plashed most dismally against the windows of the children’s room, quite
alarmed Tom’s sisters, who were romantic and tender-hearted girls of
seventeen and eighteen. They began to cry, and to beg the indignant lad
not to do anything so dreadful. But the more they petitioned, the more
stubborn Tom grew. Tears and entreaties only hardened him into firmer
determination to doff his mortar-board cap for ever. How _could_ he
stay at school, when his chums, Sam Jackson and Harry Wilde, had gone
to business! What did girls know of a fellow’s vexation at being left
with a lot of young boys, not one of whom could hold a bat or keep a
goal! To sea he would go, unless papa got him some sort of a berth by
Easter.
The poor girls were crying very bitterly, and the rain throbbed in
sympathy against the panes, and Tom stamped up and down the floor,
when his mamma came in. She was much surprised at the scene; for
the children were always on the best of terms. She was still more
surprised, and a little dismayed, when she learned the cause of the
scene. Being a prudent and self-restraining woman, however, she did not
say much; and with a few general remarks, ‘that of course all boys must
go to business in due time,’ she terminated the painful discussion.
After supper, when her husband and self were alone, she startled the
good easy man by relating what had taken place. Tom’s father was the
principal doctor of the neighbourhood, which was so salubrious and
so poor that he must have left it long before, had he not possessed
a little independency, which kept the household afloat. He was of an
indolent turn, getting gray and fat, like his old cob. Want of work,
magnificent health, and a managing wife, who took all the worries of
life off his shoulders, made him oblivious of the young world growing
round his hearth. He could not imagine that his boy and girls were
weaving anticipatory tissues of _their_ lives, that these young birds
were getting fledged for flights far away from the home-nest. So, the
announcement of Tom’s rebellion against school, and his thoughts of
evasion, came on the doctor as the greatest event he had known for
years.
‘Now you mention it, Maria,’ said he, when he began to quieten down
a bit—‘now you mention it, Tom is really growing a big fellow. He’ll
be six feet high, if he’s an inch, by his twentieth year. And what a
square stiff back he’s got! He takes after my mother’s family; they
were all strapping fellows. Yes, Tom’s too big for school. He’s like a
salmon among minnows, among the grammar-school boys. Dear, dear, how
lads do grow!’
‘Yes, yes,’ broke in Tom’s mother, a little tartly—she had a temper of
her own, as all managing women have—‘Tom is big, and will be bigger;
that goes without the saying. But what is to be done for the poor boy?
What career do you propose for him?’
‘Upon my life, I haven’t the ghost of an idea, Maria. Now you have
brought this matter on the carpet, it recalls a good deal I have heard
of late. When I was at Bimpson’s the other day, attending his wife of
her seventh boy, Bimpson said to me, over a glass of wine: “Doctor,
he _is_ a fine child, I admit; but how he’ll get bread and cheese, if
he lives, I can’t guess at all.” And the poor fellow broke out into
quite a jeremiad over the redundancy of boys just now. He has three
lads waiting for careers, and the deuce an opening can he find! Then
there is Clumpit the wheelwright—you know Clumpit, Maria? Well, I’ve
been attending him for hypochondria. He can find nothing suitable for
his eldest son; and it preys on his mind, because the mother won’t let
him go away from home to try his luck in some of the big towns. And old
Burrows met me the other day, and quite pitifully asked me if I could
advise him what to do with his grandson. I was really sorry for the
poor old man. Of course, I could not help him.’
Tom’s mother looked more anxious as the doctor went on ramblingly; and
at last she said: ‘All this leads to nothing. Tom must have a career
arranged for him by us, or he will take the matter in his own hands. I
can read his mind; I know him better than you, my dear. What must we do
with him?’
‘I tell you, again, Maria, I have not a ghost of an idea. Yet, I do
know one thing—he shall not be a medical man!’
Here the doctor relighted his cigar and smoked in frowning
thoughtfulness, until Tom’s mother said decisively: ‘Well, if _you_
do not know what is to be done with the dear child, we must ask the
opinion of our friends. I, for my part, cannot allow this subject to
drop. It must be taken up and carried out to the needful end. I know
too well your easy-going way. To-morrow, you will forget all about poor
Tom. I say, and with emphasis, we must find a career for our boy.
As you have no ideas, I shall write to such of our friends as have
experience of the world; and ask them either to advise us, by coming
over here to a sort of family council, or else to tell us by letter.
Your connections and mine have among them a great deal of experience:
they know what prospects there are for the rising generation better
than we can know, in this out-of-the-way place. So, I tell you, my
dear, my mind’s made up; and to-morrow I will write the letters.’
‘You are a genius, Maria, as I’ve often told you. I believe you would
get us out of any hobble, however formidable. I haven’t the ghost of
an idea; and you have the ideas themselves, heaps of them. Write, my
dear, to all our relations that are likely to be of help to us; and
we shall soon find a billet for Tom. God bless him! he is a good and
clever boy, and deserves a splendid career. Don’t forget my brother
John; as a London lawyer, he will be a host of advice in himself. And
be sure to ask your cousin Richard, the parson; he has always been fond
of Tom; and besides, he’s the shrewdest fellow I know, notwithstanding
his cloth. He ought to have been a barrister. But, as that cannot be,
he ought to be a bishop. How he would rule a diocese, Maria!’
In the course of a few weeks, the family council assembled, for the
doctor was really much beloved by all his connections; and his wife had
so couched her request for advice that it was quite irresistible. On
a keen March day, uncles, cousins, and friends met; and after dining
at the doctor’s hospitable table, they began to consider what career
would be most likely to assure Tom of a happy and prosperous future.
The reverend cousin presided, at the general request; and he opened the
subject as follows:
‘When I got the letter which has brought me here to-day, I felt its
appeal so strongly, that I made immediate arrangements to be present.
Tom has always been an exemplary boy in conduct, though I must say his
progress in the classics is deplorably slow. When I was his age, I read
Homer for the pleasure it gave me; and I had Horace by heart. Now,
a scholar Tom never will be; of that I have satisfied myself before
dinner in a private talk with him. Well, the ground is so far cleared.
Tom cannot be a scholar, _ergo_, he cannot be a clergyman; for of all
things inappropriate, in my opinion, the extreme is an ignorant divine.
In my profession, one ought to be steeped in Greek, permeated with
Latin, and saturated with Hebrew. But even if Tom were a born student
and of a serious order of mind, I could not advise his parents to
devote him to the Church.’
Something like a blank fell on Tom’s mother at the emphatic closure of
the reverend cousin’s speech. She had hoped that Tom might have gone
to Oxford, as other grammar-school boys had done, and thence to some
pretty rectory as a rural parson. While she sat in silent depression,
the rest of the company talked in little knots, until the reverend
president stopped them by saying: ‘Now, Uncle John, I call upon you.
No one is better able to say if the law promises fame and fortune for
the rising generation, as it has done for the past generations since
Cicero’s time. Shall we make Tom an attorney or a barrister?’
‘I am flattered by the manner you esteem my humble abilities,’ answered
Uncle John. ‘It is a strange coincidence of thought. I have also come
down from town expressly to deprecate the putting of our young hopeful
to _my_ profession. I believed I could lay my reasons before my brother
and his good wife better by a few spoken words, than by any extent of
correspondence; so I took an early train. Tom must not be a lawyer.
Why, I proceed as briefly as I can to explain. First, the profession
is more crowded than the market-place. Second, the crowd is daily
increasing, because almost every family of the middle classes that has
thriven during the past twenty or thirty years is sending a boy into
a solicitor’s office. The business is supposed to be very lucrative,
and it is esteemed highly respectable, which allures the _parvenu_
mind. As to the fiction of the law being a lucrative pursuit, I cannot
understand how it originated, still less how it is maintained. A few
solicitors, with quite exceptional luck and good connections, may
attain to opulence. But the rank and file of the profession merely earn
a decent livelihood. If you want to know what fortune does for lawyers
in England, read the reports of wills and bequests in the newspapers.
While these are telling us of manufacturing, banking, and trading
millionaires dying in all parts of the country, they rarely record the
demise of a lawyer worth twenty thousand pounds. No, no; the law is not
a money-making trade. But it will be still less so, and that is why I
warn Tom’s parents against it.
‘Let me elaborate a little. Since I was put on the rolls, Law Reform,
as it is pleasantly called by certain politicians, has been hacking
away at our fees continually, until now, certain branches of the
profession are no longer remunerative at all. County courts, for
instance, have deprived me of hundreds a year. The Judicature Act has
damaged my practice still more seriously. However, I am not here to
dwell upon my own misfortunes, but to prevent my nephew Tom from having
worse, by following in my footsteps. Past law reforms are trifles to
what are coming! In a few years, the most respectable and valuable
department of my profession will be simply worthless. I refer to
conveyancing. Even now, it is sadly shorn of its former profitableness.
Soon it will be _non est_. Registration of titles is bound to come;
with it goes the old system of mortgage deeds and all the costly
methods of land transfer. As in America and the colonies, the transfer
of real estate will be merely the business of government officials,
and the vendor and purchaser; lawyers will be eliminated from such
transactions altogether. Then, as regards commercial cases—Chambers
of Commerce will go on with their simple methods of arbitration and
conciliation, until at last the courts will hear no more of traders’
contentions than if such did not exist.
‘Last and worst of all, there is growing a steady abhorrence of legal
conflicts in all ranks and classes. When I was apprenticed, even the
poorest fellow would rush into law against a neighbour or relative
with the greatest confidence; ay, and be ruined with a sort of grim
satisfaction. In those days, everybody delighted in law. Now, if I am
not vastly wide of the mark, men will submit to the rankest frauds and
personal assaults as meekly as the most abject Asiatics. Yes, really,
the English race, once litigious to a degree, is positively afraid of
entering upon the most trumpery suit in the inferior courts. Finally,
the lowest of our business, that of the criminal courts, is dwindling
into insignificance. Judges are holiday-making in maiden assizes all
over the country; police stipendiaries are becoming sinecurists; and as
soon as the teetotalers have made another million or two of converts,
the income of legal men from criminals will be _nil_. What with popular
education, milder manners, law reforms, land reforms, and the rest, no
man would think of putting a youngster into the fast decaying legal
profession.’
Uncle John spoke with such evident and crushing sincerity that Tom’s
father and mother uttered a simultaneous groan as he finished; and for
a few minutes something like consternation kept all silent.
But the reverend president did not forget his duty, and afterwards
resumed in these terms: ‘My dear friends, I am sure we are all greatly
indebted to Uncle John for his luminous remarks upon the actual and
coming condition of the profession, of which he is so distinguished a
member. Of course, our dear Tom cannot be a lawyer. Let us therefore
proceed with our deliberations into another professional avenue; after
the Law, Medicine comes, according to established usage. Tell us,
therefore, my dear doctor, why you do not think of devoting Tom to
your own pursuit. Of that, you must have far clearer and more accurate
knowledge than any other person here present. Knowing how hopeless
the Church and the Law are, do you not think it best to train Tom to
succeed to your own practice?’
‘I certainly am greatly surprised at what I have just heard of the
degenerate state of two noble professions,’ said Tom’s father; ‘indeed,
I may express myself as stunned by the revelations. Yet, I do not
think that the future of the Church and the Law is so discouraging
as that of Medicine. If I saw the ghost of a prospect for my boy as
a doctor, I would not have put you to the trouble you have so kindly
taken to come here and advise me. It is my solemn conviction that in a
few years general practitioners in medicine—and that means ninety-nine
out of every hundred doctors in this country—will not gain salt. A few
men of supreme ability in medicine will have that department of the
profession to themselves; a few more will have the surgical. For the
good old family doctor, there will be no place in the new house that
John Bull is going to build.—You smile, dear friends, at my simile;
but the prospect is not amusing to me. Uncle John tells us that his
profession is crowded, and that “the cry is still they come.” Yes, but
they are _men_ that come to the Law; whereas, women are swarming into
our profession. Think of that, good folks! Realise what it means for
the men-doctors of the next generation. All our practice among children
and women will go to the doctoresses, as a matter of course. Women are
naturally fitted for attending upon their own sex, and are, if truly
feminine, born _medicos_. Now that they have proved themselves equal to
all the tests of the continental dissecting-rooms and to brazen out the
lectures, and now that they are taking such brilliant degrees, I, for
one, throw up the game, and say, _place aux dames_!
‘Just think! there are nearly a million more women than men in
these happy islands, and they are all bound to live. And accentuate
the thought by my assurance that there is no one so ambitious and
remorseless in professional competition as a clever woman! While our
male medical students are dissipating, idling, fooling, as they have
always done since Hippocrates’ days, their lady rivals are preparing to
puzzle a John Hunter, a Claude Bernard, a Bichat, or any savant living
or dead. I prophesy that, before the end of this century, women will
sit in most of the high places of the medical profession. They have
keener wits than men; they are more moral, more industrious, and more
sympathetic. But I leave this part of the subject for another and more
discouraging still—people are beginning to be their _own doctors_! When
I was a young man, few persons were bold enough to quack themselves.
Now; there are millions swallowing homeopathic pills and tinctures,
and diagnosing their own ailments themselves! Add to them the other
millions who feed themselves on patent medicines, and, I tell you, the
field of operation is alarmingly diminishing for doctors of either sex.
Nor have I yet unfolded more than a fraction of my sorrowful tale.
Other multitudes, who, by all that is fair in social life, instead of
following the good old plan of sending for the doctor when they have
eaten, drunk, and worked, or pleasured too freely, now bolt away to
some hydropathic palace, and positively turn a fit of sickness into a
spell of luxury! Talk about the Sybarites of old! Go rather and look at
our own, “packed,” shampooed, handled, dandled, and fondled in the vast
number of our hydropathic “Halls of Idleness” and sensuous convalescing
sanatoria! Do not stay to deplore these lapses from the stern old
British methods of phlebotomy, leeching, purging, and partaking of all
that was nauseous, but receive my most startling confidence—the public
don’t believe in us as of old!
‘You, my reverend cousin, have dissuaded us from educating Tom for
your own profession; but that profession is still better than mine,
for your benefice will benefit you to the end of life, while my fees
are growing so steadily less that they will soon touch zero. You,
Uncle John, draw a fearful picture of a non-litigious England; and I
felt for you as you drew it. Yet my clients are still more pig-headed.
Yours won’t go to law; mine won’t go to the doctor. Yes, I have at last
reached the nethermost depth—the public will not sicken as it used to
do. When I was walking the hospitals, zymotics were as regular as the
tides; and all the year round, fevers and agues went their profitable
course. Everybody had a bad cold at least once in the winter. Gout and
rheumatism were solid annuities to most of us. Broken limbs were fairly
common in most families. In short, as the proverb ran, “the doctor was
never out of the house.” Alas, all that has gone! People take such
ridiculous care of themselves; “sanitation” is the chatter of every
nincompoop; and the fuss about clean cowsheds, pure water, pure air,
and the rest, is cutting off the doctor’s income at the roots.—Have I
said enough, dear friends, to prove to you that Tom cannot be a doctor?’
Tom’s father fell into his chair overcome with his own rhetoric;
Tom’s mother furtively wiped two tributary tears from her eyes; the
reverend cousin looked at the ceiling inquiringly; Uncle John frowned
sardonically.
Uncle Lucas, the farmer, who had listened in puzzled bewilderment
to the recitals of his relatives, now got leisurely on to his feet,
and broke in thus: ‘Well, well, it’s all over with gentlefolks, too,
it seems to me. I thought that everybody was thriving but the poor
farmers, and now I learn that our betters are no better off than
ourselves! When our father made me a farmer against my inclination,
I thought he was unfair. He had made you elder lads into gentlemen,
and I felt slighted at being left among clodpolls in the village. But
I begin to think I shall have the best of it after all. _I_ am in no
trouble to find careers for my two lads and three lassies. Since the
labourers have begun to skulk over their work and to ask twice as much
wages, I have taken the lads to help me. Well, we’ve pulled through
a troublesome and disheartening time; and what’s more, we’ve learned
a lot. I tell you, we’ve found out how to make farming pay—by doing
it ourselves, the lads in the fields, and the girls in the house and
dairy. We’ve had to take hold of the rough end of the stick, truly. The
girls had to give up many of the fal-lals that young ladies learn at
boarding-school; and the boys had to wear corduroy and hobnailed shoes.
But they are none the worse for the case-hardening they’ve got. Finer
lads don’t live in the shire; and as to the girls, they’re as blithe as
the birds; and that, I reckon, is as good a test of contentment as you
can get.—Now, brother doctor, let me advise you what to do with your
son Tom. The Church, the Law, and Medicine all shut their doors in his
face. Open the gate of a field and turn him in to pick up what pasture
he can find; and my word for it, he’ll not die of hunger. Look at his
big limbs and his love of action! Why, he is built for a husbandman.
Even if you could put him to some gentlemanly way of making a living in
town, he would not be so happy and so healthy as in the country. When
he comes to spend a few days with us, the lad is in his element, and
works with his cousins right handily. Put him in a field, brother, put
him in a field.’
Uncle Lucas quite astonished his more cultured relatives by his long
speech; still more, by the almost pathetic earnestness of his appeal.
The reverend cousin, who had smiled compassionately at the rude
beginning of the harangue, grew attentive as it went on; and at the
end, clapped his hands approvingly. ‘Bravo, Uncle Lucas!’ he cried;
‘thou art the one wise man amongst us.—A farmer let Tom be, doctor.
Churches may fall, legal systems vanish, the healing art be substituted
by universal hygiene, but the tillage of the land must ever demand
tillers. During the period of change that has set in so strongly,
let us see what remains least affected by the mutations of time and
circumstance. While man lives on the earth he must eat; and the
purveyor of food, therefore, has a first lien upon all the productions
of society. It flashed into my mind, as Uncle Lucas was speaking, that
perhaps the greatest result of all the metamorphoses going on will be
the sublimation of husbandry. From the beginning, it has been regarded
as an inferior career, and has to a certain degree been shunned. The
age of Feudalism has gone; the age of Gentility is going; the real age
of Utility is coming. When it is established, the husbandman will be
duly honoured and duly rewarded, as the pre-eminent citizen, as the
venerated conduit through whose limbs and brain that daily bread flows
for which we are bidden to pray.’
A pause followed, during which Tom’s father began to smile hopefully,
and his mother regained serenity.
‘We educated men,’ said the reverend cousin, concluding the business,
‘have not done our duty by your class, Uncle Lucas. We have kept our
intellectual children from your business, to the great retardation
of agricultural science. Now that the professions are no longer
profitable, we shall send some of our best youth to your pursuits. We
will begin with Tom. In the fields, he will find a career open to every
talent that providence has endowed him with.’
Uncle Lucas prevailed, and Tom ‘was turned into a field.’ What the
result will be in these times of agricultural depression, is a thing of
the future.
SKETCHES.
I.
In the far village by the shining sea,
Where the white sails, snow-gleaming in the light,
Creep up the tidal river to the quay,
And land the glistening captures of the night;
At the shading to a close
Of the brightness of the day,
Have you forgotten, Lady Rose,
Our meeting on the lonely way?
II.
Beyond the dreamy townlet, where the trees
With linkèd branches, golden shadows spread;
Where sweet wind-flowers bend before the breeze,
And many an arum lifts her hooded head;
Where the early primrose blows,
Long we lingered, loth to part:
Have you forgotten, Lady Rose,
Our earnest converse, heart to heart?
III.
The mossy stonework of the ancient span
That bridged the clear brown waters of the stream,
Where round the stepping-stones the eddies ran,
And slipped away with many a sunny gleam.
Still beside the river grows
Starry-eyed forget-me-not:
Have you forgotten, Lady Rose,
The drooping, faintly coloured knot?
IV.
In the home-garden, where the ivy crept
Around the ruined coping of the wall,
When in mine own, your trembling hand I kept,
And in the silence heard the night-bird’s call.
Drear and cold the evening’s close,
Sorrow of an adverse fate:
Have you forgotten, Lady Rose,
That parting by the wicket gate?
C. A. DAWSON.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._