“Yes, I remember that,” said the pilot, balancing his silver

pencil-case on his finger. “I hadn’t my little coxswain with me then,

had I, skipper?”

“Hadn’t you? Oh! no--of course you hadn’t”--and the skipper laughed.

“He was only born that night, was he? Dear, dear, how time flies! So he

is eight years old to-day! Here’s to him!” And the skipper raised his

glass, and so did the doctor, saying to me, “It’s the little chap you

noticed in my boat--my little coxswain.”

I drank my glass also to the little fellow’s health, and then the

captain said:

“Tell the doctor, Gladman, how you came to take him.”

“What is his name?” I said. “I saw a curly-headed little fellow in the

stern of your boat, and also that you had four men besides. That is a

good large crew, isn’t it, simply to pull you out to a ship and back?”

“It isn’t a man too much, either, doctor, and when you have seen our

Breaksea in a storm of wind and rain you’ll agree with me. Besides,

that gig is all I have to take me to my patients across the bay, up the

harbour to the town. Of course there is a path to the town round the

cliffs from the lighthouse, where I live.”

“You saw it as we passed, doctor. Gladman is lighthouse-keeper, among

other things,” put in the skipper.

“But,” went on the pilot, smiling at the interpolation, “it is a long

way round, and I haven’t time for long ways round. We get all our

provisions, too, by the boat, and my wife goes to church and pays her

calls in it. She is a first-rate sailor, isn’t she, skipper? And as for

that monkey, Jack--my little coxswain--he’s a far better pilot than I

am.”

“Is he now?” said the captain. “Tell the doctor how you came to take

him,” he said, with a sailor’s love of a good yarn.

“He is not your son, then?” I said, a little surprised; for I had

noticed that the child was more carefully dressed than one would expect

one of the crew’s lads to be.

“Well, he is, and he isn’t. My wife and I adopted him. We lost our

little one--it was a girl though--the day he was born. Yes, it is eight

years ago to-day our little one was down with scarlet fever. She was

nearly two. There had been an epidemic of it in the town, but I never

knew how the child got it, up there miles away, unless, you know,

doctor,” he said a little sadly, “I took it up to the cottage myself--I

always feared so. I used, before then, to think if I had been to any

infectious cases in the town, that after the couple of hours’ row

across and round the point I should be safe and not take anything up

to the cottage. Anyhow, the little thing had it, and badly; I hadn’t

much hope in the morning. My poor little wife--she was one of your

Bart’s sisters before I married her--literally fought the disease inch

by inch, and we both of course did all that could be done. I had sat

up half the night--Christmas Eve--with the little maid. It was one of

those bad throat cases, doctor,” said the pilot, a little gruffly,

turning to me.

I nodded, and he went on: “About seven, one of the men at the

lighthouse came to say a pilot was signalled for by a ship off the

head.”

“That was the ‘Badger’--ay. I remember you coming aboard in the cool of

the morning, as well as if it was to-day,” said the captain.

“The other fellow was away,” continued the pilot; “so I had a bath and

changed all my things, and left the poor wife, who was beginning to

lose hope, sitting with the baby on her lap. I hardly thought it would

live till I got back. Just as I rounded the headland--or was it a bit

farther on, skipper--?”

“Thereabouts,” said the skipper.

“We met a boat from the town, and one of the boatmen called out to know

if I was aboard, because I was wanted in Albany. His wife was taken bad.

“You know what that means, doctor!” grinned the skipper.

“I ought to, captain,” I said, hearing as he spoke a smothered murmur

from our state-room, from which I guessed that the dead silence which

had till then prevailed therein was only another proof of the truth of

the saying, that women are curious beings.

Wholly unconscious that he had any other hearers than myself and the

captain, the pilot went on:

“We were steaming into the harbour as quick as we could, so I told the

man to fall astern, and we towed them behind us. When I got to Mrs.

Rogers, I found that she was better, and that I shouldn’t be wanted

probably that day at all; but I did not intend to go back home--I

thought it best not; but after an hour or two I saw my boat run in

alongside the jetty, and one of the fellows come ashore. In a few

moments, Rogers brought me a note from my wife begging me to come back

if I possibly could; she was frightened about the child.

“I knew I could do nothing, but I couldn’t bear the thought of the

wife’s being all alone up there and looking for me--and perhaps, later

on, I shouldn’t be able to go--so, as I found when I went up to Rogers’

cottage that everything was put off, and my patient preparing her

husband’s tea, I set off home again.

“The day had clouded over, and the hot wind that had blown off the land

all day had died down, and there was that dead silence we always have

before a black squall of wind and rain comes up from the sea.

“Before we got across the bay, gusts of wind dead in our teeth caught

us once or twice and curled the water round her bows; and just as I

jumped ashore, the first dash of rain came. As I stepped on to our

verandah, a great roaring gust nearly swept me away.

“I went up to the windows, and took down one of the outside shutters

my wife had put up to protect the glass, and saw her sitting with the

little one in her arms. She was relieved to see me, and beckoned to me

to go round and come in. But, you know,” said the pilot, clearing his

throat, “I couldn’t go in, going back, as I was, to the good woman in

labour over at Albany. It wouldn’t have been safe.”

“No,” I said, “I suppose not;” but I wondered if I should have been so

conscientious if it had been I.

“It may have been hard of me, perhaps,” said the pilot, looking

straight in front of him; “but I thought it right; and I could do

nothing; I knew that when I left in the morning. I opened the window

and told the wife how it was. She was very good; she wanted me to come

in, of course, if only to kiss the little thing before it died. But I

told her I did not think I ought. I couldn’t _do_ anything for the

child; it was dying then.”

The good honest fellow stopped a moment, and again I heard a movement,

and I thought a stifled sob, from our cabin; but the captain broke in

in a rather unnecessarily loud voice:

“You were quite right, doctor. It was very good of you. I couldn’t have

done it myself, I should have felt so for the missis.”

“I felt for my wife,” said the pilot, in rather a hard voice; “but

I couldn’t have done any good,” he repeated, as if afraid to trust

himself to say anything else. Then he went on:

“She sent the girl out with some food for me in the verandah; and we

watched the little one, she inside and I out. I couldn’t hear anything

in the room, the wind roared and shook the verandah so; but I could see

the child was breathing slower. Then my wife put her hand under the

wrap to feel its little feet.” He broke off, and then added:

“I didn’t see the end. One of the men came up to say they had signalled

for the doctor from the town. So I had to start back. The gig tore

through the black seas before the gale. It was a pitch dark night,

about eight when I started. I got to Mrs. Rogers just in time. The

youngster was born about midnight. The mother did very well, and when

I left, about four in the morning, the bay was like a sheet of glass,

and the sun rising without a cloud over the cliffs. The jetty had been

washed away, all but the stonework, and my men had had to beach our

boat right up on the road.

“When I got back, I found the wife on the lookout by the lighthouse.

She had heard nothing of us, of course, since I left the night before.”

“That was a hardish day’s work,” said the skipper--”thirty hours of it.

“Well, I was not sorry to get my boots off, and get some sleep, before

I started on my round. I’d a longish ride that day to the telegraph

construction camp, over the hill there,” said Dr. Gladman, getting up

from the table and taking his cap.

“And your little girl--doctor?” said my wife, suddenly appearing at her

cabin door, tears on her cheek and a little gasp in her voice.

“It was dead, ma’am,” said the father, and turned to the companion and

went on deck.

We saw very little more of Dr. Gladman while we were in Albany. My wife

and her sister went up to the lighthouse and called on his wife. They

came away charmed with her and the dainty little household she reigned

over. My wife was enthusiastic over the trim garden, cool little

parlour, and “exquisitely clean kitchen,” and “would you believe it,”

she said, “she has only one maid-servant, and that a girl of seventeen!”

“I think,” she said impressively, stopping in our walk up and down the

deck, as we were taking our last turn that night after leaving Albany,

gliding past the shadowy coast under the wonderful Southern Cross--”I

think they are both splendid, those Gladmans.”

A burly figure leaning over the bulwarks, puffing clouds of smoke into

the still night air, turned round, and the captain’s voice said:

“That’s what they are, ma’am. That’s the sort of colonist this

country wants; a man like Gladman is worth a whole shipload of the

ne’er-do-wells they’re so fond of sending out. As for such like!--”

he pointed with his elbow, as he replaced his pipe, to a group

of dissipated-looking youngsters coming up from the bar, whose

determination to drink more than was good for them had been a source of

worry to him all the way out--”As for such like,” he said, with a look

it would do many intending emigrants good to have seen, “I ask you,

doctor, what’s the good of them?”

--_Gentleman’s Magazine._

XVI

DR. WRIGHTSON’S ENEMY.

FOR the last thirty years, Dr. Wrightson had been the sole medical

adviser of the little town of Oakhampton, and he was still a hale,

hearty, jovial, stout gentleman, of about sixty years of age.

Dr. Wrightson lived in the High Street, in a long, low, white house,

which never failed to look as clean and bright as if it had been

thoroughly done (apparently fresh from the foundry) announced in large

letters to every passer-by that this was the abode of Dr. Wrightson.

To the left of the white house stood the surgery, which was marked by

a glaring red lamp and several bells, and over this surgery presided a

helpless and timid young man named Titmas, the doctor’s only assistant.

Many wondered how it was that Dr. Wrightson did not engage a partner

in his business; but that gentleman invariably turned a deaf ear to

all hints of this nature. He was strong and well, he said, and able to

do his work himself without any help at present. There would be time

enough to talk about a partner when he grew to be an old man. The real

fact of the matter was, that Dr. Wrightson could not bear to admit

“a rival near his throne.” He was fond of his profession, proud of

his reputation in it, and very jealous of every other practitioner. A

partner would have driven him distracted; and I doubt if he would ever

have allowed him to feel a single pulse, or to have sent so much as a

black draught out of the dispensary, without his express permission.

Besides this, Dr. Wrightson had another reason for wishing to keep

all the practice of Oakhampton in his own hands. The doctor had a

daughter--his only child, and the very apple of his eye. To make, or

save a fortune for Fanny was the first great object of Dr. Wrightson’s

life, his one daily anxiety; and in this task the worthy doctor found

an able and willing coadjutor in his sister Penelope, who shared all

his hopes and fears, and seconded his endeavours to make a handsome

provision for pretty Fanny. A partner would necessarily have been very

much in the way of this project. If he did half the work, he would also

have divided the profits, and that would by no means have suited Dr.

Wrightson’s purposes; and, in short, a partner, or even an assistant

above the calibre of the inoffensive Titmas, who had not two ideas in

his head, would have caused Dr. Wrightson tortures of jealousy and

uneasiness.

Fanny Wrightson had been carefully brought up at a first-class

boarding-school; for her mother died when she was a very little

child, and Aunt Penny, who then came to take charge of her brother’s

establishment, though an excellent housekeeper, was scarcely equal to

the responsibility of undertaking the education of her niece. The day

she was seventeen, Fanny returned to Oakhampton as a “_finished_” young

lady, with a variety of rather useless accomplishments, and a very

slender stock of common sense.

Fanny had, moreover, a fine taste for romance, which seemed to be in

some danger of fading away from pure inanition at Oakhampton, when an

event occurred which startled the whole Wrightson family from their

usual equanimity, and raised a storm of conflicting emotions in the

heart of pretty Fanny.

“What _do_ you think? what _will_ you say? what _is_ to be done?”

exclaimed Miss Wrightson, as she entered her brother’s room in an

excited manner one afternoon just before dinner-time.

“Well, Penelope, what’s the matter now? Is the house on fire, or are

there burglars in the cellar, or what?” asked Dr. Wrightson, quietly

looking up from a medical journal which he was perusing with deep

attention.

“No, no, brother! but something quite as bad. That old house in Church

Street is taken, and by whom, do you think? By a medical man! There!

His name is Peirce--Montague Peirce--and they are coming in at Lady

Day.”

“The deuce they are!” cried Dr. Wrightson, throwing down his journal

with a bang. “Much good may it do them! I flatter myself the poor man

may go back where he came from without having done _me_ much injury.

I have not lived in Oakhampton all these years without being able to

hold my own against any impertinent upstart in the kingdom; and so you

may tell him, if you see him, with my compliments--my most respectful

compliments. Ha, ha, ha! a pretty joke, indeed. Poor Mr. Montague

Peirce! I am sorry for him. His prospects are not very lively, poor

fellow! Eh? Fanny, my dear, what have you got to say about it?”

“I say it’s a horrid, wicked shame,” replied Fanny, throwing her long

curls over her shoulders, “and I quite hate this Mr. Montague Peirce

already. What business has he to come poking his nose into Oakhampton,

of all places? as if anybody would ever think of sending for him when

they could get my dear old darling papa to attend them. The idea of

such a thing! But never mind, Aunt Penny, perhaps Mr. Peirce will take

some of the poor people who can’t pay, off papa’s hands; and then he

will have more time to spare for us at home.”

“Bless the child! that’s not a bad idea,” said Dr. Wrightson. “So we’ll

let him have some of the _very_ poor people, shall we? Yes, yes! so he

shall. Excellent practice for a rising man. Give him confidence and

experience, won’t it? We’ll hope, though, the poor fellow has not a

large family to support, or else that he has some private means of his

own. He won’t live in that house for nothing, I can tell him.”

“The rent alone is sixty pounds a year,” remarked Miss Wrightson;

“and the garden is being thoroughly set in order, Mudge tells me.

Mudge has been employed to do many little odd jobs about the house,

and I met him coming out of it just now. Mudge hears Mr. Peirce is a

single man--quite a young man--but has his mother living with him. He

was doing well in London, and was reckoned very clever there, so the

servants told Mudge; but the air did not suit the old lady, and so they

have come to settle in the country. I can’t think whoever can have

advised them to come to Oakhampton, of all places.

“Some ignorant busybody who did not know what he was about, you may

depend upon it,” said Dr. Wrightson. “Now, let’s go to dinner, Penny.”

“It’s not as if you were ever ill, you know, or unable to attend

to your duties,” continued Miss Penelope, as she walked into the

dining-room, “or as if, when you did go away for a day or two, you

could not get Mr. Halliday, from Littleton, to come and look after your

patients. It’s such a ridiculous thing of a young man to come down from

London, and try to cut you out at Oakhampton, brother.”

“It merely evinces great folly and presumption on the part of the young

man, my dear Penny, and so we’ll say no more about the matter.”

But from that day forward the favourite topic in the Wrightson family

was the last enormity committed by Mr. Montague Peirce.

“I saw that fellow’s trap standing at Hornibrook’s door,” Dr.

Wrightson would suddenly observe; “that fellow” being the very mildest

designation that was ever bestowed to Mr. Peirce.

“Oh, yes! I daresay you did. The man makes free with everybody, I

hear,” Miss Wrightson would reply, indignantly. “He goes and pays

people long visits, and bores them to death, I’ve no doubt, and then

hopes all the town will take it for granted that he is attending them.”

It was very disagreeable for poor Dr. Wrightson, when he drove through

the streets in his neat, respectable, blue brougham, to meet this young

Peirce dashing past in his light, smart-looking dog-cart, drawn by a

big chestnut horse; and it was most unpleasant for the whole family

to go to church every Sunday, knowing they were liable to be jostled

against “those Peirces” in the aisle.

Miss Penelope declared she could hardly bear to walk down the street,

lest she should meet her adversaries; and as for Fanny, she could not

think how it happened, but she never went near the windows without

seeing the “dreadful man” pass by. It was curious, that, under

these painful circumstances Fanny should spend the greater part of

her time in looking out of the window. To be sure, Mr. Peirce was

as good-looking and pleasant a young man as could be met with on a

summer’s day, and the old lady, his mother, was quite a picture in her

rich black silks; but the Wrightsons insisted upon considering the

Peirces as their mortal enemies, and would not listen to a word in

their favour.

The rest of the inhabitants of Oakhampton were naturally less rancorous

against the intruders. The Peirces were not likely to injure them in

any way. Mr. Priestly, the rector, his wife, and daughters, of course,

called on Mrs. Peirce, and pronounced her to be a very lady-like,

well-informed, agreeable person. The Pentelows, and the Fanthoms, and

the Hornibrooks, and the Goslings, and old Mr. Lillywhite, thought

it incumbent upon them to follow the example of the Rector, and it

was soon rumoured that the Peirces were not unlikely to prove a great

addition to the society of Oakhampton. Young men were scarce articles

in that locality, and Mr. Peirce, not having much to do, entered with

great zest into the cricket matches, and the croquet parties of the

neighbourhood.

Besides, Oakhampton was a place that was improving rapidly. That is to

say, a railroad had lately run through the town, and, in consequence,

fresh villas, streets, terraces, and squares, were rising up in every

direction. Quite a new population had been formed during the last few

years, and many of these new comers, who had not known Dr. Wrightson

from their cradles upwards, rejoiced in the advent of the new doctor

and determined to patronize Mr. Peirce from London at once. There were,

indeed, other persons in Oakhampton, old inhabitants who should have

known better, but who were so perverse and ill-judging as to prefer

the treatment of Mr. Peirce to that of Dr. Wrightson, who was by this

disaffected party termed “a twaddling old woman.” Others, again, there

were, who had been affronted occasionally, when, on sending for Dr.

Wrightson himself, they had been put off with “that stupid creature,

Titmas,” who never seemed to know what he was about; and these now

gladly employed the rival practitioner. With the best intentions, poor

Dr. Wrightson could not possibly make himself ubiquitous, or attend

to fifty patients at once. Thus it happened one unlucky day, when

Dr. Wrightson had been to pay a visit to his old and faithful ally,

Lady Cardozo, who lived about five miles from Oakhampton, that Mrs.

Pankhurst’s little girl took the opportunity of swallowing a pin, which

stuck in her throat, and frightened the whole Pankhurst family into

fits. As the case was one quite beyond the powers of poor Titmas, Mr.

Peirce was called in, and extracted the pin with so much promptitude

and skill that Mrs. Pankhurst was delighted with him, and asked him to

prescribe for her own nervous affections at the same time, and also, to

call the next day and see how the child was going on. It is true that

Mr. Pankhurst (as in honour bound) called on Dr. Wrightson immediately,

and explained to him fully all the circumstances of the case, but

that headstrong and unreasonable old gentleman could not be induced

to see the thing at all in its proper light. He looked annoyed and

huffy, and remarked in his most caustic manner, “that if Mr. and Mrs.

Pankhurst were satisfied with the attendance of Mr. Peirce, that was

all that could be desired.” Dr. Wrightson had not the slightest wish to

interfere, and thought Mr. Pankhurst could not do better than secure

the services of the young man altogether. Having been so successful

in his treatment of Miss Pankhurst, he would doubtless continue to

give advice to the rest of the family. Perhaps when Dr. Wrightson said

this, he never expected to be taken at his word; but it did so happen

that the very next week the whole of the little Pankhursts (eight in

number) were seized, in regular rotation, with the scarlatina, and Mr.

Peirce was in regular attendance at Pankhurst Park for the next three

months. This was a terrible blow to Dr. Wrightson, for Pankhurst Park

was one of the most profitable households in the neighbourhood; and

the Pankhursts were rich, influential people, and kept a good deal of

company; and of course Mrs. Pankhurst went about in her usual idiotic

manner, recommending Mr. Peirce as the most wonderful man of the age,

and the only doctor worth consulting in the county.

Still Dr. Wrightson and his sister shook their heads and shrugged their

shoulders, and repeated “that fellow would be found out before long.”

Now, it so happened that the garden of Dr. Wrightson’s house in High

Street stood at right angles with the garden of Mr. Peirce’s house in

Church Street, and at a certain point, the walls met. Fanny Wrightson’s

bed-room window commanded an excellent view of the Peirce’s garden, and

it was a never-failing source of interest to watch the proceedings of

the Peirce family. She was anxious to see what “the enemy” did, when he

was at home, and she soon contrived to make herself complete mistress

of his movements, and became intimately acquainted with his habits

and customs. He was very kind and attentive to his mother, that was

certain, and apparently he was good to his servants and spoke civilly

to them. They looked as if they had a great regard for him; even the

fat, lazy, old tabby cat loved him and followed him about, and jumped

upon his shoulder whenever she could get the opportunity. Fanny could

not help rather taking a fancy to that old cat of the Peirces, and when

she got over the wall into the Wrightson’s garden, Fanny was actually

guilty of giving her some milk sometimes when her aunt was out.

It was about this time Fanny took violently to the study of Shakspeare.

“Romeo and Juliet” was her favourite play. What sweet passages there

were in “Romeo and Juliet!” Nothing could be more striking, for

instance, than that part where Juliet exclaims--”Oh, Romeo! Romeo!

wherefore art thou Romeo?”

And how affecting were the lines--

“My only love sprung from my only hate,

Too early seen unknown; and known too late,

Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathed enemy.”

But nothing would induce either Dr. Wrightson or his sister to allow

the poor Peirces any quarter. He was an interloper and an adversary

of the most aggressive nature. If Mr. Peirce happening to meet Dr.

Wrightson in the street, should, in the innocence of his heart, take

off his hat in passing, the old gentleman would turn his head the other

way and pretend not to see him, or would coldly return the greeting

with a gesture of intense disgust.

When Miss Wrightson and Mrs. Peirce met at the house of some mutual

acquaintance, as was not unfrequently the case, the spinster would

draw herself up, tuck in her chin, and curtsey in her stiffest manner

to the widow, and declining all conversation, would sniff alarmingly

during the whole period that Mrs. Peirce remained in the room. Neither

the doctor nor his sister scrupled to express the utmost solicitude

for all Mr. Peirce’s patients. They feared any sick person ran a very

poor chance who had Peirce for their medical attendant, and they did

not hesitate to say that rather than be left to the mercy of “that

inexperienced, conceited young fool,” they would prefer being in the

hands of Mr. Titmas himself.

In spite of all they thought, said, and looked, however, Mr. Peirce’s

practice increased daily. The farmers and their families flocked to

his door on market days, for “the young man from London” had performed

some almost miraculous cures, it was stoutly averred. Then many of the

tradespeople thought it fair to give “young Peirce” a turn now and

then, and his reputation spread to the servants of some great families

in the neighbourhood. Old Lady Cardozo’s own maid actually refused

to consult Dr. Wrightson about her digestion, and announced boldly

“that Mr. Peirce had done such wonders for her cousin, Mrs. Hogsflesh,

the butcher’s wife, in a similar case, that rather than not have the

benefit of his advice, she would walk all the way into Oakhampton on

her own legs, and pay him for it out of her own money.” And so good

an effect had Mr. Peirce’s medicine upon the malady of Mrs. Milliken,

that the good woman entreated her mistress to try just one bottle of

it, for her ladyship suffered sadly from precisely the same symptoms as

Mrs. Hogsflesh. The dose, taken surreptitiously and in great fear and

trembling by old Lady Cardozo, was most efficacious, and though she was

too loyal to her old friend to desert Dr. Wrightson altogether, still

Lady Cardozo sent Mrs. Milliken constantly into Oakhampton on secret

embassies to Mr. Peirce for further supplies of his very excellent

remedy for a weak digestion.

And so the autumn slipped away, and the trees grew bare, and the winds

howled, and the damp, chilly fogs of November fell upon the little town

of Oakhampton, and the more Fanny saw of her father’s enemy, the less

it became in her power to hate him, as she felt a good and dutiful

daughter should do. This made her very unhappy at times.

Lectures on scientific subjects were quite an annual institution

in Oakhampton during the long winter evenings. Fanny Wrightson had

always been a very regular attendant at these lectures, not that she

understood what they were about, the least in the world, or that she

came home a bit wiser than she went out, but the lectures offered

some excuse for a very mild kind of dissipation, and Fanny’s life was

a monotonous one. This year Fanny was more devoted than ever to the

“pursuit of knowledge under difficulties,” for Mrs. Peirce and her

son were sure to be at the Athenæum, and it sometimes happened (Fanny

declared she never knew how) that she found herself seated next to

the Peirces, and then Mr. Peirce would very good-naturedly explain to

her everything that she could not understand, and would make the most

abstruse subjects as simple to her as A B C.

Dr. Wrightson never went to lectures. He was too tired of an evening,

even if he had no patients to visit, and he was glad to take his

“forty winks” in his armchair by the fire. Aunt Penelope was too much

afraid of risking a bad cold to stir out after dark, and so Fanny was

duly called for every Thursday evening at half-past seven, by her

neighbours, the Pentelows, who also left her again at her own door

about ten o’clock; and when she returned, Dr. and Miss Wrightson were

too sleepy to ask many questions, or to make any stringent inquiries

as to Fanny’s adventures. She thought it was not worth while to wake

them up and make them uncomfortable by telling them about the Peirces,

and I have no doubt that if they gave the matter a moment’s thought,

they took it for granted that Fanny invariably sat between her friends,

Eliza and Harriet Pentelow.

It chanced, however, one Thursday morning, that Dr. Wrightson descried

in a shop window a notice, stating that Montague Peirce, Esq., was to

deliver a lecture on chemistry at the Athenæum that evening, and he

instantly came home, in great wrath and indignation, to forbid Fanny

or any of his household to attend the lecture, as usual, on pain of his

heavy displeasure. Not any member of his family, he declared, should

“encourage the man to make a Tom-fool of himself by giving lectures.”

In vain Fanny remonstrated and entreated and coaxed her father to let

her go, that once. Dr. Wrightson was inexorable, till his pretty little

daughter in despair burst into tears, and then Aunt Penny interfered,

and assured her father that he had better say no more about it. “Fanny

was moped to death at home, and after all, it would be amusing to

hear what a mess the young idiot made of his lecturing, and how he

would be the laughing-stock of the place, with his absurd conceit and

presumption.” So Fanny at length obtained a reluctant consent. It was

raining hard when the Pentelows called for her, but Fanny did not care

for that. Wrapped in her large waterproof cloak, she tripped along the

muddy streets to the Athenæum, feeling very proud and very happy, and

firmly convinced that if she had been forced to stay at home her heart

must have broken at once. Mrs. Peirce saw her as she entered, and made

her a sign to come and sit by her, and the old lady was so good and

kind as to confide to Fanny her nervous fears for “Monty,” though, at

the same time, she was quite sure his would be the best lecture of the

season. And such was soon the opinion of everybody in the room. Mr.

Peirce had so fine a voice, so happy a delivery, and such a thorough

knowledge of his subject, that the attention of the audience was

attracted, even by the first few sentences.

Mrs. Peirce and Fanny were gratified to their hearts’ content by the

acclamations of applause which greeted the close of the lecture.

The evening wound up with some amusing experiments with laughing gas

by which several school-boys and a shopman or two were thrown into

convulsions of laughter. This proved so catching, that the whole room

was in an uproar of merriment, and the audience clapped and screamed,

and stamped and cheered, till the whole street resounded with the

sounds of their mirth. At the very height of this confusion, a rough,

dirty-looking man was observed to press hastily through the crowded

hall, towards the platform. His eager looks and evident anxiety caught

the attention of the lecturer, and he instantly went forward to meet

him.

After speaking to the man for a moment, Mr. Peirce’s countenance

changed to an expression of the deepest concern and alarm. He whispered

a few words to his mother, and immediately left the room.

“What is it? What has happened? Is anybody ill?” inquired Fanny of Mrs.

Peirce.

“My poor child,” said the old lady, putting her arm around Fanny’s

waist affectionately, “something very terrible has happened. I hardly

know how to tell you that your father has met with a sad accident.

Can you bear it bravely? They say it is now freezing very hard out of

doors, and the streets are slippery. It seems Dr. Wrightson, on his way

to see a patient, has fallen down and hurt himself severely. They have

sent for Montague. Let us try to slip quietly out at that side door,

and we shall be at home as soon as they are.”

It was quite true, that the rain had soon turned to sleet, and the

sleet had frozen as it fell, and the streets were a perfect sheet of

glass, in which the houses were reflected as in a mirror.

Dr. Wrightson had been sent for to a sick person, and in picking his

way cautiously along the pavement, he had been suddenly startled, just

as he passed the Athenæum, by the shouts of laughter and applause that

issued from its partly-opened doors. In his astonishment and irritation

at these unexpected sounds, the doctor made a false step, his foot

slipped from under him, and he fell, with his head on the curbstone and

his leg doubled under him; and there he lay, stunned and helpless,

till some workingmen passing by, ran to his assistance.

Seeing he was perfectly unconscious, the men fancied he was dead, and

this was the report that one of them carried to Mr. Peirce.

When Fanny and Mrs. Peirce made their way into the street, they found

that it was hardly possible to walk without falling. No horse could

keep its footing at all, and people were slipping and sliding about

in every direction. It was with considerable difficulty that the two

ladies reached Dr. Wrightson’s door in safety, and there they were met

by a melancholy cavalcade. The good old Doctor lay on a shutter, borne

by half-a-dozen strong men, and was followed by a crowd of sorrowing

friends. At the head of the procession walked the Rector and Mr. Peirce.

At the surgery-door appeared Mr. Titmas, frightened at the tramping of

so many feet, who, when he learnt what had occurred, speedily lost the

little stock of presence of mind he had ever possessed, and collapsed

altogether into a state of helpless imbecility.

Miss Wrightson, who was summoned down-stairs by the shrieks of the

parlour-maid, instantly fainted dead away, in the front hall, just as

the lifeless form of her brother was brought into the house.

Nobody seemed to have any presence of mind but poor little Fanny, who

stood there, pale and trembling to be sure, but quite ready to obey Mr.

Peirce’s directions, and to make herself useful in every possible way.

Under Mrs. Peirce’s superintendence a bed was soon prepared for Dr.

Wrightson, in his own study; splints and bandages were procured from

the surgery, and Mr. Peirce proceeded to examine the injuries sustained

by the poor gentleman.

His head was badly cut, but it was hoped that no great harm was done

in that quarter; his right leg, however, had sustained a compound

fracture, and he seemed much bruised and shaken by his fall. Mr.

Priestly strove to help Mr. Peirce, Mr. Titmas being quite incapable

of being of the slightest use to anybody, and Mrs. Peirce proved

herself to be a most valuable and experienced nurse. As soon as Miss

Wrightson was restored to her senses, she sat crying and rocking

herself backwards and forwards, in a corner of the room, declaring

that her brother was dying, and that she should not long survive him,

while Fanny knelt by her father’s bedside, patiently watching the

proceedings of Mr. Peirce and his mother, and waiting upon them in a

quiet unobtrusive way, which raised her very much in their opinion.

The first words spoken by Dr. Wrightson were, “Send for Halliday

immediately. I don’t know what has happened; but it seems to me, I

am ill, and Titmas is no better than a fool. But don’t send for that

fellow Peirce, whatever you do. D’ye hear? all of you. I tell you I

won’t have the man in my house as long as I am alive to be the master

of it.”

“Ahem! my good friend,” began the Rector, gently clearing his throat,

“it is not possible to send to Littleton to-night; the roads are quite

impassable. You have had the misfortune to slip down yourself, and

your leg has been broken. It is now set, and will, we trust, under the

blessing of Providence, be ere long restored to use.”

“Nonsense! Don’t tell me,” cried the Doctor, angrily, “Halliday must

and shall be sent for. He will come directly he knows I am ill. My leg

shall not be set till Halliday comes. Let no one dare to meddle with

it.”

“Oh! my dear, dear father,” said Fanny, throwing her arms around him,

“do be good and let Mr. Peirce doctor your leg; it will soon be better,

if you will only lie still and be patient. For the sake of your poor

little Fanny, do let Mr. Peirce stay with you now. Oh! Mr. Peirce,

please don’t mind what he says. Don’t let papa send you away. If he

should say anything a little rude you won’t listen to him, will you? I

think he is so ill he scarcely knows what he says. Dear Mrs. Peirce,

pray ask your son to stay here, whatever papa may say against it.”

“Nothing will induce me to leave him, as long as I can be of the

slightest use to him, Miss Fanny, you may depend upon that,” said Mr.

Peirce, firmly.

In the meantime, Dr. Wrightson tried to move, but fell back with a

moan, and shut his eyes again. His face was quite contracted with pain.

“Calm yourself, dear sir,” began Mr. Priestly once more. “Consider that

your system has sustained a severe shock. You cannot keep your mind too

quiet. Leave everything to us, and try to sleep. Let me entreat you to

lie still, and trust yourself to the kind care of my very excellent

young friend here, and his good mother. Believe me, you could not

possibly be in better hands.”

“My patients! what will become of my patients?” groaned Dr. Wrightson

presently. “That fellow will inveigle away every patient I have. If

I lose my practice in Oakhampton, I am a ruined man this night. I am

too old to go away and begin life afresh elsewhere. You will be left a

beggar, my poor child, if I lose my patients here.”

“If you would allow me, Dr. Wrightson, to act as your assistant, till

you are able to make some arrangement with your friend Mr. Halliday,

I can only say I should be most happy to do so,” said Mr. Peirce. “I

would, of course, work strictly under your directions, and follow

out your wishes in every respect; and I would take care to make it

understood that I was only taking your place for the time being. There!

now will you consent to go to sleep with an easy conscience?”

Dr. Wrightson did not answer for some minutes, then suddenly holding

out his hand to Mr. Peirce, he exclaimed, with tears in his eyes:

“I am at your mercy, sir; I shall lie here for many a long week to

come, and maybe I shall never again be the man I was. There is a fine

opening in Oakhampton, sir, for a rising young man now. You had better

take advantage of it. I am not able to help myself.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wrightson; then you will let me have my own way,”

said Mr. Peirce, quietly; “and you will consider me as your junior

partner till you are quite strong and well again. Nay, if you have any

scruples about the matter, you shall pay me, just as you do my friend

Titmas--there need be no obligations between us. And by the by, to

begin with, where were you bound to this evening? I had better just run

round there at once, and when I return I shall hope to find you quite

comfortable and fast asleep. My mother will remain here to-night; she

is a capital nurse.” And the young doctor, feeling amply repaid for his

services by a look of intense gratitude from Fanny, retired to get his

instructions from Mr. Titmas.

The next day the snow fell fast and lay thick on the ground. All

communication between Oakhampton and Littleton was entirely cut off for

more than a week. No Mr. Halliday could by any possibility come over to

attend to the medical requirements of Oakhampton. Mr. Peirce, however,

cheerfully trudged about in his great jack boots, though he was often

up to his waist in the snow, and he never failed faithfully to report

progress to Dr. Wrightson of all his patients, humoring the old

gentleman by invariably asking his advice and opinion, though, perhaps,

he did not always follow it very implicitly.

On Christmas Eve, Mr. Halliday, with some difficulty, made his way to

the bedside of his old friend, and expressed himself highly delighted

with the progress Dr. Wrightson had made. Nothing could have been

more judicious, he declared, than Mr. Peirce’s mode of treatment. The

leg was going on marvellously well, and though it would naturally be

a tedious process at the doctor’s age, still the bones were knitting

famously already. Dr. Wrightson was most fortunate at such a moment to

fall into such skilful hands. “There was not one man in a dozen who

could have made so neat a job of such a case.” So said Mr. Halliday

emphatically.

“Ah,” sighed Dr. Wrightson; “it’s all very well, but I’m done for,

Halliday. I have had a great shake; I shall never be fit for much work

again after this. I never was ill before in my life, and at my age one

can’t stand this sort of thing. My poor child here will suffer for it.

I ought to have looked out for a partner before this, and have got a

good round sum down, for a share in the business. Now it is simply

worth nothing at all. That young fellow Peirce has got hold of all my

patients. They seem to take a fancy to him, and no partner of mine will

have a chance against him. But he’s a clever dog, and knows what he is

about; I must say that for him.”

“Then, in the name of goodness, why not make him your partner,

Wrightson? It is quite out of the question that I should come over from

Littleton to look after your patients, and so I tell you plainly. I

could not undertake it. Why not get this young Peirce now, to put his

money in with yours, and save you all the hard work? That will be your

plan, depend upon it. You will then have Oakhampton entirely in your

own hands, and carry all before you.”

“That’s what they all say,” replied Dr. Wrightson; “but the man

would not be such a fool as to consent to it, when he can get all my

connection away from me for nothing, if he chooses to try. The ladies

are all for him; he is popular enough here already. They are tired of

me. I am old and worn out, and past my work now, and Peirce is the man

to suit them henceforth in Oakhampton. I can see it plainer every day.”

“Oh, papa! dear papa! pray don’t talk in that dreadful way,” cried

Fanny, who was in the room; “Mr. Peirce is only anxious to work for

you, and be of use to you, till you are better. I assure you he

would gladly be your partner, or do anything to make you happy and

comfortable. Indeed, and indeed, papa, you may believe me when I tell

you this.”

“Bless my heart alive! Fanny, how do you know what Peirce wants? Why,

Fanny, child, what’s all this mean, eh? How the girl colours, and how

guilty she looks, a little minx! Come, child, tell me what makes you

think Peirce would like to be my partner instead of my rival? I should

like to know.”

“Here is Mr. Peirce, ask _him_,” replied Fanny, hiding her blushing

face behind the red moreen curtains of her father’s bed.

“My object, sir, is not so much to be your partner as your son,” said

Mr. Peirce, coming forward boldly. “If I can combine the two relations,

I shall indeed esteem myself a fortunate man. Will you let me help you

to work for our dear Fanny? I do not think you can be more devoted to

her interests than I am. Let me see. Suppose we say a share in your

practice would be worth fifteen hundred pounds--I have that sum lying

idle at my banker’s at this moment. It shall be paid into your account

as soon as you please. Then I am not entirely without private means. My

father left me an income of about eight hundred a year. Will you come

to terms and give me Fanny’s hand into the bargain?”

“What! so you’ve got possession of her heart safe enough, I’ll warrant

me, you young rogue, and I have not a word to say for myself. I’m

fairly conquered; you’ve won the day. Fanny, where are you? To go and

play such a trick to your poor old bed-ridden father! Eh! are you not

ashamed of yourself, miss?”

“No, papa, not a bit!” said Fanny, coming out of her concealment behind

the curtain; “and you have nobody but yourself to thank for it, after

all; for if you had not abused poor Montague from morning till night, I

dare say I should never have thought of him twice, or troubled my head

about him in any way. As it was--”

“You never thought of anybody else I may venture to hope, and I am duly

grateful to your father for it,” added Mr. Peirce confidently.

“Well, well, well! Have it your own way. I am a poor, broken-down,

useless, helpless, old man; but I did not think my own daughter would

have gone over to the enemy. When there are traitors in the camp, I’ve

nothing for it but surrender at discretion. Make your own terms--give

me no quarter--I’ve deserved it all for being a wicked, jealous,

uncharitable, ill-natured old brute. You’ve heaped coals of fire enough

on my head, Peirce, if that’s any consolation to you.”

“To-morrow is Christmas Day,” said Fanny, gently taking her father’s

hand, and putting it into that of her lover. “Now, father dear, promise

me you will never have any more enemies as long as you live, which we

hope will be very, very long, now you have Montague to take all the

hard work off your hands. In Oakhampton, at least, let us always have

in future ‘Peace and good-will towards men.’”

HON. ELEANOR EDEN.

XVII

THE COMING OF THE SHIP: THE DOCTOR’S PATIENT.

A selected reading from The Head of a Hundred. Edited by Maud Wilder

Goodwin. Dr. Humphrey Huntoon, a young Englishman, in the early days of

the colonies comes to this country in pique at the coldness of Elizabeth

Romney, his sweetheart, who is above him in social station. The story

is filled with charming pictures of colonial life and sentiment. In the

opening part of this reading, Huntoon, in a burst of confidence, tells

his old friend, the ship-captain, of his disappointment in love. In the

second part a new ship comes from England.

’TIS strange what lightness of spirit comes with the laying bare of a

sore heart. Verily, a trouble half told is half healed. Here I, who had

not been merry for months, found myself now smiling in the dark, as I

talked of those pleasant days of old. Then, like a mourner ashamed that

he hath forgot his grief, I caught up my melancholy once more.

“Well, well! All that is over and gone. If she loved me in those

childish years (and I still think she did), she outgrew the foolishness

soon enow. Yet, from time to time, as she grew into maidenhood, she let

drop some word, some hint, as tho’ she would say, ‘Perhaps!’ but ere I

could pry into the meaning of her words her eyes gathered merriment,

like as if they were laughing at the poor fool who allowed himself to

be cheated thus.

“Once, ere I went to Oxford, I rode beneath her window. She, leaning

out of the casement, did drop a sprig of lad’s-love, which a moment

before she had been holding to her lips; then, when I looked up, with

my heart in my eyes, she slammed the window to, and a moment later I

heard her calling her dog within.”

“Tush, tush, lad! A woman’s ways are like the maze at Hampton Court. If

thou lose the clew, thou mayst wander round and round forever and be no

nearer coming out. Why didst thou not ask her flat, would she have thee

for her husband?”

“Why not, indeed. Ah, therein lies the root of all my bitterness! When

I had finished my studies at Oxford and got my degree as a physician

and chirurgeon in London, I found myself with a scanty portion of a

thousand pounds. Yet had I none the less high hopes of carving my way

to fame and fortune, as other men have done from still lower estate.

This did I write to Sir William Romney, and in a packet I enclosed a

letter to his daughter.

“Therein I told her anew what she knew of old, that I loved her. I

asked her not to share the fortunes of a poor adventurer. I did but

seek a pledge that she would grant me a year and a day, and a promise

that if by that time I had aught of success to lay at her feet, she

would look on my suit with favor.”

“It was done like thyself, Humphrey. What answer made she?”

“Answer! Oh, it makes me mad to think on’t! She might have said me

nay, and yet I would have gone my way loving her like a knight of

old, without hope of reward or return; but to be flouted and baited,

and badgered and mocked, when I had offered her that poor thing, my

heart--oh, it was ill done!”

The instinct of my body to keep pace with my restless and turbulent

soul led me to stride up and down, striving to master the storm within

me. When I took my seat again, Captain Chester drew me on to speak

further.

“Perhaps,” he said, “the maid was but the mouthpiece of her father. I

hear of him everywhere as a hard, cold man.”

“Oh! Ay, ay, ay,” I broke in, “I have said all that over and over to

myself, like a madman, since ever I received Sir William’s cool note of

dismissal, inclosing the daughter’s mocking lines; but whenever I would

soothe my sore heart with the thought that she wrote it not of her own

free will, my reason says: ‘’Tis false, and thou knowst it!’ She would

brave a thousand fathers if she really loved, and her will was crossed.

I know, of course, that her refusal jumped with her father’s wish.”

I was down for a week with that wretched James City fever. By day I

shivered, and by night I burned with a consuming heat. Pory said it

served me right that I, who had come hither hoping to fatten on the

misfortunes of others, should myself fall a victim.

Thus he talked, like himself, and equally like himself he stayed by my

bedside day and night, scarcely taking off his clothes, tending me as

if I were a baby, and mixing doses of the bark, a sovran remedy, till

he saw me well on the road to recovery.

My convalescence he cheered as he had cured my illness. One day (I

was quite recovered then) my lively friend came bounding in, full of

excitement.

“A ship lieth in the harbor,” cried he, “and she hath brought--what

think ye?”

“Sooth, I know not. How should I? And if I did, ‘twere cruel to spoil

thy sport by saying so. What is this wondrous cargo?”

“Why, twenty maids, come out with one that is already betrothed to

Babcock, the blacksmith!”

“Well, what of it?”

“What of it, man! Why, ‘twould be the making of the colony could we get

twenty score in place of one. Ay, I say, ‘twould be the making of this

colony. A shipload of good wives were the best cargo England could send

us.”

“And thou wouldst choose the handsomest for thyself, by right of thine

office, I dare be sworn.”

“Nay, not I. I have ever had too poor luck at play to throw dice with

Fate for such heavy stakes.” With this he ran out, laughing.

When he was gone, I stretched my head forth from the window of my

lodging. Yonder in the river, a tall ship lay black against the shining

water. I could see the sailors in their glazed hats and loose, flapping

breeches, casting anchor to the time of their harsh song. Skiffs and

canoes were plying busily betwixt the ship and the shore. One curious

thing I noted, that, whereas only one went out in each canoe, two came

back; and then, as mine ear caught the ringing of the church bells, and

mine eyes marked the gallants who had gone of late ill-clad and worse

shaven, now tricked out in bands of fine lawn and ruffles at their

wrists, a sudden light brake on me, and I realized that all this was

because the twenty maids were come, and straightway these bachelors,

who till now had been quite content in their single estate, must set

their silly hearts on being married.

“Ho! there, Master John!” I shouted, as I caught sight of Pory’s

grizzled head and pointed beard under my window. “Read me this riddle:

‘What is that which flies when pursued, and pursues when fled from?’”

“A maid.”

“Verily, thou art a shrewd fellow to have guessed it. Come up,

therefore, and tell me all thou knowest which thou mayst do, and yet be

gone in five minutes.”

“That my civility may the more brightly shine against the foil of

thine uncivil words, I will come, and, to heap coals of fire on thy

head, I will tell thee of the scene on shipboard. The choosing of

husbands and wives went on as merrily as the choosing of partners for a

country-dance. It was a busy market, I can tell thee.”

“A market--how meanest thou?”

“Why, ‘tis thus they manage it, by bargain and sale; and belike ‘tis

as good an arrangement as any, since when the husband hath paid down

his hundred pound of tobacco for a wife, he is bound to make himself

believe he hath a bargain, and the wife, seeing he hath set so high

an estimate on her worth, in honor must strive to live up to his

valuation.”

“And was every one of the twenty maids married thus?”

“Ay, all but one, and she remained without a partner from choice, which

thou wouldst have declared impossible. Many offered for her, though she

wore her veil and coverchief close and would not show her features.

But she would look at none, and went off at the last to lodge with her

friend--one that was taken to wife by Miles Cary. I was somewhat struck

with curiosity over the conduct of the one unwed maid, and I searched

out her name in the ship’s register, where she is set down as Elizabeth

Devon. Now, fare thee well! for my five minutes are over, and if I told

thee more, ‘twould be what I know not, and, ergo--lies.”

After my nimble-witted friend was gone his way, I sat for long,

looking down into the street and watching the bridal couples as they

passed from under Parson Buckle’s blessing to their new homes. All

this billing and cooing and setting up of new households made me

feel but the more lonely and doleful. So I went not abroad that day,

tho’ I was well enow to be out, but sat reading and studying with no

other comforter than my pipe. But, to say truth, the pipe is no mean

consoler, and there is no friend that doth so adapt himself to thine

every mood, so partake, as it were, the very shade and subtlety of thy

thought and feeling, as tobacco. Well, as I sat thus, the day wore on

to evening. The flame in my pipe was expiring with a final flicker,

when a knock sounded at my door.

“Come in!” I called, and Miles Cary entered.

“Why, how now, Cary! Art thou come to complain of thy bride of

half-a-dozen hours? Hath she beaten thee over the head with the new

broomstick, and thou art ashamed of thy black eye, and come to get it

healed by stealth after dark?”

“Nay, ‘tis nowt that,” answered the burly yeoman, as he stood awkwardly

twirling his Monmouth cap on the end of his finger.

I saw that my jests were less amusing to him than to me; so putting

off my jibing tone, I asked him seriously if aught were ailing in his

household.

“Ay, ‘tis the friend of my wife.” He grinned with sheepish pleasure

over the last word.

“Is that the unwed maid, Elizabeth Devon, of whom Master Pory spake?”

“Yes; her arm was hurt on the ship in the storm, and methinks it must

have been ill-treated, for, in place of mending it grows ever worse;

yet have we had a hard task to persuade her to see the leech, and even

now am I come without her consent. I fear me she is o’er-headstrong;

but my Kate will have nowt said to her save wi’ cap in hand, and she

gives more attention to her friend than to her husband.”

“Well, well, that is but natural. Grumble not, Cary; but remember that

thy courtship must be done after marriage, and be content to bear

awhile with coolness.”

I took up my box as I spake, and we went out into the night together.

As we walked through the town, I marvelled much that all should be

changed of a sudden. ‘Twas no longer a camp, but a village. For good or

evil, the first English homes had been planted here in the heart of the

wilderness.

We stopped before Cary’s cottage, and I marked its shining neatness.

The stepping-stone in front of the door was polished as smooth as

marble, and the floor within, for all it was but of logs rudely

smoothed with an axe, was clean and neatly set in order.

As I stepped into the kitchen, which served for hall and parlor and

dining-room all in one, I was greeted by the mistress of the house with

a deep-bobbing courtesy which brought her short skirt down over her

bright stockings, and almost hid the high heels and pointed toes of her

wedding slippers.

“Is thy friend badly hurt?” said I.

“Ay, sir, she suffers much, but she bears it ever with so brave a heart

and so cheerful a face that none would guess it to look at her.”

“Hast thou bandages and swathing-cloths at hand?”

“Nay, not rightly at hand, but a plenty in the sea-chest, which hath

not yet been opened. Wilt thou lend a hand--_Miles_?”

I could but smile to watch the coquetry with which the name was spoken,

and to see how a soft tone and glance oiled the wheels of life and made

the half-sulky husband her willing slave.

Foreseeing that the uncording of the chest would be a matter of time, I

stepped to the door of the nearer chamber (the house boasted but two),

and finding it ajar, I bowed my head to its low proportions and entered.

The room had been filled with flowers, in honor of the home-coming of

the bride. ‘Tis wonderful to me how thoughtful and tender to women

these rough fellows oft be. The window-sash, its panes filled with

oiled paper, was swung open and the night wind blew the perfume of

wildrose and honeysuckle in my face. I can feel it still. A single

candle shed a dim light around and threw a yellow ray on a wooden

armchair close to the table.

As I turned me toward this chair, suddenly my heart stopped beating.

If the thing had not been so wildly impossible, I could have sworn it

was Elizabeth Romney herself sitting there. The maid, whoever she was,

had the same delicate curve of ear and throat, the same droop of the

eyelid, the very trick of the hand lying open palm upward on the knee.

I brushed my hand across my eyes and looked again. My

God!--Incredible!--It could not be!--yet what a likeness!

Then I told myself that I was going mad from dwelling too long on one

thought. I must speak and break the spell. As I opened my lips, a

sudden searching conviction fell upon me like a lightning flash that

this was indeed she, the one woman in the world to me.

I gasped out: “_Elizabeth!_”

The maiden turned, and for the first time caught sight of me standing

thus in the doorway. She gave one low cry of “_Thou!_”

After that one word we faced each other in blank silence. The folk in

books have ever some pat speech ready for such a moment; but in real

life ‘tis not so. How could I speak when my brain was whirling like a

millwheel, and my voice choked in my throat? I stood still and looked

upon her, and the longer I looked, the harder I found it to believe my

eyes were not playing me a trick.

Yet ‘twas but the truth they told me. There she sat--she that had been

brought up to be tended and waited upon, and compassed about with

luxuries, now sick and suffering, with only a wooden armchair to rest

upon, and a cottage roof to shelter her. How, in God’s name, had it

come to pass?

Her face was deadly pale, for all she had been three months on the sea;

and now, as she gazed at me, she grew even whiter, and swayed as though

she would fall in a swoon. But all the while she kept her eyes fixed

steadfastly on mine. They were eyes never to be forgotten by one who

had seen them once. I have heard folks praise the brilliancy of her

glance and the curling length of her eye-lashes; but, to her lover,

there lay a subtler charm in the tender trouble of her eye-brows,

bending slightly downward toward the inner corner. I noted it now as

distinctly as the drowning man counts the bubbles in the water.

I was the first to find my voice, and I hated myself that it sounded

hard and stern, when I was mad to fling myself at her feet and entreat

her to trust herself to me. But that abominable diffidence of mine,

which is so akin to pride, made me seem in her eyes, I doubt not, like

a pragmatical schoolmaster chiding a recreant child.

“Elizabeth Romney!--am I dreaming, or is it indeed thou--come on the

ship with the maids?”

An angry flush swept over the whiteness of her cheek and rose to meet

the hair that curled in childish rings round her little ears.

“Thou art thinking, perhaps, that I, too, like these others, am come

three thousand miles in search of a husband?”

I knew not what to say, and so I said nowt.

“Well, believe ‘t if you will!” she flung out, her eyes one blaze

of wrath; “but believe not that thou art such a husband as I would

seek--not though thou wert the only man on this side of the ocean, and

though all the tobacco in Virginia were the price in thine hand.”

“I am not likely to believe that, Mistress Betty,” I answered bitterly.

“Yet would I rather believe anything than that this journey is a mad

prank of thine without rhyme or reason. Wild and venturesome thou hast

ever been, but never unmindful of thy sex or thy station.”

“Which means that now I have shown myself unmindful of both. I thank

thee, Humphrey Huntoon; but till I seek thy counsel, do thou keep thy

censure!”

I know not what we might have spoken further, for anger was hot in both

our hearts; but at that instant Dame Cary and her good man came in,

bearing a roll of linen and a whale-oil lamp, which, vile smelling as

it was, gave a brighter light than the candle.

As it shone on the maiden’s face, the look of illness and suffering

was more plain to be seen; and I cursed myself for a fool that I had

forgotten all this time the arm I had been called to tend. I took the

linen from Dame Cary’s hand and tore it into strips.

“Will you be good enough to let me see the hurt?” I asked, in a

constrained voice. Without a word, she threw back her short cape and

showed me the right arm wound round and round with clumsy swathings,

which I straightway set to work to unwind. It was well that my calling

had trained the fingers to work coolly.

I went near to breaking out into oaths when I laid bare the arm and saw

how great a bungler had had charge of the hurt there on the ship. As it

was, that which had been so ill done must be undone.

The doing of this cruel kindness went near to break my heart, yet she

who suffered bore it without a groan. The free hand grasped the arm of

the chair more closely, and the face was set in the look of one who

would die ere look or sound of weakness be wrung from her. Only the

sharper drawing down of the eyebrow marked the strain and stress of

suffering.

At length, after a time which seemed to me longer than any month I have

known since, the poor arm was rebound in a pair of splints hastily

made from barrel staves. As I swathed it in band over band of linen, I

turned to Dame Cary--I dared not trust my voice to address that other.

“Your friend,” quoth I, “hath an excellent courage.”

“That hath she!” broke in Miles Cary, who had the true English love

of bravery, and who, as he stood by, holding the lamp while I worked,

had been greatly stirred by the sight of the maid’s endurance. “Had we

but a company of soldiers like her, we had no need of a stockade round

about James City.”

“Ay,” put in his wife, “but ye should have seen her on the sea! In that

great storm when her arm was broke, she was the only one of us that

screamed not, nor wailed, nor wished herself on land; but went about

cheering and encouraging all.”

Methought I saw a glance of warning pass from the girl in the chair

to the woman in waiting, for she straightway brake off her discourse,

and spake quite sharply to her husband, bidding him go before with the

light, that we might follow without breaking our necks.

So they went out and I walked behind them stupidly as far as the door.

There I found my wits, and, turning back, I stepped close to the

armchair.

“The doctor,” quoth I, in a low voice, “craves pardon for the hurt he

could not help.”

“The _doctor_,” she replied, also speaking very soft, “is pardoned in

advance, for he hath but done his duty. For the friend, ‘tis another

matter. I cannot soon forget that he has failed me.”

“Yet he, too, hath but thy good at heart, and that thou wilt some day

confess; and so must I leave thee. Good-night, madam!”

I spoke the last words in a louder tone, and, bowing low, I passed out

of the chamber.

MAUD WILDER GOODWIN.

XVIII

DR. PENNINGTON’S COUNTRY PRACTICE.

NEXT to her husband and her children there was nothing that Mrs.

Graham liked better than worrying herself. To a degree far beyond that

attained by any other woman in Marston, she enjoyed “the luxury of

woe,” and during the last few days she had been indulging in it without

stint. For during those days there had been five burglaries in that

town, and the little place, ordinarily no more excited than most summer

resorts, had become almost hysterical. First of all the post-office had

been robbed, and then, as though that robbery had been merely by way

of practice, the thieves on the next night had broken into a private

house. Other robberies had followed in quick and defiant succession,

and within twenty-four hours the little red brick railroad-station

on Orawaupum Street had been broken into, and the money in the safe

stolen. Then indeed there was excitement, for, as in all small towns

not too remote from large cities, the station was the real centre of

town life, and its misfortune was looked on almost as a sacrilege.

Even the summer residents seemed to consider it as such, and when, as

was the custom at Marston, the ladies drove down to the station in the

late afternoon to meet their husbands on their return from the city,

not one but looked at the little red building as though she expected to

hear it cry out against the profanation.

[Illustration: _A VIOLENT FALL_]

The older ladies sat comfortably in their carriages, and, in voices

pitched high because they were in the open air, talked volubly of the

burglaries. One and all agreed that they would never have expected

a burglary in Marston, and Mrs. Graham, by reason of her power of

self-worry, speedily obtained a high and commanding position among

them as a sort of possible martyr. The younger ladies, at the urgent

entreaties of their own or their friends’ inquisitive little brothers,

left their carriages and moved in a pretty crowd upon the station.

There the boys pointed out the drawers from which the money had been

stolen, and the girls examined them from a distance with respectful

interest. There, too, they saw the station-master in close conversation

with an important-looking person, while a young man seated on the

desk in the office swung his legs vigorously and looked bored. He

brightened up obviously, however, at the sudden influx of pretty girls,

and removed his hat. The other men merely glanced at the intruders and

continued their conversation.

When they had seen everything, the young ladies retreated to the

platform, from which they carried on an animated conversation with

their elders in the carriages, while the bored young man came to the

window and looked at them with admiration.

Suddenly all the talk was checked. Then a murmur of respectful

admiration ran through the crowd of ladies, and the coachmen sat up

straighter and flicked their horses. Even the ubiquitous small boys

became silent, as into the station yard whirled an open carriage in

which sat a young and very pretty woman. As soon as it had drawn up

near the platform, the talk began again, this time all directed at its

occupant.

“How do you do to-day, Mrs. Marmaduke?” was the first remark from

everybody, with a rising inflection on the second syllable of “to-day;”

and when Mrs. Marmaduke had replied that she was very well, there was

a chorus of almost incredulous congratulation. Then there was a hush,

broken in a moment by Mrs. Graham.

“Have you heard anything of your silver yet?” she began. Without

waiting for an answer, she continued, “I wonder how you bear it so

well. I’m sure I shouldn’t. I’m dreadfully afraid of burglars, and I

know it would kill me to know that they were in the house.”

“But I didn’t know it,” said Mrs. Marmaduke, with superiority. “Not

even Mr. Marmaduke knew that they had been there until afterwards.”

“Ah, yes,” returned Mrs. Graham; “but to find out, even afterwards,

that the horrid men had been there--ugh!--and had taken all your

silver--every bit of it--”

“They left some,” coolly interrupted the heroine. Mrs. Graham pretended

not to hear her.

“You should have had a burglar-alarm,” she said, patronizingly. “Mr.

Graham is going to have one put in for me.”

“We have a burglar-alarm,” answered Mrs. Marmaduke. “But it was out of

order.”

“Oh, how annoying!” chorused all the listeners except Mrs. Graham, who

sank back in her seat and signalled for her daughter Clara to come to

her.

Just then the train came around the curve below the station, and all

the adventurous girls retreated to their carriages. Out from his

office ran the old station-master, followed by the important-looking

man and by the bored young man. The man who carried the mail-bag

to the post-office sauntered up, and for an instant everything was

expectation. Then expectation became reality and confusion as the train

came to a stop. For a moment there was an outpouring of passengers,

then a thinning out of the crowd, and then a sort of stampede of the

carriages for the post-office, until, when the train started again,

only Mrs. Marmaduke’s and Mrs. Graham’s remained. Mrs. Marmaduke lay

back in hers, looking at her husband, as he stood on the platform

talking to the bored young man, while Mrs. Graham, after looking

carefully around for her husband, sank back without being able to find

him. Clara Graham had looked also, and when she could find neither her

father nor her brother she began again the conversation interrupted by

the arrival of the train.

“There were two burglars, mamma,” she said. “One was rather an old man,

they say, while the other was much younger. And of course there must

have been a third one to watch--”

“Drive on, George,” interrupted Mrs. Graham; and the coachman had just

turned from the platform when the gray-bearded station-master ran out.

“Hi, there! Mrs. Graham!” he shouted, waving a brown envelope, and as

the carriage stopped with a jerk, the old man plunged down from the

platform and ran to it.

“A telegram from Mr. Graham,” he explained, and, while Mrs. Graham

opened it hurriedly, he waited with one hand on the wheel-guard.

“Who were those two men talking with you, Mr. Underhill?” asked Clara

Graham, inquisitively.

“Wal, the gentleman wi’ the red beard--him a-standin’ in the doorway

noaw,” answered the old man, pointing towards the station, “is the

representative o’ th’ _Martson Enterprise_,--Mr. Long his name is. An’

t’other one, him a-talkin’ to Mr. Marm’duke, ‘s ‘porter fur one o’ th’

Noo York papers,--I don’ rightly know’s name.”

“Clara,” said Mrs. Graham,--”There’s no answer, Mr. Underhill. Drive

on, George. Clara, your father won’t be home to-night; he and Phil are

detained by business. They won’t be home until to-morrow night.”

“Oh, well,” said Clara, cheerfully, “of course we shall miss them, but

I think we can get along one night without them.”

“Ordinarily, yes,” her mother answered, promptly. even on her husband.

“Ordinarily, most certainly. But there are these awful burglars, and we

haven’t a man in the house.”

“There’s George, mamma,” suggested Clara. But George with great

promptness, spoke over his shoulder, as old coachmen have a way of

doing:

“Please, mem, I’ve got to be ‘ome to-night, because o’ my wife h’end

the baby as she h’expects.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Graham, slowly, “George is right; he must be at home.

Could your Cousin Will come, do you think, Clara?--No: he’s away, too.

There’s Mr. Frisbie; we might ask him to take care of us. No sensible

burglars would think of robbing the parsonage.”

“No, I don’t suppose they would,” answered Clara. “But then Mr. Frisbie

wouldn’t leave Mrs. Frisbie and the little baby alone. And then suppose

the burglars were not sensible--”

“They must be,” said Mrs. Graham, with decision, “or they wouldn’t have

broken into the Marmadukes’ house.”

“Oh, mamma,” suggested Clara, “couldn’t we telegraph to somebody to

come out to us? We might have a messenger-boy sent out, or two or

three, if you wanted.”

“I’ve got a boy, miss,” said George, the coachman. “’E might take care

o’ ye, mem, over night.”

But when she found that George’s boy was only nine years old, Mrs.

Graham shook her head.

“He’s too young. And I do not want messenger-boys. They would be so

slow, and they wear great rubber trousers and always have their hands

in their pockets.” This was said very slowly and thoughtfully.

“We might telegraph to some friend in the city, mamma,” suggested

Clara. “He could come out on the ten o’clock train, and get here before

eleven. I don’t suppose the burglars would come before eleven.”

“Oh, no. They never come before eleven o’clock,” said Mrs. Graham, as

decidedly as though she had served an apprenticeship with a burglar

and knew all the rules governing his entrance into the best houses.

The idea of telegraphing to a friend evidently pleased her. “We might

telegraph to--to--”

“We might telegraph to Dr. Pennington,” suggested Clara, with just the

suspicion of a blush. “He would be sure to come.”

Her mother did not notice the blush, and was evidently considering

the question of telegraphing. Just then the carriage turned in at the

Grahams’ gate.

“We must telegraph,” said Mrs. Graham, nodding her head with great

decision. “Yes, we must telegraph, and to Dr. Pennington.”

It was later than usual that evening when Dr. John Pennington dropped

into the little French restaurant near his office, to which his

bachelorhood doomed him, and, as almost every one else had gone, he

was forced to eat a solitary meal. As he looked carelessly through an

evening paper which he had taken up to pass the time, he happened to

notice the following bit of news:

“The village of Marston is very much excited over several burglaries

committed there recently. The residence of E. L. Marmaduke, a wealthy

merchant of New York City, was entered on Tuesday night, and a large

quantity of jewelry and silver stolen. Last night, after visiting

several houses with little success, the burglars broke into the

railroad-station. Many commutation tickets had been renewed the day

before, and the burglars secured nearly two hundred dollars in money.

There are supposed to be three men in the gang. No clue to them has yet

been found.”

“I wonder,” thought the doctor, as he slowly sipped his coffee, “I

wonder if they have been to the Grahams’ yet. If they have, I’ll

wager a large amount--I’d go as high as my last year’s professional

income--that Mrs. Graham is now in a state of violent hysterics. If

they haven’t, she has at least sufficient material to keep her in a

state of worry for about one year.” He finished his coffee. “I believe

I’ll run out to Marston to-morrow,” he continued, thoughtfully; “that

is, if I’m not too much occupied.” (Pennington religiously made this

reservation, though since he had become a doctor he had never been

too much occupied.) “I haven’t been there for a long time, and the

burglaries will give me a good excuse for leaving my patients.”

Having made this determination, he dismissed the matter from his mind,

and, finishing his coffee, sat in silence till he had smoked his cigar.

Then he went home to take up his usual task of waiting for patients.

When he reached his rooms, he found Mrs. Graham’s telegram on his

table. It was as enigmatical as women’s communications generally are,

and was worded thus:

“Will you kindly take ten-o’clock train and spend night with us? Will

explain on arrival.”

“Spend the night? Will explain on arrival? What on earth can the woman

mean?” cried the doctor. “Can any of the family be sick, I wonder? If

so, why should she send for me, when there must be other doctors near

by? No: that can’t be the reason.” But, as he could think of no other

explanation, he accepted this one as the most plausible, and decided to

take his case of medicines with him to Marston. Looking at his watch,

he saw that he could barely catch the train, and hastily began to pack

his handbag. Then, telling his landlady that he would be back in the

morning, he called a cab, and reached the station with five minutes to

spare.

A night ride in an accommodation train is not exciting, and

Pennington’s trip to Marston was monotonous enough. He did not dare to

read by the villainous light, and so he devoted his time to speculating

on Mrs. Graham’s telegram. He stepped from the train at Marston,

however, without having come to any definite conclusion on the subject.

“I think, sir,” said an elderly coachman, stepping up to the young

doctor and touching his hat, “I think you must be the gentl’n

h’expected at the Grahams’. Will you step this way, sir? I ‘ave the

buggy ‘ere. These burglaries are h’awful, ain’t they, sir?” he began,

as he touched up the little mare.

“Burglaries?” said Pennington. “Oh, yes, I did read about some

burglaries up here--”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, “an’ Mrs. Graham is just scared out o’ her

senses, sir, an’ when she got the telegram from Mr. Graham, sir,--come

up, Jess,--sayin’ that neither he nor Mr. Phil ‘ud be up to-night, she

sent for you ‘t once. Ye see, sir,” he continued, waxing confidential,

“I’m out o’ the runnin’, on account o’ the visitor h’expected at my

‘ouse to-night.”

For the first time it dawned upon the doctor that it was not for his

professional services that he was wanted, but more heroic ones, and

he wished that he had left his case of medicines at home. Old George,

however, gave him little time for thought, but entertained him with

accounts, partly real, partly fictitious, of the daring and ferocity

of the burglars who infested the village, until the doctor began to

wish that Mrs. Graham had been able to secure any other protector than

himself.

As the carriage rolled up to the house, the door opened, and Mrs.

Graham, evidently on the watch, rushed out.

“Oh, Dr. Pennington!” she cried, excitedly. “You can’t tell how glad I

am to see you! I _hope_ you don’t think it presuming in me to send for

you?”

“Not at all,” began Pennington, getting out of the carriage; but Mrs.

Graham noticed his medicine-case, and interrupted him.

“You’ve brought your pistols,” she exclaimed. “How splendid of you to

think of them!”

“Do not for one instant think that you presumed in sending for me,”

said Pennington, as he ran lightly up the steps and took Mrs. Graham’s

outstretched hand. “You know, Mrs. Graham, that it can only be a

pleasure to me to be of any service to you or Miss Clara.”

“It is very good of you, I’m sure, and I shall never forget it; but

now come right into the library. Clara will be delighted to see an old

friend who has come in time of need. It was she who suggested sending

for you,” added Mrs. Graham, and Pennington blushed with pleasure.

“It’s very strange,” went on the lady, “that Clara isn’t half so

worried about the burglars as I am, when it generally takes so much to

worry me. Clara, here is Dr. Pennington, pistols and all; wasn’t it

good of him to come?” she concluded, as she entered the library. Clara

came forward to greet Pennington, blushing slightly, and looking so

charming that he felt he would be glad to have the burglars come, that

he might have the pleasure of defending her.

“I have just told Mrs. Graham, Miss Clara,” said Pennington, “that the

goodness is all on her side. You can’t realize how pleasant it is to

see you again. As for my pistols,” he added, carefully laying down his

medicine-case, “it overwhelms me with mortification to confess that I

have left the key of my case behind.”

“Perhaps it is best that you did,” said Mrs. Graham, while Clara

laughed.

“Don’t worry about that, Dr. Pennington,” she said, tapping the case

lightly. “Wait a moment, and I will bring something that will do as

well as the pistols you have here.” And she ran from the room. When

she returned, Mrs. Graham was insisting that Pennington should take

something to eat.

“Here is a weapon,” cried Clara, gaily, holding up an old-fashioned

muzzle-loading horse-pistol. She handed it to Pennington, who colored

as he took it. “I think that will frighten the burglars,” she panted,

looking at Pennington and laughing.

“Clara,” said Mrs. Graham, “I wouldn’t have that thing fired off in the

house for the world. Your father fired it off once at a cat, and the

noise it made gave me a nervous shock I didn’t get over for a week.

Besides, it brought in all the neighbors,--and some of them were very

common people,--who thought we had had a dynamite explosion here.”

“But this ancient fire-arm has no hammer,” said Pennington, after

examining it. “A pistol without a hammer, Mrs. Graham, is like a man

without a head,--comparatively useless.”

“My ignorance of such things,” said Mrs. Graham, with a shudder, “is

something stupendous, and I hope you won’t laugh at me when I ask what

the hammer of a pistol is?”

“Let me show you, mamma,” cried Clara, jumping up and taking the pistol

from Pennington’s hands.

“Be careful, Clara, be careful,” cried Mrs. Graham, evidently alarmed

at its proximity. “Are you quite sure that it won’t go off by itself?”

“Quite sure,” answered the doctor. But Mrs. Graham’s fears could not

be allayed until Pennington had placed the pistol on the bookcase. She

gave a sigh of relief.

“I am sure that we shall not need a pistol,” said Pennington, “for

burglars never come where they are expected.”

“Perhaps that is so,” answered Mrs. Graham. “I know that I am awfully

timid about them. But, doctor--could you--would you--do you mind

sleeping on this lounge to-night?”

“Not in the least,” cried Pennington. “Why, Mrs. Graham, it looks

extremely comfortable.”

“It is very comfortable,” said Clara, giving it a little pat by way of

enforcing her remark. “It is quite out of the ordinary run of lounges.

I often take naps on it myself.”

“That settles it,” cried Pennington. “Now not even wild horses could

drag me to a bed of ease.”

“I am very grateful to you,” said Mrs. Graham, who did not look upon

the matter as a trifling sacrifice for the doctor to make. “I think we

can make you comfortable, however.”

“Of course you can, Mrs. Graham; and then just think of the fame that

awaits me if the burglars do come. Why, the papers will be full of me.

‘Dr. Pennington defends two helpless ladies from desperate burglars.

His only weapon a horse-pistol without a hammer,’ and so on.”

“I don’t see how you can joke about such horrid men; the very thought

of them makes me shudder. But we mustn’t keep you up all night, doctor.

It is long after eleven. Clara, take my hand; you couldn’t persuade me

to go up the stairs by myself. Doctor, would you mind standing in the

hall till we get to our rooms--”

“Like the White Knight and Alice,” laughed Clara. “You remember he

asked Alice to wait till he was out of sight, because her presence

would cheer him--”

“Clara, you saucy girl!” cried her mother. “Doctor, I will send Bridget

down to make up a bed on the lounge. Good night,” she called again, as

she reached her room.

“Don’t treat the poor burglars too cruelly, Dr. Pennington,” cried

Clara, looking over the baluster, and then with a laugh she vanished.

“I wonder what she meant by that,” thought Pennington, as he went back

to the library. In a minute Bridget appeared with sheets and blankets,

and in a short time had made up a bed on the broad lounge. Then she

departed and Pennington was left alone.

“Suppose the burglars should come,” he thought, as he prepared to turn

in. “But it’s not likely they will. At any rate, I mustn’t let my

imagination run away with me; so here goes.” And with that he turned

out the gas and settled himself on the lounge, where, in spite of

discomforts present and burglars to be, he was soon fast asleep.

He had been asleep, it seemed to him, for hours, when he suddenly

sat up, wide awake in an instant. Had he dreamed that he had heard

footsteps at the back of the house, or was there really some one

moving about? Pennington listened with every nerve strained to its

utmost tension. There it goes again! He was sure he heard a noise. It

came from the dining-room--and it sounded like the rattling of silver.

“They’re here,” he muttered, and drew a long breath. “What in thunder

am I to do? Ah! I’ll get that old pistol and use the poker as a hammer;

the old thing has a cap on it.” Crawling softly from the lounge, he

groped his way towards the fireplace. The room was as dark as a pocket,

and before he had finished his uncertain journey he struck his foot

smartly against the coal-scuttle. It rattled. He made a dive to stop

it from falling, and in so doing upset it. It fell with a crash loud

enough, it seemed to him, to wake the Seven Sleepers.

Despite the pain of his stubbed foot, Pennington did not hug his

injured member with the affection usually displayed on such occasions

but ground his teeth and listened intently for any sign from the

burglars that they had heard him.

A moment of suspense; then he assured himself that they had heard

nothing, and, securing pistol and poker, started for the library door.

He reached it safely, and, opening it noiselessly, looked out into

the hall. A narrow streak of light from the partly-opened dining-room

door showed him where to steer, and, grasping the poker firmly in his

right hand and the pistol in his left, he tiptoed across the hall. The

rattling of silver in the dining-room continued, and almost drowned the

nearer and solemn tick of an old eight-day clock, whose brass and iron

nerves the doctor envied.

Creeping cautiously to the door, he looked through the crack. The light

was turned half on in the dining-room. At the farther end of the room,

with his back turned towards him, was an old man, who seemed to be

taking silver from the drawers of the sideboard and putting it into a

basket at his side.

“The old villain!” thought Pennington. “How cool he is! I wonder where

the other two fellows are. Somewhere at hand, I suppose.”

Suddenly the burglar turned half around, as though he were about to

leave the room. Pennington shrank back.

“I can’t shoot the fellow in cold blood,” he said to himself. Just then

his hand touched the knob of a door which he knew opened into a large

closet. An idea struck him. He opened the door very quietly, and then,

picking up the rug from the hall floor, was ready to carry out his plan.

The burglar was nearing the door. “Come up as soon as you can,” he

said, and as a muffled voice from somewhere answered, “All right,” he

opened the door and stepped into the hall.

With a bound Pennington threw the heavy rug over the man’s head, deftly

twisting it so that he could make no sound to warn his comrades. But

the doctor had not thought of the basket of silver which the man

carried, and it fell to the floor with a crash. There was a quick

movement in the direction from which the answering voice had come, and

a scream from upstairs. Pennington fairly hurled his prisoner into the

closet and locked the door; then he stood a moment uncertain whether

to run upstairs to the aid of Mrs. Graham and Clara or search for the

other burglar. Suddenly he heard a step behind him. Before he could

turn he received a blow on the side of his head. He fell to the floor,

where he lay half stunned. Then his hands were tied behind him, and he

felt himself picked up by his assailant and held a moment uncertainly

in mid air.

“Put him in here, Fred,” said a voice, and, to his horror, Pennington

heard the key turn in the lock, and the next instant he was thrown into

the closet with as little ceremony as he had himself used towards the

burglar. Then the door was locked.

A sudden cough from the burglar made Pennington’s hair stand on end,

and he shivered when he heard the man, sputtering and coughing, feeling

audibly for what Pennington knew was his revolver. He was as brave as

most men, and at once determined not to lie still at the mercy of a

desperate ruffian. Very cautiously he tried to pull his hands out of

the bonds that held them. To his joy, he found that the hastily-tied

knots would give way at a little straining.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Mrs. Graham and Clara had gone to bed together

for additional safety. Clara did not tell her mother, but to herself

confessed that she had every confidence in Dr. Pennington, and so went

calmly to sleep. Mrs. Graham was less confident than her daughter, and

her sleep was light and broken. The consequence was that the fall of

the silver basket woke her up instantly. She gave a scream.

“Clara!” she cried, shaking her daughter. “Clara, the burglars are

here!”

“Where?” demanded Clara, sitting bolt upright, and looking in

bewilderment out from the mist of her long brown hair.

“Down stairs,” said Mrs. Graham, in a hoarse whisper. “Help me, Clara,

and scream.” With that she set the example by uttering a shriek

that rang through the house, waking the servants in their rooms.

Clara sprang from the bed, and, scarcely knowing what she did, began

piling all the movable furniture in front of the door, while her

mother uttered scream after scream with the regularity of a piece of

clock-work.

There was a step in the hall, then another.

“There are two of them!” gasped Mrs. Graham, in an interval of

screaming. The door was opened slightly. “Push up the bedstead, Clara!”

and the two women pushed the heavy piece of furniture against the door.

The movement was so sudden that the door closed upon the intruder’s

fingers. There was a howl of pain.

“Scream!” commanded Mrs. Graham, as Clara caught her by the arm. The

girl did not at once obey.

“Oh, mother,” she cried, “what do you suppose they’ve done to John--I

mean Dr. Pennington?”

“Let me in,” cried a voice in the hall. “Let me in.” The two women

screamed again. The door was pushed open and a man’s head and shoulder

thrust in. In desperation, Mrs. Graham picked up the water-pitcher.

Rushing towards the man, she threw it at him. It struck the wall and

broke, near enough to him to drench him.

“Hold on, I say!” he cried. “Mother, what are you doing? Are you hurt?

Have those scoundrels hurt you?”

“Phil!” cried Mrs. Graham and Clara at once. “Phil! Why, what are you

doing here? How did you come?” And they rushed upon him, dragging him

through the narrow opening and embracing him rapturously.

“What are you doing here?” asked Mrs. Graham again, as she released

him. He could not answer at once, but after Clara had let him go, he

answered,--

“Well, father at first forgot all about the burglars. We were at the

library, working away like beaver lawyers, when he suddenly thought

of ‘em. He jumped up and said we must come right home, because you’d

be scared out of your wits.” Here he kissed his mother again. “So we

bundled up the papers, and, as we were too late for the ten o’clock

train, we came up on the other road, and walked across. We brought Fred

with us, too.”

“Fred Austin?” asked Mrs. Graham. Phil nodded, and went on:

“Father was sure you’d be awake, but you didn’t seem to be, so we

looked around, and pretty soon got in through the front window, which

was open.” Mrs. Graham looked frightened. “Then we felt sure there was

something to pay, especially when we saw the silver basket and the

silver scattered around on the table and sideboard, and the safe open,

so father picked up the silver, while Fred and I ran into the kitchen.”

Mrs. Graham had gasped when she heard of their discovery, and stood

listening with almost tragic intentness.

“We found no one there, but we heard a crash in the hall and ran

back. Fred came through the door into the pantry, while I came by the

dining-room. First thing I knew I heard somebody fall in the hall, and

then Fred called me. He’d found a big fellow standing by the door,

evidently waiting for me, and he’d hit him pretty hard on the head.

Then we tied his hands with a handkerchief and threw him into the

closet.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Graham, looking relieved, while Clara drew a long

breath, “that was good. Where is your father. Bring them both here.”

“Isn’t father here?” asked Phil. “Why, he came upstairs first--has that

scoundrel touched him, I wonder?” And Phil darted out of the room and

down-stairs.

“Then there was some one in the house,” said Mrs. Graham, “for Phil

said that Fred had to strike some one.”

“Mamma,” said Clara, tremulously, seizing her mother’s arm, “Fred hit

Dr. Pennington!” And she looked at her mother with wide-open eyes of

alarm. Mrs. Graham went into the hall, her daughter following her.

“Be still!” commanded Mrs. Graham, opening the door into the servants’

hall. “Girls, I’m ashamed of you! Bridget, Eliza! Be still at once!”

Her voice had its effect, and the house became quiet again.

Meantime the two prisoners in the closet had not been idle. Pennington

at first lay where he had been thrown, noiselessly trying to slip his

hands through his bonds. The burglar had evidently rid himself of the

rug, and Pennington could hear him groping his way about the closet,

now and again colliding with unknown obstacles. He was nearing the

prostrate doctor, who redoubled his efforts to free himself. Suddenly

the burglar’s foot struck smartly against Pennington’s head. The man

stopped and drew back; then he pushed his foot forward again till it

once more touched the doctor. Pennington, who had not quite freed

himself when the burglar first collided with him, jerked his hands out

of their fastenings, and, springing to his feet, aimed a blow in the

direction in which he thought the burglar stood. He missed his aim in

the darkness and bruised his knuckles against the wall.

“Whew!” he cried, jumping with pain. Just then he got a blow from the

burglar on his shoulder. He turned on him, but caught his foot on the

rug and fell at full length. He sprang up in an instant, however,

picking up the rug as he did so, and stood prepared to defend himself

as long as possible.

“Have you found your father?” asked Mrs. Graham, leaning over the

baluster and looking into the darkness of the lower hall.

“Not yet, Mrs. Graham,” answered a voice.

“Why don’t you light the gas, Fred?” asked Mrs. Graham, impatiently.

There was a scratching of a match, and in an instant the hall was

lighted. Just then Phil Graham came from the dining-room.

“I can’t find father,” he said anxiously.

Clara came timidly half-way down the stairs.

“Fred,” she asked, “what sort--who was it you struck?”

“A tall man, standing here. He was waiting for us to come out of the

dining-room; but I came up behind and hit him--so,” answered Fred

Austin, with some pride.

“Lucky he did, too,” said Phil. “The fellow had this,” he added,

holding up a pistol. Then, in a tone of astonishment, he cried, “Hello!

it’s father’s old horse-pistol!”

Clara flew down the stairs to her brother, her long hair streaming

behind her. “It wasn’t a burglar!” she cried. “It wasn’t a burglar!

Why did you strike him?” turning fiercely upon Fred Austin, and then

bursting into tears of terror.

Mrs. Graham followed her down. “He wasn’t a burglar,” she explained to

the perplexed young men. “It was Dr. Pennington. He came down here to

protect us while you were away. He must have heard you and taken you

for burglars, and you took him for one, and--”

“Pennington!” echoed Phil, while Fred looked at Clara, with admiration

and contrition, the former real, the latter half feigned. “I put

Pennington, if it was he, into the closet,” he added, stepping towards

the place. Clara was before him, however.

The sound of voices in the hall had already attracted the attention of

the two prisoners. The burglar groaned as he heard them, and his groan

was fatal to him, for it indicated that he was in the middle of the

closet. Instantly the doctor turned and threw the rug in the direction

of the sound. His aim was good, and in a moment he had the burglar’s

head again enveloped. His hands were free, however, and he grappled

with Pennington so vigorously that he had much ado to defend himself.

Suddenly he gave the burglar a strong shove from him. At that moment

the door was flung open.

“John,” cried Clara. The burglar fell through the door into the hall.

For an instant there was silence. Then the burglar began to kick

violently and to shout.

“It’s father!” cried Phil Graham, as he made a dive for the

half-smothered man and set him on his feet. Mr. Graham looked around

wildly for an instant as he got rid of the rug.

“There’s a burglar in there!” he cried. “Shut the door. Quick, shut

the door!” And he threw himself against it, refusing to move until

Fred Austin had locked it. “Whew!” he gasped. “The scoundrel! Have you

locked it Fred?--Tried to garrote me--whew!” And he wiped his face and

looked around on his astonished family.

“Why, how did you get in there, father?” asked Phil, while Mrs. Graham

led her husband to a chair. Clara stood still near the door.

“I was going up stairs with the silver basket, which the burglar had

left on the sideboard--”

“No,” interrupted his wife, penitently: “I told Eliza I would put the

silver in the safe myself, and I was doing it when Dr. Pennington came.

I ran out to meet him, and forgot all about the silver. I don’t believe

there was any burglar at all.”

“Yes, there was,” said Mr. Graham, sturdily. “As I was coming out of

the dining-room, a fellow threw this rug over me, and then threw me,

rug and all, into the closet. Presently he came in after me, I suppose

to remove the only witness against him. He was choking me when you

opened the door, and I broke away from him.” And Mr. Graham pointed to

the closet door.

“Why, that’s where we put Pennington,” cried Austin and Phil Graham.

Clara darted to the door and opened it wide.

“John!” she cried again. “Come out, come out.” And, in obedience to her

call, John Pennington came out.

“Where’s that burglar?” he asked.

“There were three of them,” answered Mrs. Graham, promptly. “We have

got them all.” Pennington looked around bewildered. He recognized Phil

Graham, and then saw Mr. Graham sitting in the hall chair, the rug at

his feet. His face fell.

“This was the burglar you captured,” said Mrs. Graham; and Mr. Graham

nodded.

“Who hit me, then?” demanded Pennington, rubbing his head. Fred Austin

seemed bashful about answering, and Phil spoke up:

“We took you for a burglar and captured you, just as you had captured

father.”

“Then there were no burglars?” asked Pennington, doubtfully.

“No, there were no burglars,” answered Mrs. Graham.

“Well,” said Pennington, as he rubbed his head again, “I suppose it’s

all right, but it’s rather hard on a well-meaning fellow--” And he

smiled rather weakly.

“It’s all right,” said Clara, unconsciously laying her hand on his arm.

“My dear,” said Mr. Graham to his wife some time later, as they were in

their room together, “my dear, didn’t Clara call the doctor John?”

“I didn’t think you noticed it,” answered Mrs. Graham.

“I did, though,” said Mr. Graham. “It seems to me, though there were

no burglars to take our silver, that Pennington has taken our little

woman’s heart.”

“Fair exchange is no robbery,” remarked Mrs. Graham; and her husband

looked at her, and nodded several times as though something pleased him.

BUTLER MUNROE.

XIX

THE DOCTOR: AN OLD VIRGINIA FOX HUNTER.

NOW the doctor was a Southerner of the old school. Nor was he merely a

North Carolinan, a Tennesseean, a Kentuckian or a Georgian--not any,

thank you! No; our friend was a Virginian--a real, “old-fashioned,

blue-blooded, whole-souled, open-handed Virginian.” And this he was

by virtue of eight or nine generations of forebears who had fought,

physicked, speechified, fox-hunted, raised negroes and tobacco, in that

immortal commonwealth. No day passed but the doctor, in his simple

fashion, unconsciously thanked God that he was a Virginian. For did not

virtue, valor, honor, gallantry, select the Old Dominion in the days of

the Stuarts as their special depot, from whence, in modified streams,

these qualities might be diffused over the less fortunate portions of

the Western world? To the unsophisticated Englishman, to the ignorant

Frenchman or German, an American is an American. If he is not rampantly

modern, sensationally progressive, and furiously material, he is

nothing at all. But the doctor would scarcely ever speak or think of

himself as an American, except in the same sense as an Englishman

would call himself a European. The doctor was every moment of the

day, and every day in the year, a Virginian above everything; and

as I have already said, he felt thereby that a responsibility and a

glory above that of other mortals had been conferred upon him by the

accident of his birth. I may add, moreover, that he was unquestionably

non-progressive, that he was decidedly not modern, while to this day

he is so reactionary that the sound of a railway irritates him; and

finally, that he was, and I feel sure still is, eminently picturesque.

The doctor was about sixty-five at the time of which I write (not so

very many years ago). He had never set foot outside Virginia, and never

wanted to. That a country, however, or climate, or people, or scenery,

existed that could be mentioned in the same breath with the old

Cavalier colony, never for one moment was accounted within the bounds

of possibility by that good and simple soul.

And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, the doctor was proud of his

descent from pure English stock. “None of Scotch or Irish, or

Scotch-Irish for me. No, I thank you, sir.” “My folks,” he was fond of

relating, “were real English stock, who came over way back in early

colonial days, and settled on the York River. They were kin to the

nobility.” Whatever may have been the accuracy of this last claim,

the doctor’s patronymic in Virginia genealogy was above reproach,

and would have secured him an _éntree_ (had he owned a dress coat,

and had he felt a hankering after Eastern cities) into those small

exclusive coteries in transatlantic society that still recognize birth

as superior to wealth and even intellect. I should not like it to be

supposed that my dear doctor, of whom I am excessively fond, was given

to blustering about either his State or his descent. Your fire-eating,

blowing, swaggering Southerner belongs either to a lower social grade,

to the more frontier States of the South, or, to a greater degree

perhaps than either, to the fertile imagination of Yankee editors

and dime novelists. The doctor was a Virginian. His thoughts and

his habits, which were peculiar and original, were simply those of

Virginians of his class and generation somewhat strongly emphasized.

He was just and unassuming, kindly and homely. There was about him a

delightful, old-fashioned, if somewhat ponderous suavity of manner,

that the rest of the Anglo-Saxon race have long, long outgrown. Even

to hear a married female who was not black addressed as otherwise

than “Madam” positively pained him. As for the children, the doctor

had a separate greeting for every one of them, let his host’s quiver

be ever so full. Ay, and generally something more than that; for the

doctor’s capacious pockets were known by the little ones to be almost

as inexhaustible in the way of chincapins, hickory-nuts and candy, as

his well-worn saddle-bags were of less inviting condiments.

The doctor’s belief in his country (and by his country of course I mean

Virginia) was the religion in which he was born. He would never have

dreamt of intruding it on you. International comparisons he could not

make, for he had never been out of the State. I feel perfectly sure,

however, if the doctor had travelled over every corner of the earth,

that his faith was of that fundamental description which was proof

against mere sights and sounds. He would have returned to the shade

of his ancestral porch, temporarily staggered, perhaps, but still

unconvinced that any land or any people could compare with old Virginia.

The average American in London is a spectacle which has in it nothing

inharmonious; on the contrary, in these days it is sometimes hard to

distinguish him from the native. To picture the doctor in London,

however, requires an effort of imagination from which the intellect

shrinks. Of one thing I am sure, and that is, he would be very

miserable. He would call in vain for glasses of cold water like that

from the limpid spring under the poplar tree at home, of which the

doctor consumes about a horse-troughful a day. He would hang over

the apple-stalls, and groan over the deficiencies of a country that

could do no better than that. He would get up two hours before the

servants, and prowl about disconsolate and hungry till breakfast. What

an apology, too, for a breakfast it would be without an “Old Virginia

hot-beat biscuit!” In his despair of getting a “julep” he might take

a whiskey punch before his early dinner. But here, again, how could

the emblazoned wine-card, with its, for him, meaningless contents,

supply the want of that big pitcher of foaming buttermilk for which

his simple palate craves? The pomp and wealth, the glitter and glare

of a great capital, would be simply distasteful to our patriarch. In

his own land he and his have been for all time aristocrats--after

their own fashion, it is true, but still aristocrats. They have been

strongly inclined to regard themselves as the salt of the earth--and

perhaps they are; a good sturdy British foible this, intensified by

isolation and the mutual admiration atmosphere which isolation creates.

At any rate, gold lace and liveries and coronets are not indispensable

adjuncts of honor and breeding. The doctor, however--if we can imagine

him gazing on the stream of carriages rolling past Hyde Park corner

on a summer evening--would be sensible, for the first time in his

life, to a feeling somewhat akin to insignificance creeping over him.

He would hate and despise himself for it, but still it would make

him uncomfortable, and he would want to get away home. A depressing

suspicion would come over our good friend that the haughty squires and

dames knew no more of Virginia’s history, or of Pages and Randolphs,

and Pendletons and Byrds, than they knew of the obscure Elijahs and

Hirams and Aarons that tilled the stony fields of New England. I fear,

moreover, that the suspicion would be too well founded. As a Cumberland

squire in the eighteenth century might have been disillusioned by

a visit to the the capital, so to a much greater degree would our

good Virginian friend have in all probability suffered by a similar

transportation. Once home again, however, I can safely affirm of the

doctor, that these uncomfortable sensations would have vanished in no

time. Once more in his cane-bottomed rocking-chair on the shady porch;

once more within sight of the blue mountains, the red fallows, and the

yellow pine-sprinkled sedgefields of his native land, he would quickly

recover from the temporary shocks that had irritated him. The sublime

faith in “the grand old Commonwealth” would return, and he would thank

God more fervently than ever he was a son of Virginia; not because of

her present or her future--for he considered the Virginia he belonged

to died with slavery--but on account of her people and her past.

The doctor, happily, had been spared all these trials and his faith

remained pure and unimpaired. The only capital he had ever visited was

the charming little city of Richmond, where every third man or woman

he met was his cousin; where most of society call one another by their

Christian names, dine in the middle of the day, and sit out on chairs

in the street after supper. Richmond is delightful, and so are its

people; but its atmosphere would tend to confirm, not to shake, the

doctor’s homely faith.

Perhaps the Southern States was the only part of the world where the

practice of medicine has ever been looked upon as an honorable adjunct

to the possession of considerable landed estates and an aristocratic

name. As in England there were squire-parsons, so in Virginia there

were squire-doctors, men of considerable property (as things go

there) both in land and slaves, regularly practising in their own

neighborhood. The slaves that constituted the bulk of their wealth

have gone, but the lands and the practice remain--for those who still

survive and are able to sit upon a horse.

The doctor is one of these survivals--and may he long flourish! He had

only a moderate property--two farms--of which we shall speak anon. But

then he was a Patton; and as everybody south of the Potomac knows,

the Pattons are one of the first families in the State--none of your

modern and self-dubbed F. F. V.’s are they, but real old colonial

people, whose names are written on almost every page of their country’s

history. Besides this, Judge Patton, the doctor’s father, was one of

the greatest jurists south of Washington--”in the world,” Virginians

said; but as a compromise we will admit he was one of the first in

America, and quite distinguished enough to reflect a social halo over

his immediate descendants, supposing even they had not been Pattons.

The original Patton mansion was burnt down in 1840. Nothing was

left but the office in the yard, where in those days our friend the

doctor pursued his youthful medical investigations and entertained

his bachelor friends. The judge was a busy man, and much absent. He

was always “laying out to build him a new house;” but death “laid him

out” while the scheme was still in embryo. The doctor, who, as only

son, became proprietor, had his hands too full, what with negroes, and

farming, and physicking, and fox-hunting, to carry it out till the war

was upon him, and with its results put an end, as he thought at the

time, to everything which makes life sweet.

It must not, however, be supposed that the doctor and his father

had gone houseless or camped out since 1840. Not at all. From the

old brick office, whose isolation had saved it from that memorable

conflagration, there had grown--I use the word advisedly, as applicable

to Virginia architecture--there had grown a rambling structure,

whose design, rather than whose actual weight of years, gave it an

appearance venerable enough to command the respect and admiration of

summer tourists from New York and Philadelphia. It was not often such

apparitions passed that way, and when they did, it was generally in

pursuit of filthy lucre suppositiously concealed in the fields or

the forests. Nor are mining prospectors as a rule sentimental, but

sometimes they are in America. When such _rarae aves_ came by the

doctor’s front gate, they would almost always pull up and gaze through

it with that admiration and respect that Northerners are inclined to

pay to anything in their own country that recalls the past.

“Oh, isn’t that too quaint for anything!” the ladies who sometimes

accompanied them never failed to remark. “That’s a real old ramshackle

Virginia house, by thunder! and a pretty heavy old fossil inside it,

you bet!” said the more observant of the gentlemen.

The doctor would have gloried in such criticism had he heard it. He

hated Yankees; he hated your new-fangled houses; he hated railroads; he

hated towns; he hated breech-loading guns; sights and sounds and things

that he was not familiar with at five-and-twenty he would have none of

when he was between sixty and seventy.

The doctor’s house was unconventional, to be sure, while weather

and neglect of paint or whitewash had given it an air of antiquity

to which it had no real claim. It lay a hundred yards back from the

road, and appeared to consist of four or five small houses of varying

dimensions, and occupying relationships toward one another of a most

uncertain kind. Two of these leaned heavily together, like convivial

old gentlemen “seeing one another home.” The rest lay at respectful

distances from each other, connected only by open verandahs, through

which the summer breeze blew freshly, and lovingly fanned the annuals

that spread and twined themselves along the eaves. Almost every

style of Virginia rural architecture found places in this homely

conglomeration of edifices, which even “old man Jake,” the negro, who

has for twenty years looked after the doctor’s horses and stolen his

corn, described as “mighty shacklin’, and lookin’ like as if they’d bin

throwed down all in a muss.”

It was, however, a real old characteristic Virginia house of its kind.

There were squared chestnut logs, black with rain and sun, against

which the venetian shutters of the windows banged and thumped in gusty

spring days as against walls of adamant. These same logs were got out

of the woods and squared, the doctor would tell you, in days “when men

had plenty of time and plenty of force (_i. e._, slaves) to do those

things properly.” Then there were walls of pine weather-boarding,

erected at a period when, the same authority would inform you, “people

began to saw and season their lumber five or ten years before they

started to build.” There were roofs of wooden shingles slanting and

sloping in every direction--black, rotting, and moss-grown here, white

and garish there, where penetrating rains had forced the slow and

reluctant hand of repair. Dormer-windows glared out at you, patched

as to their shattered panes with local newspapers of remote date, and

speaking of stuffy attics behind, where hornets, yellow-jackets and

“mud-daubers” careered about in summer-time over the apple-strewn

floors. Then there was the old brick office--relic of a distant past;

of a period when the Virginia planters, though surrounded by the finest

clay, were so absorbed in tobacco that they sent to England for their

bricks. It is probable, however, that these particular bricks were

produced upon the spot. At any rate, their comparative antiquity and

presumably mellow tone have been ruthlessly effaced, for this is the

only part of the doctor’s mansion that he has selected for a coat of

whitewash. It is used for professional purposes, and is known by the

doctor’s patients as the “sujjery.” I know it is hopeless to try, by

a bald description of timber and bricks and mortar, to give any idea

of how the doctor’s rambling homestead appealed to the sense of the

picturesque, and to the affections of those of us who were familiar

with it and with its inmate. No doubt, however, the latter had

something to do with this. Nor should the surroundings be forgotten.

The stately oaks that towered high above the quaint low buildings, and

covered with leaves and dèbris the greater portion of that domestic

enclosure which in those parts was known as the yard. The straggling,

branching acacias that grew close to the house, and spread their tall

arms above the roof, littering it in autumn with showers of small,

curly leaves, and choking the wooden gutters (for the doctor considered

tin piping as a modern heresy) with fragmentary twigs. The fresh,

green turf that had matted and spread for one hundred and fifty years

around this house and the more stately one that preceded it. The aged

box-trees that had once, no doubt, in prim Dutch rows lined some

well-tended gravel path, but now cropped up here and there upon the

turf, like beings that had outlived their time and generation. The

clustering honeysuckles, bending their old and rickety frames to the

ground. The silver aspens before the door, whose light leaves shivered

above your head in the most breathless August days. The slender mimosa,

through whose beautiful and fragile greenery the first humming-birds of

early June shyly fluttered; and the long row of straw hives against the

rickety fence, where hereditary swarms of bees--let well alone--made

more honey than the doctor and all his neighbors could consume.

Yes! These objects are, and all and many more are, twined around my

heart, but the doctor’s front gate occupies no such position at all.

It was all very well for the people who stopped in the road and looked

through its bars at the fine old oaks, the green lawn beyond, and the

quaint, straggling structure, and then drove on their way. For those,

however, whose duty or pleasure compelled them to penetrate that

barrier, it was entirely another matter. It was a home-made gate--a

real “old Virginia” gate--put up at the close of the war as a protest,

it would almost seem, against Yankee notions of hurry. To look at the

tremendous portal, you would have supposed that the doctor was the

most defiant recluse, instead of the most hospitable of men. It was,

however, a typical Virginia gate strongly emphasized, just as the

doctor was a typical Virginia gentleman strongly emphasized. I couldn’t

speak accurately as to its dimensions, but I have often had to jump

for life as it fell, and from the way in which it hit the ground, I

should say that it must have weighed nearly a thousand pounds. Its

weight would have been of no importance whatever to anyone but the

doctor and the posts which supported it, had it been properly hung

with two hinges and a latch. No doubt it had commenced life with these

advantages; but during all the years I struggled with it, there was no

latch, and only a bottom hook-hinge. It was kept in its place by two

ponderous fence rails being leaned up against it. The most elementary

mathematician will at once arrive at the result which ensued on the

removal of these rails (a herculean task in itself) and the opening

of the gate, unless extraordinary skill was exercised. It was really

a performance beyond a single man; so most visitors, unless they were

“riding for the doctor”--in the most serious business sense--holloaed

for assistance, or rode about till some of the hands came up to the

rescue. It must not be supposed that the doctor’s establishment,

though strongly typical in a sense, resembled to any extent the real

old Virginia mansion. The Pattons, it will be remembered, had been

burnt out, and the present pile had been originally intended only as a

makeshift; but it was such a makeshift as would perhaps be seen nowhere

out of Virginia. Of the more substantial family mansions there were

plenty crowning the hills in the doctor’s neighborhood. Square blocks

of brick, some many-windowed and green-shuttered, with huge Grecian

porticoes supported by rows of white fluted pillars stretching along

their face. Great big wooden barns, others with acres of roof and

rows of dormer-windows, and crazy, crumbling porches, and stacks of

red brick chimneys clambering up outside the white walls at the gable

ends, or anywhere else where they came handy for that matter. There

were plenty of these within range of the doctor’s house and the limits

of his practice, and to the proprietor of every one the doctor was

related. The stages of this relationship varied from the unquestioned

affinity of cousins and nephews, to that which is described in Virginia

by the comprehensive and farreaching appellative of “kin.” To be kin of

the Pattons, moreover, was in itself a desirable thing in Virginian

eyes. Though the doctor lived in such an unpretentious residence, and

worked day in and day out as a country practitioner, there were people

in the neighborhood holding their heads pretty high, who were always

pleased to remember that their father’s first cousin had married the

doctor’s mother’s brother.