THE SICK MAN.
“HEART all right,” said the doctor. “Lungs all right. No organic
disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don’t alarm yourself. You
are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from
is--overwork. The remedy in your case is--rest.”
So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London); having been
sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk by
fainting at my desk. I have no wish to intrude myself needlessly on the
reader’s attention; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of
explanation, that I am a “junior” barrister in good practice. I come
from the channel Island of Jersey. The French spelling of my name
(Lefranc) was Anglicized generations since--in the days when the letter
“k” was still used in England at the end of words which now terminate
in “c.” We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is
to this day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member
of the English bar.
“Rest!” I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. “My good friend,
are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look at the
briefs waiting for me on that table! Rest means ruin in my case.”
“And work,” added the doctor, quietly, “means death.”
I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.
“It is merely a question of time,” he went on. “You have a fine
constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately overwork
your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer. Go away at
once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the
best of all air to build you up again. No: I don’t want to write a
prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say.”
With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obstinate: I
went into court the same day.
The senior counsel in the case on which I was engaged applied to me for
some information which it was my duty to give him. To my horror and
amazement, I was perfectly unable to collect my ideas; facts and dates
all mingled together confusedly in my mind. I was led out of court
thoroughly terrified about myself. The next day my briefs went back to
the attorneys; and I followed my doctor’s advice by taking my passage
for America in the first steamer that sailed for New York.
I had chosen the voyage to America in preference to any other trip by
sea, with a special object in view. A relative of my mother’s had
emigrated to the United States many years since, and had thriven there
as a farmer. He had given me a general invitation to visit him if I
ever crossed the Atlantic. The long period of inaction, under the name
of _rest_, to which the doctor’s decision had condemned me, could
hardly be more pleasantly occupied, as I thought, than by paying a
visit to my relation, and seeing what I could of America in that way.
After a brief sojourn at New York, I started by railway for the
residence of my host--Mr. Isaac Meadowcroft, of Morwick Farm.
There are some of the grandest natural prospects on the face of
creation in America. There is also to be found in certain States of the
Union, by way of wholesome contrast, scenery as flat, as monotonous,
and as uninteresting to the traveler, as any that the earth can show.
The part of the country in which M. Meadowcroft’s farm was situated
fell within this latter category. I looked round me when I stepped out
of the railway-carriage on the platform at Morwick Station; and I said
to myself, “If to be cured means, in my case, to be dull, I have
accurately picked out the very place for the purpose.”
I look back at those words by the light of later events; and I
pronounce them, as you will soon pronounce them, to be the words of an
essentially rash man, whose hasty judgment never stopped to consider
what surprises time and chance together might have in store for him.
Mr. Meadowcroft’s eldest son, Ambrose, was waiting at the station to
drive me to the farm.
There was no forewarning, in the appearance of Ambrose Meadowcroft, of
the strange and terrible events that were to follow my arrival at
Morwick. A healthy, handsome young fellow, one of thousands of other
healthy, handsome young fellows, said, “How d’ye do, Mr. Lefrank? Glad
to see you, sir. Jump into the buggy; the man will look after your
portmanteau.” With equally conventional politeness I answered, “Thank
you. How are you all at home?” So we started on the way to the farm.
Our conversation on the drive began with the subjects of agriculture
and breeding. I displayed my total ignorance of crops and cattle before
we had traveled ten yards on our journey. Ambrose Meadowcroft cast
about for another topic, and failed to find it. Upon this I cast about
on my side, and asked, at a venture, if I had chosen a convenient time
for my visit The young farmer’s stolid brown face instantly brightened.
I had evidently hit, hap-hazard, on an interesting subject.
“You couldn’t have chosen a better time,” he said. “Our house has never
been so cheerful as it is now.”
“Have you any visitors staying with you?”
“It’s not exactly a visitor. It’s a new member of the family who has
come to live with us.”
“A new member of the family! May I ask who it is?”
Ambrose Meadowcroft considered before he replied; touched his horse
with the whip; looked at me with a certain sheepish hesitation; and
suddenly burst out with the truth, in the plainest possible words:
“It’s just the nicest girl, sir, you ever saw in your life.”
“Ay, ay! A friend of your sister’s, I suppose?”
“A friend? Bless your heart! it’s our little American cousin, Naomi
Colebrook.”
I vaguely remembered that a younger sister of Mr. Meadowcroft’s had
married an American merchant in the remote past, and had died many
years since, leaving an only child. I was now further informed that the
father also was dead. In his last moments he had committed his helpless
daughter to the compassionate care of his wife’s relations at Morwick.
“He was always a speculating man,” Ambrose went on. “Tried one thing
after another, and failed in all. Died, sir, leaving barely enough to
bury him. My father was a little doubtful, before she came here, how
his American niece would turn out. We are English, you know; and,
though we do live in the United States, we stick fast to our English
ways and habits. We don’t much like American women in general, I can
tell you; but when Naomi made her appearance she conquered us all. Such
a girl! Took her place as one of the family directly. Learned to make
herself useful in the dairy in a week’s time. I tell you this--she
hasn’t been with us quite two months yet, and we wonder already how we
ever got on without her!”
Once started on the subject of Naomi Colebrook, Ambrose held to that
one topic and talked on it without intermission. It required no great
gift of penetration to discover the impression which the American
cousin had produced in this case. The young fellow’s enthusiasm
communicated itself, in a certain tepid degree, to me. I really felt a
mild flutter of anticipation at the prospect of seeing Naomi, when we
drew up, toward the close of evening, at the gates of Morwick Farm.