"LITTLE SHORT OF MIRACULOUS."
Yes, as Mrs. Budd had told Miss Baynard, there was a decided change
for the better in Mr. Cortelyon's condition, but by what means the
change in question had been brought about was known to three people
only--the sick man, his nurse, and the latter's son.
Cornelius Dinkel had gone to Stanbrook in obedience to his mother's
midnight summons, taking with him a small quantity of his remedy, and
had spent an hour with the Squire, unknown to any of the household.
He was a tall, sallow, dried-up man, who looked as if all the juices
of his body had been sucked out of him by the heat of a tropical
climate. He was thirty years old, but might well have been taken for a
man of forty-five. Nobody would have ventured to call him handsome,
but his expression was one of marked intelligence, in combination with
considerable will-power and great tenacity of purpose.
"Mr. Cortelyon, my son," said Mrs. Dinkel, as she introduced the young
doctor into the sick room.
Dinkel bowed gravely. The Squire blinked his eyes; he would have
nodded, but had not strength to do so.
Then he said, speaking in a thin whisper, broken by frequent gaspings
for breath: "Your mother informs me that you have brought some
wonderful discovery back home with you, and she would fain cozen me
into the belief that by means of it you can succeed in prolonging the
life of a moribund like me. I tell you at once that I don't believe in
your ability to do anything of the kind. No, damme! I'm too far gone
for any hanky-panky of that sort, and both Banks and Mills would
simply dub you a quack for your pains."
Dinkel's face remained impassive. "Permit me, Mr. Cortelyon," he said,
and with that he proceeded to submit the other to a brief but
searching examination. Till it had come to an end no one spoke. Then
taking up a position on the hearth with his back to the fire, and
speaking in the tone of one who felt himself master of the situation,
he broke the silence:
"Your case, Mr. Cortelyon, I find to be exactly such as my mother
described it to me. That I can permanently cure you I at once admit to
be an impossibility. You are too advanced in life, and your
constitution is too nearly worn out, to warrant any such hope. But
that I can succeed in prolonging your life for weeks, nay, it may well
be for several months to come, I make no manner of doubt--such is the
marvellous efficacy of the remedy I have brought back with me from
abroad."
This, to a man who had every reason for believing that a few more
hours would bring the end, was news indeed. Weeks--perhaps months--of
life, when he had looked forward to being buried about a week hence!
It was too marvellous to credit.
For a little while he was too overcome to speak. Then he murmured, and
Dinkel had to bend over him in order to catch what he said: "I--I
cannot believe it--I cannot!"
"Nevertheless, Mr. Cortelyon, I am not dealing in romance--heaven
forbid that I should in such a case!--but in sober fact. There is a
homely proverb which affirms that the proof of the pudding is in the
eating. I have brought with me a small quantity of my remedy. Will you
permit me to administer a dose of it to you?"
Again there was a space of silence. The sick man's gaze was bent on
the young doctor as if he would fain read him through and through,
while his grizzled eyebrows made a straight line across his forehead,
he liked the look of him; there was something in that strong, earnest,
plain face which inspired confidence. Compared with him, Dr. Banks
looked like an amiable old woman.
"First of all, I should like to know what this so-called wonder-worker
of yours is compounded of," he murmured, after a time.
Dinkel shrugged his shoulders. "Its chief constituent is the dried and
powdered bark of the tatao tree--a tree indigenous to the island of
Java. The other ingredients consist of sundry drugs in certain fixed
proportions, the secret of which I am not at present prepared to
divulge."
"Quite right--quite right. Very sensible on your part. You don't want
to poison me, I suppose--hey?"
The ghost of a smile flitted across Dinkel's rugged face. "What should
I gain by that, sir? Only the hangman's noose. I think you ought to
credit me with a desire for lengthening your days, not for shortening
them."
"It would puzzle you to make 'em much shorter than they seem likely to
be," gasped the Squire, with a painful imitation of one of his old
chuckles. "Well, well," he resumed, "I'll venture on a dose of this
stuff of yours, not because I've any faith in it, mind you, but merely
to take the cock-a-doodle out of you, and prove to you that you're not
the wonderfully clever fellow you're inclined to crack yourself up as
being."
Not for days had the Squire spoken so much in so short a time, and as
the last words died from off his lips his eyes closed and he sank into
a half swoon.
He could not have been in more competent hands, and before long he was
brought back to consciousness. His first words, in a feeble whisper,
were: "Give me the stuff; I'll take it."
From his waistcoat pocket Dinkel extracted a tiny phial, no bigger
than his little finger, about three-parts full of a ruby-colored
fluid, which he proceeded to empty into a dessert spoon.
"You won't find it at all disagreeable," he said, as he proffered the
spoon and its contents to the Squire.
"It tastes not unlike the liquorice-root I used to be fond of when a
lad," murmured the latter half a minute later, and with that his eyes
closed again.
Dinkel held up his hand, and for a little space neither he nor his
mother stirred. Then said the young doctor, "He is asleep, and if all
goes well, as I have every reason to think it will, he won't awake for
five or six hours. I will go now, and return between six and seven
o'clock."
As already stated, Dr. Banks, when he called as usual in the course of
next forenoon, was considerably surprised at finding such a decided
improvement in his patient's condition, when, according to all the
rules and regulations of medical science, he ought to have been
nearly, if not quite, in a state of collapse. "It's merely a flash in
the pan--the sudden flare-up of a candle before it drops into
darkness," he said to himself. "He's a wonderful old fellow, and I've
evidently underrated the strength of his constitution."
But next day, and the day after that, a still further improvement
unmistakably manifested itself. Dr. Banks rubbed his nose with his
forefinger and was clearly nonplussed. On the fourth morning he was
joined by Dr. Mills, who had been expecting from hour to hour to have
tidings of the Squire's demise. He and Banks did not fail to discuss
the case as they drove over to Stanbrook in the latter's gig, but
neither of them could make head or tail of it, and certainly it was
difficult for them to believe the evidence of their eyes when, on
entering their patient's room, they found him seated in his
easy-chair, propped up by cushions, and not only that, but dictating a
letter in a firm voice to his secretary, Andry Luce.
He favored them with a curt nod, but did not otherwise notice them
till he had brought his dictation to an end. Then turning with a
sardonic smile, he said: "Good-morrow, gentlemen. Very pleased to see
you, especially you, Mills. You find an unlooked-for change in me
since you were here last week--hey? It's all your friend Jimmy Banks's
doing. From the hour he changed my physic, now four or five days
since, I began to mend. Why he didn't change it before, instead of
letting me get down to death's door first, the Lord only knows. But
Jimmy always was a wag. Don't shake your pow in that way, sir; you
know I'm speaking the truth. What grand weather for the crops we are
having just now! I'm told that both my corn and my taties are coming
on famously; but I hope to drive round in a day or two and see them
for myself."
There was nothing to be done and very little to be said, and the two
doctors cut their visit as short as possible.
Said Mills to the other after they had left the room: "What was the
change of medicine he spoke of? What fresh treatment have you been
subjecting him to?"
"To none at all, I give you my word. I am sending him the same mixture
now that I was sending him three weeks ago--the one that you and I
agreed upon. No single ingredient has been changed. In saying what he
did he was only poking fun at us in his cynical way."
"Possibly at you, Banks, but certainly not at me," rejoined the other
in his pompous way. "In any case, he's a very remarkable old man, and
although I could not quite follow you in thinking that his vitality
was at such a low ebb as you seemed to make out, I certainly did not
credit him with the possession of the marvellous recuperative powers
to which our eyes have just borne testimony."
"Humph! You seem to be blessed with a very short memory, Mills. Your
own words on the occasion of your last visit were, 'I give him three
days at the outside,' and that's just a week ago."
"Well, well; we are all liable to err, of course. Still, I'm afraid
that I allowed my judgment to be in some measure led astray by your
diagnosis. I ought to have subjected him to a more comprehensive
examination than seemed to be necessary at the time. For all that, I
cannot deny that his case is one of the most remarkable which has come
under my notice. In short, I should hardly be going too far if I were
to term his recovery, however temporary it may be, little short of
miraculous."
Dr. Banks grunted. He was too indignant to reply in words. Only to
himself he said, "I always set you down in my own mind as a humbug,
and now I'm more convinced of it than ever."
As the reader will have rightly surmised, the marvellous change in
Squire Cortelyon was wholly and solely due to the drug administered to
him by Cornelius Dinkel. Already, as we have seen, he was able to sit
up--although only for a short hour at first--and transact business;
and each day brought its own small addition of strength and vital
power. Soon he was able to go out on fine days for a drive, and a
little later he even got so far as, with the help of Andry Luce's arm,
to take short strolls about the grounds.
But this eminently satisfactory state of things could only be
maintained on one condition: it was absolutely essential that a
certain regulated dose of the wonderful drug should be administered to
the patient daily. For the purpose of carrying out this arrangement
Dinkel made a point of coming to the Hall every evening after dark,
bringing the day's dose with him in a phial. He simply waited long
enough to see the Squire swallow it, and then went his way.
Mrs. Dinkel remained at Stanbrook, nor, although he was so much
better, would her patient listen to a word about her departure.
Perhaps it seemed to him that so long as he could succeed in retaining
her services he would have a firmer hold on those of her son. Besides,
his man Tatham was not yet able to resume his duties.
So interested was young Dinkel in the case of Mr. Cortelyon that for
the present he made up his mind to stay where he was. As his mother
had told the Squire, the object of his life now was to take his
discovery to London, and build up a fortune on the strength of it. But
he was gifted with the patience, slow but sure, of his father's race,
and was content to wait.
By this time it had got rumored about the country-side that the
Squire's amazing recovery was due to Dinkel, or rather, to the effect
of some magic compound he had brought with him from abroad. Further,
it was commonly reported that so long as Dinkel continued to practise
his arts on the old man, the latter would not, or could not, die.
Among others, the whisper went that the Squire had sold himself, body
and soul, to the young doctor on condition of his life being prolonged
till he was a hundred.
These rumors were not lessened by Dinkel's mode of life. He had fitted
up an old shed at the back of his mother's cottage, and there he
conducted his experiments. Strange-colored flames would often be seen
issuing from its chimney after dark, and one or two bolder spirits,
who had ventured to pry upon him, averred that they had seen him
warming his hands at a big glass jar which gave off blue sparks when
he touched it. Evidently he was a man to be both shunned and feared.
But the love of life burns strongly in us. Not merely are we desirous
of prolonging our own existence, but the lives of those dear to us,
and among the villagers were three mothers who, their children having
been given up by the local doctor, went to Cornelius Dinkel as a last
resource, and prayed him with tears in their eyes to try to save their
little ones. He did try, and in two cases out of the three he
succeeded.
Still, the country people, with their ingrained superstitious
prejudices, fought shy of him, and regarded him with a suspicion that
was largely mixed with dislike. "He's a man-witch, that's what he is,"
they muttered among themselves. If he could prolong "th' owd Squire's"
life, why couldn't he save Molly Grigg's child?--and why didn't he
try his hand on old Tommy Binns, who was only eighty-seven when he
died?