DOCTORS THREE.
Public opinion at Perlycross was stirred, as with a many-bladed
egg-whisk, by the sudden arrival of Dr. Gowler. A man, who cared nothing
about the crops, and never touched bacon, or clotted cream, nor even
replied to the salutation of the largest farmer, but glided along with
his eyes on the ground, and a broad hat whelmed down upon his hairless
white face; yet seemed to know every lane and footpath, as if he had
been born among them--no wonder that in that unsettled time, when
frightful tales hung about the eaves of every cottage, and every
leathern latch-thong was drawn inside at nightfall, very strange
suspicions were in the air about him. Even the friendship of the
well-beloved Parson, and the frank admiration of Dr. Fox, could not stem
the current against him. The children of the village ran away at his
shadow, and the mothers in the doorway turned their babies' faces from
him.
Every one who loved Sir Thomas Waldron, and that meant everybody in the
parish, shuddered at hearing that this strange man had paid two visits
at Walderscourt, and had even remained there a great part of one night.
And when it was known that the yearly cricket-match, between the north
side of the Perle and the south, had been quenched by this doctor's
stern decree, the wrath of the younger men was rebuked by the sorrow of
the elder. Jakes the schoolmaster, that veteran sergeant (known as "High
Jarks," from the lofty flourish of his one remaining arm, and thus
distinct from his younger brother, "Low Jarks," a good but not
extraordinary butcher), firm as he was, and inured to fields of death,
found himself unable to refuse his iron cheeks the drop, that he was
better fitted to produce on others.
Now that brave descendant of Mars, and Minerva, feared one thing, and
one alone, in all this wicked world; and that was holy wedlock. It was
rumoured that something had befallen him in Spain, or some other foreign
outlands, of a nature to make a good Christian doubt whether woman was
meant as a helpmate for him, under the New Covenant. The Sergeant was
not given to much talking, but rigid, and resolute, and self-contained;
more apt to point, and be, the moral of his vast experience, than to
adorn it with long tales. Many people said that having heard so much of
the roar of cannon and the roll of drums, he could never come to care
again for any toast-and-butter; while others believed that he felt it
his duty to maintain the stern silence, which he imposed in school.
There was however one person in the parish, with whom he indulged in
brief colloquy sometimes; and strange to say, that was a woman. Mrs.
Muggridge, the Curate's housekeeper, felt more indignation than she
could express, if anybody whispered that she was fond of gossip. But
according to her own account, she smiled at such a charge, coming as it
only could from the lowest quarters, because she was bound for her
master's sake, to have some acquaintance with her neighbours' doings;
for they found it too easy to impose on him. And too often little Fay
would run, with the best part of his dinner to some widow, mourning
deeply over an empty pot of beer. For that mighty police-force of
charity, the district-visitors, were not established then.
Thyatira, though not perhaps unduly nervous--for the times were sadly
out of joint--was lacking to some extent in that very quality, which the
Sergeant possessed in such remarkable degree. And ever since that
shocking day, when her dear mistress had been brought home from the
cliff, stone-dead, the housekeeper had realised the perils of this life,
even more deeply than its daily blessings. Susanna, the maid, was of a
very timid nature, and when piously rebuked for her want of faith in
Providence, had a knack of justifying her distrust by a course of very
creepy narratives. Mrs. Muggridge would sternly command her to leave
off, and yet contrive to extract every horror, down to its dying
whisper.
Moreover the rectory, a long and rambling house, was not a cheerful
place to sit alone in after dark. Although the high, and whitewashed,
back abutted on the village street, there was no door there, and no
window looking outwards in the basement; and the walls being very
thick, you might almost as well be fifty miles from any company. Worst
of all, and even cruel on the ancient builder's part, the only access to
the kitchen and the rooms adjoining it was through a narrow and dark
passage, arched with rough flints set in mortar, which ran like a tunnel
beneath the first-floor rooms, from one end of the building to the
other. The front of the house was on a higher level, facing southwards
upon a grass-plat and flower-garden, and as pretty as the back was ugly.
Even the stoutest heart in Perlycross might flutter a little in the
groping process, for the tunnel was pitch-dark at night, before emerging
into the candlelight twinkling in the paved yard beside the
kitchen-door. While the servants themselves would have thought it a
crime, if the butcher, or baker, or anyone coming for them (except the
Postman) had kept the front way up the open gravel walk, and ventured to
knock at the front door itself. There was no bell outside to call them,
and the green-baize door at the end of the passage, leading to the
kitchen stairs, deadened the sound of the knocker so much, that
sometimes a visitor might thunder away for a quarter of an hour, with
intervals for conscientious study of his own temper, unless little Fay's
quick ears were reached, and her pink little palms and chest began to
struggle with the mighty knob.
So it happened, one evening in the first week of August, when Mr.
Penniloe was engaged in a distant part of the parish, somebody or other
came and knocked--it was never known how many times or how long,--at the
upper-folk door of the rectory.
There was not any deafness about Thyatira; and as for Susanna, she could
hear too much; neither was little Fay to blame, although the rest were
rather fond of leaving things to her. If the pupils had returned, it
could not have happened so; for although they made quite enough noise of
their own in the little back-parlour allotted to them, they never failed
to hear any other person's noise, and to complain of it next morning,
when they did not know their lessons.
But the present case was, that the whole live force of the rectory, now
on the premises, was established quite happily in the kitchen yard;
with a high wall between it and the village street, and a higher wall
topped with shrubs between it and the garden. Master Harry, now at home
for his holidays (a tiger by day, but a lion at night, for protection of
the household), was away with his father, and sleeping soundly through a
Bible-lecture. And so it came to pass that the tall dark man knocked,
and knocked; and at last departed, muttering uncourteous expressions
through his beard.
Even that might never have been known inside, without the good offices
of Mrs. Channing, the wife of the baker, whose premises adjoined the
rectory garden, and the drive from the front gate.
"'Twas nort but them Gelany fowls," she explained, before she had her
breakfast, because her husband was the son of old Channing, the clerk,
and sexton; "them Gelany birds of ours, as drew my notice to it. They
kept up such a screeching in the big linhay just at dusk, instead of
sticking their heads inside their wings, that I thought they must be
worriting about a dog, or cat. And so out of house I runs; but I
couldn't see nort, till I heers a girt knocking at Passon's front-door.
Thinks I--'What's up now?' For I knowed a' wurn't at home, but away to
they Bible-readings. So I claps the little barn-steps again your big
wall, and takes the liberty of peeping over, just between the lalac bush
and old holly. You must understand, Mrs. Muggridge, that the light
wurn't very clear; but I could make out a big tall man a-standing, with
a long furrin cloak, atwixt the pillars of your porch.
"'Passon's not at home,' says I; 'can us give any message?'
"Then a' turns round sudden like, and stands just like a pictur', with
the postesses to either side of him, and his beard falling down the same
as Aaron's. But if a' said ort, 'twaz beyond my comprehension.
"'Did you please to be looking for the Doctor, sir?' I said--'the Doctor
as is biding now with Mr. Penniloe? I did hear that he was 'gone to
Squire Waldron's house.' For I thought that he was more the sort to
belong to that old Gowler.
"But he only shook his head, and turned away; and presently, off he
walks most majestic, like the image of a man the same as I have seen to
Exeter. I felt myself in that alarm, that go away I couldn't, until I
heard your gate fall to behind him. Then I thought to come and tell you,
but I hadn't got the nerves to face your black passage, after what had
come across me. For to my mind it must have been the Evil One himself.
May the Lord save us from his roarings and devourings!"
When Mrs. Muggridge heard this tale, she thought that it had better go
no further, and she saw no occasion to repeat it to her master; because
no message had been left, and he might imagine that she had not attended
to her duty very well.
For it had chanced, that at the very moment when somebody wanted to
disturb them, the housekeeper was giving a most pleasant tea-party to
the two little dears, Master Michael, and Miss Fay.
And by accident, of course, Sergeant Jakes had just dropped in. No black
passage could be anything but a joke to a man of his valour; and no
rapping at the door could have passed unchallenged, if it reached such
ears. But the hospitable Thyatira offered such a distraction of good
things, far beyond the largest larder-dreams of a dry-tongued lonely
bachelor, that the coarser, and seldom desirable, gift of the ears lay
in deep abeyance. For the Sergeant had felt quite enough of hardship to
know a good time, when he tasted it.
"Now, my precious little dears," Thyatira had whispered with a sigh,
when the veteran would be helped no more; "there is light enough still
for a game of hop-scotch, down at the bottom of the yard. Susanna will
mark out the bed for you. You will find the chalk under the
knife-board."
Away ran the children; and their merry voices rang sweetly to the
dancing of their golden hair.
"Sergeant Schoolmaster," continued the lady, for she knew that he liked
this combination of honours, "how pleasant it is, when the shadows are
falling, to see the little innocents delighting in their games? It seems
to be no more than yesterday, when I was as full of play as any of
them."
"A good many yesterdays have passed since that," Mr. Jakes thought as
he looked at her; but he was far too gallant and polite to say so. "In
your case, ma'am, it is so," he replied: "yesterday, only yesterday! The
last time I was here, I was saying to myself that you ladies have the
command of time. You make it pass for us so quickly, while it is
standing still with you!"
"What a fine thing it is to have been abroad! You do learn such things
from the gift of tongues. But it do seem a pity you should have to say
them so much to yourself, Mr. Sergeant."
"Ma'am," replied the veteran, in some fear of becoming too
complimentary; "I take it that some of us are meant to live apart, and
to work for the good of others. But have you heard how the Colonel is
to-day? Ah, he is a man indeed!"
"There are doctors enough to kill him now. And they are going to do it,
this very night." Mrs. Muggridge spoke rather sharply, for she was a
little put out with her visitor.
"What?" cried the man of sword and ferule. "To operate, ma'am, and I not
there--I, who know all about operations!"
"No, Mr. Sergeant; but to hold a council. And in this very house, I
believe; the room is to be ready at ten o'clock. Dr. Fox, Dr. Gronow,
and Dr. Gowler. It is more than I can understand. But not a word about
it to any one. For Sir Thomas would be very angry. To frighten his
people, and make such a fuss--they durst not propose it at his own
house. And Gronow has never been called in, as you know. But Dr. Jemmy
made a favour of it, for he thinks very highly of that man; and the
gentleman from London did not object. Only he said that if it must be
so, and everything was to be out of proper form, he would like my master
to be present with them."
"Three doctors, and a parson to sit upon him! The Lord have mercy on the
Colonel's soul! There is no hope left for his poor body. I will tell
you, ma'am, what I saw once at Turry Vardoes--but no, it is not fit for
you to hear. Well, my heart is like a lump of lead. I would sooner have
lost my other arm, than heard such a thing of the Colonel. Good night,
ma'am; and thanking you for all your kindness, I'm no fit company for
any one, no longer."
He was gone in a moment. His many-angled form sank into the darkness of
the flinty tunnel, as swiftly as ever a schoolboy vanished, when that
form became too conspicuous. Thyatira heaved a deep sigh, and sat down
in the many-railed beechen chair at the head of her cruelly vacant
table. She began to count the empty dishes, and with less than her usual
charity mused upon the voracity of man. But her heart was kind, and the
tear she wiped away was not wholly of selfish tincture.
"The hand of the Lord is upon us now. My master will lose the best
friend he has got," she was thinking, as the darkness gathered;
"faithful as he is, it will try him hard again; for Satan has prevailed
against us. And this will be a worse snare than any he has laid. To have
in Parsonage house a man, as chooseth not to come to prayers; or at any
rate standeth up at mantel-piece, with his back turned on the kneelers;
till my master told him, like the Christian he is, that he would not
desire him, as his guest, to go contrairy to his principles,--and pretty
principles they must be, I reckon,--but would beg him to walk in the
garden, rather than set such example to his household! Alas the day that
such a man came here, to the house of a holy minister! No blessing can
ever attend his medicine. Ah, the times are not as they was! No wonder
that Spring-heeled Jack is allowed to carry on, when such a heathen is
encouraged in the land. It would not go out of my grains, if he was
Spring-heeled Jack himself!"
Much against her liking, and with a trembling hand, this excellent woman
brought in the candles, and prepared the sitting-room, for the
consultation of unholy science.
But the first to arrive was a favourite of hers, and indeed of all the
parish, a young man of very cheerful aspect, and of brisk and ready
speech. No man had ever known Jemmy Fox despair of anything he
undertook; and there were few things he would not undertake; only he
must tackle them in his own way. A square-built, thickset, resolute
young fellow, of no great stature, but good frame and fibre, and as
nimble as a pea in a frying-pan. There was nothing very wonderful about
his face; and at first sight a woman would have called him plain, for
his nose was too short, and his chin too square, and his mouth too wide
for elegance. But the more he was looked at, the better he was liked by
any honest person; for he was never on the watch for fault in others, as
haters of humbug are too apt to be.
And yet without intending, or knowing it at all, this son of Chiron had
given deep offence to many of his brethren around Perlycross, and it
told upon him sadly afterwards. For he loved his Profession, and looked
upon it as the highest and noblest in the world, and had worked at it
too thoroughly not to have learned how often it is mere profession. By
choice he would have dropped all general practice, and become a surgeon
only; but this was impossible except in some large place, and cities
were not to his liking. As the only son of a wealthy banker he might
have led an idle life, if he pleased; but that he could not bear, and
resolved to keep himself; for the old man was often too exacting, and
the younger had some little income of his own. Perlycross suited him
well, and he had taken a long and rambling house, which had formerly
been a barn, about half a mile from the village.
"Seen anything of Spring-heeled Jack, the last night or two, Mrs.
Muggridge?" he enquired too lightly, as he flung down his hat in similar
style at a corner. "Have you heard the last thing that has come to light
about him?"
"No, sir, no! But I hope it is no harm," replied the palpitating
Thyatira.
"Well, that depends upon how you take it. We have discovered for
certain, that he is a medical man from a country parish, not such a very
long way from here, who found his practice too small for the slaughter
on the wholesale style he delights in. And so he turned his instruments
into patent jumpers, tore the heart out of his last patient--he was
obliged to choose a poor one, or it would have been too small--then he
fitted a Bude-light to his biggest dark lantern. And you know better
than I do what he shows you at the window, exactly as the Church-clock
strikes twelve."
"Oh, Dr. Jemmy, how you do make one creep! Then after all he is not, as
everybody says, even a dissolute nobleman?"
"No. That is where the disappointment lies. He set that story afoot no
doubt, to comfort the relatives of the folk he kills. By the by, what a
place this old house would be for him! He likes a broad window-sill,
just like yours, and the weather is the very thing for him."
"I shall nail up a green baize every night. Oh, Dr. Jemmy, there is a
knock at the door! Would you mind seeing who it is--that's a dear?"
Dr. Fox, with a pleasant smile, admitted Dr. Gronow, on his very first
visit to the rectory.
"Others not come yet?" asked the elder gentleman, as the trembling
housekeeper offered him a chair; "his Reverence would hardly like a pipe
here, I suppose. Well, Jemmy, what is your opinion of all this strange
affair?"
Mrs. Muggridge had hurried off, with a shiver and a prayer.
"I am mum, before my betters," the young man replied. "The case is gone
out of my hands altogether."
"And a good thing for you. I am glad of it for your sake. But we must
not anticipate Gowler. I have no business here, except as what the
lawyers call _Amicus curiæ_. By the by, I suppose you have never seen
the smallest ground for suspicion of foul play?"
"Never. I should have come to you first, if I had. There could be no
possible motive, to begin with; and everybody loves him like a father."
"A man is too fatherly sometimes. One never can understand those foreign
women. But you know the family, and I do not. Excuse me for a horrible
suggestion. But I have had some very dark experiences."
"And so, no doubt, has Gowler. The idea crossed his brain; but was
scattered immediately, when he knew the facts. Hush, here they come! Let
us think no more of that."
Mr. Penniloe was tired, and in very low spirits; for he looked upon this
meeting as the fatal crisis. After seeing to his visitors, and offering
refreshment--which none of them accepted--he took a chair apart, being
present as a listener only.
Thereupon Dr. Gowler in very few words gave his view of the case,
premising only that he spoke with some doubt, and might well be
mistaken, for the symptoms were perplexing, and the malady was one which
had not as yet been studied at all exhaustively. His conclusion agreed
in the main with that of his young and sagacious coadjutor, though he
was enabled, by longer experience, to be perhaps a little more definite.
He spoke very well, and with a diffidence which particularly impressed
the others, on the part of a man whose judgment was of the very highest
authority.
Dr. Gronow immediately confirmed his view, so far as the details at
second hand could warrant, and gave his own account of a similar case,
where the injury was caused by the handle of a barrow, and continued
latent for several years. The unanimous decision was that no hope
remained; unless the poor patient would submit to a surgical operation
of great difficulty and danger, in the then condition of medical
science; and for which it was advisable to have recourse to Paris.
"I know him too well. He will never consent," Mr. Penniloe came forward,
and sought from face to face for some gleam of encouragement; "surely
there must be some other course, something at least to alleviate----"
"There may be: but we do not know it yet, and I fear that we never shall
do so. And for this very sufficient reason"--here Dr. Gowler took a
glove from his pocket, and presented a most simple and convincing
explanation of the mischief that had happened, and the consequence that
must of necessity ensue, without surgical redress. Even that he admitted
was of very doubtful issue, in plain English--"either kill, or cure."
The Parson sighed heavily, and even Dr. Fox was too much affected to say
a word; but the elder physicians seemed to think it right and natural,
and a credit to their science, that they knew so much about it. Gowler
and Gronow were becoming mighty friends--so far as two men of the world
care to indulge--and the great London doctor accepted with pleasure the
offer of a day's fly-fishing.
"I have not thrown a fly, since I was quite a boy," he said.
"And I never threw a fly, till I was an old man," said the other; and
their host knew well which would have the better chance, though he felt
a little vexed at their light arrangements.
"It is not for the sake of the fishing, my dear fellow," Dr. Gowler
assured him, when the other two were gone; "I was to have left you in
the morning, as you know; and I have not had such a holiday for seven
years. I positively needed it, and shall be twice the man. But I felt
that I ought to stay one day longer, to give you one more chance of
persuading poor Sir Thomas. See how handsomely he has behaved--I mean,
according to country notions; though I often make more in one day, in
Town. He slipped this into my hand, sealed up; and I did not refuse it,
for fear of a fuss. But you will return it, when I am in the coach, and
explain, with my kind regards, that it is against my rule to take any
fee, upon a visit to a friend. I came to renew our old friendship only,
and from my great regard for you. We do not think alike, upon the
greatest of all matters. Perhaps that is better for your happiness than
mine. But after all my knowledge of the world, I do believe that the
best friends are those, who are like you."
Mr. Penniloe took the cheque for fifty guineas, and placed it in his
desk, without a word; for he knew his friend's character too well to
argue. Then he shook him very warmly by the hand, and said "Good night."
But as he sank back in his chair to reflect, and examine himself of the
bygone day, he hoped that his ears had deceived him that night, in a
matter which had shocked him sadly. Unless they had erred, Dr. Gronow
had said--"In a case of this kind, for the advance of knowledge, autopsy
should be compulsory." And Harrison Gowler had replied--"Exactly so; but
in this benighted part, I suppose it is impossible."