Sir Roger Scatcherd
Enough has been said in this narrative to explain to the reader that
Roger Scatcherd, who was whilom a drunken stone-mason in Barchester,
and who had been so prompt to avenge the injury done to his sister,
had become a great man in the world. He had become a contractor,
first for little things, such as half a mile or so of a railway
embankment, or three or four canal bridges, and then a contractor for
great things, such as Government hospitals, locks, docks, and quays,
and had latterly had in his hands the making of whole lines of
railway.
He had been occasionally in partnership with one man for one thing,
and then with another for another; but had, on the whole, kept his
interests to himself, and now at the time of our story, he was a very
rich man.
And he had acquired more than wealth. There had been a time when the
Government wanted the immediate performance of some extraordinary
piece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it. There
had been some extremely necessary bit of a railway to be made in half
the time that such work would properly demand, some speculation to
be incurred requiring great means and courage as well, and Roger
Scatcherd had been found to be the man for the time. He was then
elevated for the moment to the dizzy pinnacle of a newspaper hero,
and became one of those "whom the king delighteth to honour." He went
up one day to kiss Her Majesty's hand, and come down to his new grand
house at Boxall Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.
"And now, my lady," said he, when he explained to his wife the high
state to which she had been called by his exertions and the Queen's
prerogative, "let's have a bit of dinner, and a drop of som'at hot."
Now the drop of som'at hot signified a dose of alcohol sufficient to
send three ordinary men very drunk to bed.
While conquering the world Roger Scatcherd had not conquered his old
bad habits. Indeed, he was the same man at all points that he had
been when formerly seen about the streets of Barchester with his
stone-mason's apron tucked up round his waist. The apron he had
abandoned, but not the heavy prominent thoughtful brow, with the
wildly flashing eye beneath it. He was still the same good companion,
and still also the same hard-working hero. In this only had he
changed, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whether
he were drunk or sober. Those who were mostly inclined to make a
miracle of him--and there was a school of worshippers ready to adore
him as their idea of a divine, superhuman, miracle-moving, inspired
prophet--declared that his wondrous work was best done, his
calculations most quickly and most truly made, that he saw with most
accurate eye into the far-distant balance of profit and loss, when
he was under the influence of the rosy god. To these worshippers his
breakings-out, as his periods of intemperance were called in his own
set, were his moments of peculiar inspiration--his divine frenzies,
in which he communicated most closely with those deities who preside
over trade transactions; his Eleusinian mysteries, to approach him in
which was permitted only to a few of the most favoured.
"Scatcherd has been drunk this week past," they would say one to
another, when the moment came at which it was to be decided whose
offer should be accepted for constructing a harbour to hold all the
commerce of Lancashire, or to make a railway from Bombay to Canton.
"Scatcherd has been drunk this week past; I am told that he has taken
over three gallons of brandy." And then they felt sure that none but
Scatcherd would be called upon to construct the dock or make the
railway.
But be this as it may, be it true or false that Sir Roger was most
efficacious when in his cups, there can be no doubt that he could not
wallow for a week in brandy, six or seven times every year, without
in a great measure injuring, and permanently injuring, the outward
man. Whatever immediate effect such symposiums might have on the
inner mind--symposiums indeed they were not; posiums I will call
them, if I may be allowed; for in latter life, when he drank heavily,
he drank alone--however little for evil, or however much for good the
working of his brain might be affected, his body suffered greatly. It
was not that he became feeble or emaciated, old-looking or inactive,
that his hand shook, or that his eye was watery; but that in the
moments of his intemperance his life was often not worth a day's
purchase. The frame which God had given to him was powerful beyond
the power of ordinary men; powerful to act in spite of these violent
perturbations; powerful to repress and conquer the qualms and
headaches and inward sicknesses to which the votaries of Bacchus are
ordinarily subject; but this power was not without its limit. If
encroached on too far, it would break and fall and come asunder, and
then the strong man would at once become a corpse.
Scatcherd had but one friend in the world. And, indeed, this friend
was no friend in the ordinary acceptance of the word. He neither ate
with him nor drank with him, nor even frequently talked with him.
Their pursuits in life were wide asunder. Their tastes were all
different. The society in which each moved very seldom came together.
Scatcherd had nothing in unison with this solitary friend; but he
trusted him, and he trusted no other living creature on God's earth.
He trusted this man; but even him he did not trust thoroughly; not at
least as one friend should trust another. He believed that this man
would not rob him; would probably not lie to him; would not endeavour
to make money of him; would not count him up or speculate on him, and
make out a balance of profit and loss; and, therefore, he determined
to use him. But he put no trust whatever in his friend's counsel, in
his modes of thought; none in his theory, and none in his practice.
He disliked his friend's counsel, and, in fact, disliked his
society, for his friend was somewhat apt to speak to him in a manner
approaching to severity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many things
in the world, and made much money; whereas his friend had done but
few things, and made no money. It was not to be endured that the
practical, efficient man should be taken to task by the man who
proved himself to be neither practical nor efficient; not to be
endured, certainly, by Roger Scatcherd, who looked on men of his own
class as the men of the day, and on himself as by no means the least
among them.
The friend was our friend Dr Thorne.
The doctor's first acquaintance with Scatcherd has been already
explained. He was necessarily thrown into communication with the man
at the time of the trial, and Scatcherd then had not only sufficient
sense, but sufficient feeling also to know that the doctor behaved
very well. This communication had in different ways been kept up
between them. Soon after the trial Scatcherd had begun to rise, and
his first savings had been entrusted to the doctor's care. This had
been the beginning of a pecuniary connexion which had never wholly
ceased, and which had led to the purchase of Boxall Hill, and to the
loan of large sums of money to the squire.
In another way also there had been a close alliance between them, and
one not always of a very pleasant description. The doctor was, and
long had been, Sir Roger's medical attendant, and, in his unceasing
attempts to rescue the drunkard from the fate which was so much to
be dreaded, he not unfrequently was driven into a quarrel with his
patient.
One thing further must be told of Sir Roger. In politics he was as
violent a Radical as ever, and was very anxious to obtain a position
in which he could bring his violence to bear. With this view he was
about to contest his native borough of Barchester, in the hope of
being returned in opposition to the de Courcy candidate; and with
this object he had now come down to Boxall Hill.
Nor were his claims to sit for Barchester such as could be despised.
If money were to be of avail, he had plenty of it, and was prepared
to spend it; whereas, rumour said that Mr Moffat was equally
determined to do nothing so foolish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sort
of rough eloquence, and was able to address the men of Barchester in
language that would come home to their hearts, in words that would
endear him to one party while they made him offensively odious to the
other; but Mr Moffat could make neither friends nor enemies by his
eloquence. The Barchester roughs called him a dumb dog that could not
bark, and sometimes sarcastically added that neither could he bite.
The de Courcy interest, however, was at his back, and he had also the
advantage of possession. Sir Roger, therefore, knew that the battle
was not to be won without a struggle.
Dr Thorne got safely back from Silverbridge that evening, and found
Mary waiting to give him his tea. He had been called there to a
consultation with Dr Century, that amiable old gentleman having so
far fallen away from the high Fillgrave tenets as to consent to the
occasional endurance of such degradation.
The next morning he breakfasted early, and, having mounted his strong
iron-grey cob, started for Boxall Hill. Not only had he there to
negotiate the squire's further loan, but also to exercise his medical
skill. Sir Roger having been declared contractor for cutting a canal
from sea to sea, through the Isthmus of Panama, had been making a
week of it; and the result was that Lady Scatcherd had written rather
peremptorily to her husband's medical friend.
The doctor consequently trotted off to Boxall Hill on his iron-grey
cob. Among his other merits was that of being a good horseman, and
he did much of his work on horseback. The fact that he occasionally
took a day with the East Barsetshires, and that when he did so he
thoroughly enjoyed it, had probably not failed to add something to
the strength of the squire's friendship.
"Well, my lady, how is he? Not much the matter, I hope?" said the
doctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill in
a small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The show-rooms
of Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were set
apart for company; and as the company never came--seeing that they
were never invited--the grand rooms and the grand furniture were not
of much material use to Lady Scatcherd.
"Indeed then, doctor, he's just bad enough," said her ladyship, not
in a very happy tone of voice; "just bad enough. There's been some'at
at the back of his head, rapping, and rapping, and rapping; and if
you don't do something, I'm thinking it will rap him too hard yet."
"Is he in bed?"
"Why, yes, he is in bed; for when he was first took he couldn't very
well help hisself, so we put him to bed. And then, he don't seem to
be quite right yet about the legs, so he hasn't got up; but he's got
that Winterbones with him to write for him, and when Winterbones is
there, Scatcherd might as well be up for any good that bed'll do
him."
Mr Winterbones was confidential clerk to Sir Roger. That is to say,
he was a writing-machine of which Sir Roger made use to do certain
work which could not well be adjusted without some contrivance. He
was a little, withered, dissipated, broken-down man, whom gin and
poverty had nearly burnt to a cinder, and dried to an ash. Mind he
had none left, nor care for earthly things, except the smallest
modicum of substantial food, and the largest allowance of liquid
sustenance. All that he had ever known he had forgotten, except how
to count up figures and to write: the results of his counting and his
writing never stayed with him from one hour to another; nay, not from
one folio to another. Let him, however, be adequately screwed up with
gin, and adequately screwed down by the presence of his master, and
then no amount of counting and writing would be too much for him.
This was Mr Winterbones, confidential clerk to the great Sir Roger
Scatcherd.
"We must send Winterbones away, I take it," said the doctor.
"Indeed, doctor, I wish you would. I wish you'd send him to Bath, or
anywhere else out of the way. There is Scatcherd, he takes brandy;
and there is Winterbones, he takes gin; and it'd puzzle a woman to
say which is worst, master or man."
It will seem from this, that Lady Scatcherd and the doctor were on
very familiar terms as regarded her little domestic inconveniences.
"Tell Sir Roger I am here, will you?" said the doctor.
"You'll take a drop of sherry before you go up?" said the lady.
"Not a drop, thank you," said the doctor.
"Or, perhaps, a little cordial?"
"Not a drop of anything, thank you; I never do, you know."
"Just a thimbleful of this?" said the lady, producing from some
recess under a sideboard a bottle of brandy; "just a thimbleful? It's
what he takes himself."
When Lady Scatcherd found that even this argument failed, she led the
way to the great man's bedroom.
"Well, doctor! well, doctor! well, doctor!" was the greeting with
which our son of Galen was saluted some time before he entered the
sick-room. His approaching step was heard, and thus the ci-devant
Barchester stone-mason saluted his coming friend. The voice was loud
and powerful, but not clear and sonorous. What voice that is nurtured
on brandy can ever be clear? It had about it a peculiar huskiness, a
dissipated guttural tone, which Thorne immediately recognised, and
recognised as being more marked, more guttural, and more husky than
heretofore.
"So you've smelt me out, have you, and come for your fee? Ha! ha!
ha! Well, I have had a sharpish bout of it, as her ladyship there
no doubt has told you. Let her alone to make the worst of it. But,
you see, you're too late, man. I've bilked the old gentleman again
without troubling you."
"Anyway, I'm glad you're something better, Scatcherd."
"Something! I don't know what you call something. I never was better
in my life. Ask Winterbones there."
"Indeed, now, Scatcherd, you ain't; you're bad enough if you only
knew it. And as for Winterbones, he has no business here up in your
bedroom, which stinks of gin so, it does. Don't you believe him,
doctor; he ain't well, nor yet nigh well."
Winterbones, when the above ill-natured allusion was made to
the aroma coming from his libations, might be seen to deposit
surreptitiously beneath the little table at which he sat, the cup
with which he had performed them.
The doctor, in the meantime, had taken Sir Roger's hand on the
pretext of feeling his pulse, but was drawing quite as much
information from the touch of the sick man's skin, and the look of
the sick man's eye.
"I think Mr Winterbones had better go back to the London office,"
said he. "Lady Scatcherd will be your best clerk for some time, Sir
Roger."
"Then I'll be d---- if Mr Winterbones does anything of the kind,"
said he; "so there's an end of that."
"Very well," said the doctor. "A man can die but once. It is my duty
to suggest measures for putting off the ceremony as long as possible.
Perhaps, however, you may wish to hasten it."
"Well, I am not very anxious about it, one way or the other," said
Scatcherd. And as he spoke there came a fierce gleam from his eye,
which seemed to say--"If that's the bugbear with which you wish to
frighten me, you will find that you are mistaken."
"Now, doctor, don't let him talk that way, don't," said Lady
Scatcherd, with her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Now, my lady, do you cut it; cut at once," said Sir Roger, turning
hastily round to his better-half; and his better-half, knowing that
the province of a woman is to obey, did cut it. But as she went she
gave the doctor a pull by the coat's sleeve, so that thereby his
healing faculties might be sharpened to the very utmost.
"The best woman in the world, doctor; the very best," said he, as the
door closed behind the wife of his bosom.
"I'm sure of it," said the doctor.
"Yes, till you find a better one," said Scatcherd. "Ha! ha! ha! but
good or bad, there are some things which a woman can't understand,
and some things which she ought not to be let to understand."
"It's natural she should be anxious about your health, you know."
"I don't know that," said the contractor. "She'll be very well off.
All that whining won't keep a man alive, at any rate."
There was a pause, during which the doctor continued his medical
examination. To this the patient submitted with a bad grace; but
still he did submit.
"We must turn over a new leaf, Sir Roger; indeed we must."
"Bother," said Sir Roger.
"Well, Scatcherd; I must do my duty to you, whether you like it or
not."
"That is to say, I am to pay you for trying to frighten me."
"No human nature can stand such shocks as these much longer."
"Winterbones," said the contractor, turning to his clerk, "go down,
go down, I say; but don't be out of the way. If you go to the
public-house, by G----, you may stay there for me. When I take a
drop,--that is if I ever do, it does not stand in the way of work."
So Mr Winterbones, picking up his cup again, and concealing it in
some way beneath his coat flap, retreated out of the room, and the
two friends were alone.
"Scatcherd," said the doctor, "you have been as near your God, as any
man ever was who afterwards ate and drank in this world."
"Have I, now?" said the railway hero, apparently somewhat startled.
"Indeed you have; indeed you have."
"And now I'm all right again?"
"All right! How can you be all right, when you know that your limbs
refuse to carry you? All right! why the blood is still beating round
your brain with a violence that would destroy any other brain but
yours."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Scatcherd. He was very proud of thinking
himself to be differently organised from other men. "Ha! ha! ha!
Well, and what am I to do now?"
The whole of the doctor's prescription we will not give at length.
To some of his ordinances Sir Roger promised obedience; to others he
objected violently, and to one or two he flatly refused to listen.
The great stumbling-block was this, that total abstinence from
business for two weeks was enjoined; and that it was impossible, so
Sir Roger said, that he should abstain for two days.
"If you work," said the doctor, "in your present state, you will
certainly have recourse to the stimulus of drink; and if you drink,
most assuredly you will die."
"Stimulus! Why do you think I can't work without Dutch courage?"
"Scatcherd, I know that there is brandy in the room at this moment,
and that you have been taking it within these two hours."
"You smell that fellow's gin," said Scatcherd.
"I feel the alcohol working within your veins," said the doctor, who
still had his hand on his patient's arm.
Sir Roger turned himself roughly in the bed so as to get away from
his Mentor, and then he began to threaten in his turn.
"I'll tell you what it is, doctor; I've made up my mind, and I'll do
it. I'll send for Fillgrave."
"Very well," said he of Greshamsbury, "send for Fillgrave. Your case
is one in which even he can hardly go wrong."
"You think you can hector me, and do as you like because you had me
under your thumb in other days. You're a very good fellow, Thorne,
but I ain't sure that you are the best doctor in all England."
"You may be sure I am not; you may take me for the worst if you will.
But while I am here as your medical adviser, I can only tell you the
truth to the best of my thinking. Now the truth is this, that another
bout of drinking will in all probability kill you; and any recourse
to stimulus in your present condition may do so."
"I'll send for Fillgrave--"
"Well, send for Fillgrave, only do it at once. Believe me at any
rate in this, that whatever you do, you should do at once. Oblige
me in this; let Lady Scatcherd take away that brandy bottle till Dr
Fillgrave comes."
"I'm d---- if I do. Do you think I can't have a bottle of brandy in
my room without swigging?"
"I think you'll be less likely to swig it if you can't get at it."
Sir Roger made another angry turn in his bed as well as his
half-paralysed limbs would let him; and then, after a few moments'
peace, renewed his threats with increased violence.
"Yes; I'll have Fillgrave over here. If a man be ill, really ill,
he should have the best advice he can get. I'll have Fillgrave, and
I'll have that other fellow from Silverbridge to meet him. What's his
name?--Century."
The doctor turned his head away; for though the occasion was serious,
he could not help smiling at the malicious vengeance with which his
friend proposed to gratify himself.
"I will; and Rerechild too. What's the expense? I suppose five or six
pound apiece will do it; eh, Thorne?"
"Oh, yes; that will be liberal I should say. But, Sir Roger, will you
allow me to suggest what you ought to do? I don't know how far you
may be joking--"
"Joking!" shouted the baronet; "you tell a man he's dying and joking
in the same breath. You'll find I'm not joking."
"Well I dare say not. But if you have not full confidence in me--"
"I have no confidence in you at all."
"Then why not send to London? Expense is no object to you."
"It is an object; a great object."
"Nonsense! Send to London for Sir Omicron Pie: send for some man whom
you will really trust when you see him.
"There's not one of the lot I'd trust as soon as Fillgrave. I've
known Fillgrave all my life, and I trust him. I'll send for Fillgrave
and put my case in his hands. If any one can do anything for me,
Fillgrave is the man."
"Then in God's name send for Fillgrave," said the doctor. "And now,
good-bye, Scatcherd; and as you do send for him, give him a fair
chance. Do not destroy yourself by more brandy before he comes."
"That's my affair, and his; not yours," said the patient.
"So be it; give me your hand, at any rate, before I go. I wish you
well through it, and when you are well, I'll come and see you."
"Good-bye--good-bye; and look here, Thorne, you'll be talking to Lady
Scatcherd downstairs I know; now, no nonsense. You understand me, eh?
no nonsense, you know."