bin at a sore pinch before the
week was out. Pity’s good, but help’s better. ’Tis well in this
miserly world there’s a kind one left here and there, that wouldn’t
let kindred want in the midst of plenty. There’s Squire Harry o’
Wyvern and his own little grandson lyin’ up in the cradle there, and
look at you, Master Harry. I wonder you hadn’t the thought.”
Harry laughed, perhaps, the least degree awkwardly.
“Why, chick-a-biddy----” began Harry.
“I’m none o’ yer chick-a-biddies. I’m old Mildred Tarnley, o’ the
Grange o’ Carwell, that’s in the service o’ the family--her and
hers--many a long year, and I speaks my mind, and I shouldn’t like the
family to be talked of as it will for meanness. If there’s a want o’
money here in times of sickness, ’tis a shame!”
“Well, ye know there’s no want, but the Governor’s riled just now, and
he’ll come round again; and as for me, I’m as poor a dog as is in the
parish. Take me and turn me round and round, and what more am I than
just a poor devil that lives by horses, and not always the price of a
pot o’ stout in my pocket--
‘Four farthings and a thimble
Makes the tailor’s pocket jingle.’
Your tongue’s a bit too hard, Mildred; but ye mean well, and there’s
kindness at the bottom o’ the mug, though the brew be bitter.”
“I think I hear the doctor,” said Mildred, placing her palm behind her
ear and listening.
“Ay,” said Harry; “I hear him talkin’.”
And forth he strode to meet him.
Before he went up, Harry and the doctor talked together for a little
in the panelled sitting-room, with which we are familiar.
“I’m sure to see you here, eh?”
“Before I go? Yes. I shall look in here.”
“All right,” said Harry, and the doctor walked up the stairs on his
exploration.