Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (page 3)

Parliament.’

‘Indeed I will, doctor,’ said Frank. ‘I will excuse a longer lecture than that from you.’

‘At any rate it won’t be to-night,’ said the doctor, as he disappeared. ‘And if you see Mary, tell her that I am obliged to go; and that I will send Janet down to fetch her.’

Now Janet was the doctor’s ancient maid-servant.

Mary could not move on, without being perceived; she therefore stood still till she heard the click of the door, and then began walking rapidly back to the house by the path which had brought her thither. The moment, however, that she did so, she found that she was followed; and in a very few moments Frank was alongside of her.

‘Oh, Mary!’ said he, calling to her, but not loudly, before he quite overtook her, ‘how odd that I should come across you just when I have a message for you! and why are you all alone?’

Mary’s first impulse was to reiterate her command to him to call her no more by her Christian name; but her second impulse told her that such an injunction at the present moment would not be prudent on her part. The traces of her tears were still there; and she well knew that a very little, the slightest show of tenderness on his part, the slightest effort on her own to appear indifferent, would bring down more than one other such intruder. It would, moreover, be better for her to drop all outward sign that she remembered what had taken place. So long, then, as he and she were at Greshamsbury together, he should call her Mary if he pleased. He would soon be gone; and while he remained, she would keep out of his way.

‘Your uncle has been obliged to go away to see an old woman at Silverbridge.’

‘At Silverbridge! why, he won’t be back all night. Why could not the old woman send for Dr Century?’

‘I suppose she thought two old women could not get on well together.’

Mary could not help smiling. She did not like her uncle going off so late on such a journey; but it was always felt a triumph when he was invited into the strongholds of the enemies.

‘And Janet is to come over for you. However, I told him it was quite unnecessary to disturb another old woman, for that I should see you home.’

‘Oh, no, Mr Gresham; indeed you’ll not do that.’

‘Indeed, and indeed, I shall.’

‘What! on this great day, when every lady is looking for you, and talking of you. I suppose you want to set the countess against me for ever. Think, too, how angry Lady Arabella will be if you are absent on such and errand as this.’

‘To hear you talk, Mary, one would think that you were going to Silverbridge yourself.’

‘Perhaps I am.’

‘If I did not go with you, some of the other fellows would. John, or George–‘

‘Good gracious, Frank! Fancy either of the Mr De Courcys walking home with me!’

She had forgotten herself, and the strict propriety on which she had resolved, in the impossibility of forgoing her little joke against the De Courcy grandeur; she had forgotten herself, and had called him Frank in her old, former, eager, free tone of voice; and then, remembering she had done so, she drew herself up, but her lips, and determined to be doubly on her guard in the future.

‘Well, it shall be either one of them, or I,’ said Frank: ‘perhaps you would prefer my cousin George to me?’

‘I should prefer Janet to either, seeing that with her I should not suffer the extreme nuisance of knowing that I was a bore.’

‘A bore! Mary, to me?’

‘Yes, Mr Gresham, a bore to you. Having to walk home through the mud with village young ladies is boring. All gentlemen feel it so.’

‘There is no mud; if there were you would not be allowed to walk at all.’

‘Oh! village young ladies never care for such things, though fashionable gentlemen do.’

‘I would carry you home, Mary, if it would do you a service,’ said Frank, with considerable pathos in his voice.

‘Oh, dear me! pray do not, Mr Gresham. I should not like it at all,’ said she: ‘a wheelbarrow would be preferable to that.’

‘Of course. Anything would be preferable to my arm, I know.’

‘Certainly; anything in the way of a conveyance. If I were to act baby; and you were to act nurse, it really would not be comfortable for either of us.’

Frank Gresham felt disconcerted, though he hardly knew why. He was striving to say something tender to his lady-love; but every word that he spoke she turned into joke. Mary did not answer him coldly or unkindly; but, nevertheless, he was displeased. One does not like to have one’s little offerings of sentimental service turned into burlesque when one is in love in earnest. Mary’s jokes had appeared so easy too; they seemed to come from a heart so little troubled. This, also, was cause of vexation to Frank. If he could but have known it all, he would, perhaps, have been better pleased.

He determined not to be absolutely laughed out of his tenderness. When, three days ago, he had been repulsed, he had gone away owning to himself that he had been beaten; owning so much, but owning it with great sorrow and much shame. Since that he had come of age; since that he had made speeches, and speeches had been made to him; since that he had gained courage by flirting with Patience Oriel. No faint heart ever won a fair lady, as he was well aware; he resolved, therefore, that his heart should not be faint, and that he would see whether the fair lady might not be won by becoming audacity.

‘Mary,’ said he, stopping in the path–for they were now near the spot where it broke out upon the lawn, and they could already hear the voices of the guests–‘Mary, you are unkind to me.’

‘I am not aware of it, Mr Gresham; but if I am, do not you retaliate. I am weaker than you, and in your power; do not you, therefore, be unkind to me.’

‘You refused my hand just now,’ continued he. ‘Of all the people here at Greshamsbury, you are the only one that has not wished me joy; the only one–‘

‘I do wish you joy; I will wish you joy: there is my hand,’ and she frankly put out her ungloved hand. ‘You are quite man enough to understand me: there is my hand; I trust you use it only as it is meant to be used.’

He took it in his hand and pressed it cordially, as he might have done that of any other friend in such a case; and then–did not drop it as he should have done. He was not a St Anthony, and it was most imprudent in Miss Thorne to subject him to such a temptation.

‘Mary,’ said he; ‘dear Mary! dearest Mary! if you did but know how I love you!’

As he said this, holding Miss Thorne’s hand he stood on the pathway with his back towards the lawn and house, and, therefore, did not at first see his sister Augusta, who had just at that moment come upon them. Mary blushed up to her straw hat, and, with a quick jerk, recovered her hand. Augusta saw the motion, and Mary saw that Augusta had seen it.

From my tedious way of telling it, the reader will be led to imagine that the hand-squeezing had been protracted to a duration quite incompatible with any objection to such an arrangement on the part of the lady; but the fault is mine: in no part hers. Were I possessed of a quick spasmodic style of narrative, I should have been able to include it all–Frank’s misbehaviour, Mary’s immediate anger, Augusta’s arrival, and keen, Argus-eyed inspection, and then Mary’s subsequent misery–in five words and half a dozen dashes and inverted commas. The thing would have been so told; for, to do Mary justice, she did not leave her hand in Frank’s a moment longer than she could help herself.

Frank, feeling the hand withdrawn, and hearing, when it was too late, the step on the gravel, turned sharply round. ‘Oh, it’s you, is it, Augusta? Well, what do you want?’

Augusta was not naturally very ill-natured, seeing that in her veins the high De Courcy blood was somewhat tempered by an admixture of the Gresham attributes; nor was she predisposed to make her brother her enemy by publishing to the world any of his little tender peccadilloes; but she could not but bethink herself of what her aunt had been saying as to the danger of any such encounters as that she just now had beheld; she could not but start at seeing her brother thus, on the very brink of the precipice of which the countess had specially forewarned her mother. She, Augusta, was, as she well knew, doing her duty by her family by marrying a tailor’s son for whom she did not care a chip, seeing that the tailor’s son was possessed of untold wealth. Now when one member of a household is making a struggle for a family, it is painful to see the benefit of that struggle negatived by the folly of another member. The future Mrs Moffat did feel aggrieved by the fatuity of the young heir, and, consequently, took upon herself to look as much like her Aunt De Courcy as she could do.

‘Well, what is it?’ said Frank, looking rather disgusted. ‘What makes you stick your chin up and look in that way?’ Frank had hitherto been rather a despot among his sisters, and forgot that the eldest of them was now passing altogether from under his sway to that of the tailor’s son.

‘Frank,’ said Augusta, in a tone of voice which did honour to the great lessons she had lately received. ‘Aunt De Courcy wants to see you immediately in the small drawing-room;’ and, as she said so, she resolved to say a few words of advice to Miss Thorne as soon as her brother should have left them.

‘In the small drawing-room, does she? Well, Mary, we may as well go together, for I suppose it is tea-time now.’

‘You had better go at once, Frank,’ said Augusta; ‘the countess will be angry if you keep her waiting. She has been expecting you these twenty minutes. Mary Thorne and I can return together.’

There was something in the tone in which the word, ‘Mary Thorne’, were uttered, which made Mary at once draw herself up. ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘that Mary Thorne will never be a hindrance to either of you.’

Frank’s ear had also perceived that there was something in the tone of his sister’s voice not boding comfort to Mary; he perceived that the De Courcy blood in Augusta’s veins was already rebelling against the doctor’s niece on his part, though it had condescended to submit itself to the tailor’s son on her own part.

‘Well, I am going,’ said he; ‘but look here Augusta, if you say one word of Mary–‘

Oh, Frank! Frank! you boy, you very boy! you goose, you silly goose! Is that the way you make love, desiring one girl not to tell another, as though you were three children, tearing your frocks and trousers in getting through the same hedge together? Oh, Frank! Frank! you, the full-blown heir of Greshamsbury? You, a man already endowed with a man’s discretion? You, the forward rider, that did but now threaten young Harry Baker and the Honourable John to eclipse them by prowess in the field? You, of age? Why, thou canst not as yet have left thy mother’s apron-string.

‘If you say one word of Mary–‘

So far had he got in his injunction to his sister, but further than that, in such a case, was he never destined to proceed. Mary’s indignation flashed upon him, striking him dumb long before the sound of her voice reached his ears; and yet she spoke as quick as the words would come to her call, and somewhat loudly too.

‘Say one word of Mary, Mr Gresham! And why should she not say as many words of Mary as she may please? I must tell you all now, Augusta! and I must also beg you not to be silent for my sake. As far as I am concerned, tell it to whom you please. This was the second time your brother–‘

‘Mary, Mary,’ said Frank, deprecating her loquacity.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Gresham; you have made it necessary that I should tell your sister all. He has now twice thought it well to amuse himself by saying to me words which it was ill-natured in him to speak, and–‘

‘Ill-natured, Mary!’

‘Ill-natured in him to speak,’ continued Mary, ‘and to which it would be absurd for me to listen. He probably does the same to others,’ she added, being unable in heart to forget that sharpest of her wounds, that flirtation of his with Patience Oriel; ‘but to me it is almost cruel. Another girl might laugh at him, or listen to him, as he would choose; but I can do neither. I shall now keep away from Greshamsbury, at any rate till he has left it; and, Augusta, I can only beg you to understand, that, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing which may not be told to all the world.’

And, so saying, she walked on a little in advance of them, as proud as a queen. Had Lady de Courcy herself met her at this moment, she would almost have felt herself forced to shrink out of the pathway. ‘Not say a word of me!’ she repeated to herself, but still out loud. ‘No word need be left unsaid on my account; none, none.’

Augusta followed her, dumfounded at her indignation; and Frank also followed, but not in silence. When his first surprise at Mary’s great anger was over, he felt himself called upon to say some word that might exonerate his lady-love; and some word also of protestation as to his own purpose.

‘There is nothing to be told, at least of Mary,’ he said, speaking to his sister; ‘but of me, you may tell this, if you choose to disoblige your brother–that I love Mary Thorne with all my heart; and that I will never love anyone else.’

By this time they had reached the lawn, and Mary was able to turn away from the path which led up to the house. As she left them she said in a voice, now low enough, ‘I cannot prevent him from talking nonsense, Augusta; but you will bear me witness, that I do not willingly hear it.’ And, so saying, she started off almost in a run towards the distant part of the gardens, in which she saw Beatrice.

Frank, as he walked up to the house with his sister, endeavoured to induce her to give him a promise that she would tell no tales as to what she had heard and seen.

‘Of course, Frank, it must be all nonsense,’ she had said; ‘and you shouldn’t amuse yourself in such a way.’

‘Well, but, Guss, come, we have always been friends; don’t let us quarrel just when you are going to be married.’ But Augusta would make no promise.

Frank, when he reached the house, found the countess waiting for him, sitting in the little drawing-room by herself,–somewhat impatiently. As he entered he became aware that there was some peculiar gravity attached to the coming interview. Three persons, his mother, one of his younger sisters, and the Lady Amelia, each stopped him to let him know that the countess was waiting; and he perceived that a sort of guard was kept upon the door to save her ladyship from any undesirable intrusion.

The countess frowned at the moment of his entrance, but soon smoothed her brow, and invited him to take a chair ready prepared for him opposite to the elbow of the sofa on which she was leaning. She had a small table before her, on which was her teacup, so that she was able to preach at him nearly as well as though she had been ensconced in a pulpit.

‘My dear Frank,’ said she, in a voice thoroughly suitable to the importance of the communication, ‘you have to-day come of age.’

Frank remarked that he understood that such was the case, and added that ‘that was the reason for all the fuss.’

‘Yes; you have to-day come of age. Perhaps I should have been glad to see such an occasion noticed at Greshamsbury with some more suitable signs of rejoicing.’

‘Oh, aunt! I think we did it all very well.’

‘Greshamsbury, Frank, is, or at any rate ought to be, the seat of the first commoner in Barsetshire.

‘Well; so it is. I am quite sure there isn’t a better fellow than father anywhere in the county.’

The countess sighed. Her opinion of the poor squire was very different from Frank’s. ‘It is no use now,’ said she, ‘looking back to that which cannot be cured. The first commoner in Barsetshire should hold a position–I will not of course say equal to that of a peer.’

‘Oh dear no; of course not,’ said Frank; and a bystander might have thought that there was a touch of satire in his tone.

‘No, not equal to that of a peer; but still of very paramount importance. Of course my first ambition is bound up in Porlock.’

‘Of course,’ said Frank, thinking how very weak was the staff on which his aunt’s ambition rested; for Lord Porlock’s youthful career had not been such as to give unmitigated satisfaction to his parents.

‘Is bound up in Porlock:’ and then the countess plumed herself; but the mother sighed. ‘And next to Porlock, my anxiety is about you.’

‘Upon my honour, aunt, I am very much obliged. I shall be all right, you know.’

‘Greshamsbury, my dear boy, is not now what it used to be.’

‘Isn’t it?’ asked Frank.

‘No, Frank; by no means. I do not wish to say a word against your father. It may, perhaps have been his misfortune, rather than his fault–‘

‘She is always down on the governor; always,’ said Frank to himself; resolving to stick bravely to the side of the house to which he had elected to belong.

‘But there is the fact, Frank, too plain to us all; Greshamsbury is not what it was. It is your duty to restore it to its former importance.’

‘My duty!’ said Frank, rather puzzled.

‘Yes, Frank, your duty. It all depends on you now. Of course you know that your father owes a great deal of money.’

Frank muttered something. Tidings had in some shape reached his ear that his father was not comfortably circumstances as regards money.

‘And then, he has sold Boxall Hill. It cannot be expected that Boxall Hill shall be purchased, as some horrid man, a railway-maker, I believe–‘

‘Yes; that’s Scatcherd.’

‘Well, he has built a house there, I’m told; so I presume that it cannot be bought back: but it will be your duty, Frank, to pay all the debts that there are on the property, and to purchase what, at any rate, will be equal to Boxall Hill.’

Frank opened his eyes wide and stared at his aunt, as though doubting much whether or no she were in her right mind. He pay off the family debts! He buy up property of four thousand pounds a year! He remained, however, quite quiet, waiting the elucidation of the mystery.

‘Frank, of course you understand me.’

Frank was obliged to declare, that just at the present moment he did not find his aunt so clear as usual.

‘You have but one line of conduct left you, Frank: your position, as heir to Greshamsbury, is a good one; but your father has unfortunately so hampered you with regard to money, that unless you set the matter right yourself, you can never enjoy that position. Of course you must marry money.’

‘Marry money!’ said he, considering for the first time that in all probability Mary Thorne’s fortune would not be extensive. ‘Marry money!’

‘Yes, Frank. I know no man whose position so imperatively demands it; and luckily for you, no man can have more facility for doing so. In the first place you are very handsome.’

Frank blushed like a girl of sixteen.

‘And then, as the matter is made plain to you at so early an age, you are not of course hampered by any indiscreet tie; by any absurd engagement.’

Frank blushed again; and then saying to himself, ‘How much the old girl knows about it!’ felt a little proud of his passion for Mary Thorne, and of the declaration he had made to her.

‘And your connexion with Courcy Castle,’ continued the countess, now carrying up the list of Frank’s advantages to its greatest climax, ‘will make the matter so easy for you, that really, you will hardly have any difficulty.’

Frank could not but say how much obliged he felt to Courcy Castle and its inmates.

‘Of course I would not wish to interfere with you in any underhand way, Frank; but I will tell you what has occurred to me. You have heard, probably, of Miss Dunstable?’

‘The daughter of the ointment of Lebanon man?’

‘And of course you know that her fortune is immense,’ continued the countess, not deigning to notice her nephew’s allusion to the ointment. ‘Quite immense when compared with the wants and any position of any commoner. Now she is coming to Courcy Castle, and I wish you to come and meet her.’

‘But, aunt, just at this moment I have to read for my degree like anything. I go up, you know, to Oxford.’

‘Degree!’ said the countess. ‘Why, Frank, I am talking to you of your prospects in life, of your future position, of that on which everything hangs, and you tell me of your degree!’

Frank, however, obstinately persisted that he must take his degree, and that he should commence reading hard at six a.m. to-morrow morning.

‘You can read just as well at Courcy Castle. Miss Dunstable will not interfere with that,’ said his aunt, who knew the expediency of yielding occasionally; ‘but I must beg you will come over and meet her. You will find her a most charming young woman, remarkably well educated I am told, and–‘

‘How old is she?’ asked Frank.

‘I really cannot say exactly,’ said the countess; ‘but it is not, I imagine, a matter of much moment.’

‘Is she thirty?’ asked Frank, who looked upon an unmarried woman of that age as quite an old maid.

‘I dare say she may be about that age,’ said the countess, who regarded the subject from a very different point of view.

‘Thirty!’ said Frank out loud, but speaking, nevertheless as though to himself.

‘It is a matter of no moment,’ said his aunt, almost angrily. ‘When a subject itself is of such vital importance, objections of no real weight should not be brought into view. If you wish to hold up your head in the country; if you wish to represent your county in Parliament, as has been done by your father, your grandfather, and your great-grandfathers; if you wish to keep a house over your head, and to leave Greshamsbury to your son after you, you must marry money. What does it signify whether Miss Dunstable be twenty-eight or thirty? She has got money; and if you marry her, you may then consider that your position in life is made.’

Frank was astonished at his aunt’s eloquence; but, in spite of that eloquence, he made up his mind that he would not marry Miss Dunstable. How could he, indeed, seeing that his troth was already plighted to Mary Thorne in the presence of his sister? This circumstance, however, he did not choose to plead to his aunt, so he recapitulated any other objections that presented themselves to his mind.

In the first place, he was so anxious about his degree that he could not think of marrying at present; then he suggested that it might be better to postpone the question till the season’s hunting should be over; he declared that he could not visit Courcy Castle till he got a new suit of clothes home from the tailor; and ultimately remembered that he had a particular engagement to go fly-fishing with Mr Oriel on that day week.

None, however, of these valid reasons were sufficiently potent to turn the countess from her point.

‘Nonsense, Frank,’ said she, ‘I wonder that you can talk of fly-fishing when the property of Greshamsbury is at stake. You will go with Augusta and myself to Courcy Castle to-morrow.’

‘To-morrow, aunt!’ he said, in the tone which a condemned criminal might make his ejaculation on hearing that a very near day had been named for his execution. ‘To-morrow!’

‘Yes, we return to-morrow, and shall be happy to have your company. My friends, including Miss Dunstable, come on Thursday. I am quite sure you will like Miss Dunstable. I have settled all that with your mother, so we need say nothing further about it. And now, good-night, Frank.’

Frank, finding that there was nothing more to be said, took his departure, and went out to look for Mary. But Mary had gone home with Janet half an hour since, so he betook himself to his sister Beatrice.

‘Beatrice,’ said he, ‘I am to go to Courcy Castle to-morrow.’

‘So I heard mamma say.’

‘Well; I only came of age to-day, and I will not begin by running counter to them. But I tell you what, I won’t stay above a week at Courcy Castle for all the De Courcys in Barsetshire. Tell me, Beatrice, did you ever hear of a Miss Dunstable?’

CHAPTER IX

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 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 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 not 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 they 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 in 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 to 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 no 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 bold 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 showrooms 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 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 of 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 recognized, and recognized 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 here.’

‘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 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 be 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 for 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 those 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 here, 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 you 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 organized 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 will die.’

‘Stimulus! Why do you think I can’t work without Dutch courage?’

‘Scatcherd, I know that there is brandy in this room at the 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, 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 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 pounds 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.’

CHAPTER X

SIR ROGER’S WILL

Dr Thorne left the room and went downstairs, being fully aware that he could not leave the house without having some communication with Lady Scatcherd. He was not sooner within the passage than he heard the sick man’s bell ring violently; and then the servant, passing him on the staircase, received orders to send a mounted messenger immediately to Barchester. Dr Fillgrave was to be summoned to come as quickly as possible to the sick man’s room, and Mr Winterbones was to be sent up to write the note.

Sir Roger was quite right in supposing that there would be some words between the doctor and her ladyship. How, indeed, was the doctor to get out of the house without such, let him wish it ever so much? There were words; and these were protracted, while the doctor’s cob was being ordered round, till very many were uttered which the contractor would probably have regarded as nonsense.

Lady Scatcherd was no fit associate for the wives of English baronets;–was no doubt by education and manners much better fitted to sit in their servants’ halls; but not on that account was she a bad wife or a bad woman. She was painfully, fearfully, anxious for that husband of hers, whom she honoured and worshipped, as it behoved her to do, above all other men. She was fearfully anxious as to his life, and faithfully believed, that if any man could prolong it, it was that old and faithful friend whom she had known to be true to her lord since their early married troubles.

When, therefore, she found that she had been dismissed, and that a stranger was to be sent for in his place, her heart sank below within her.

‘But, doctor,’ she said, with her apron up to her eyes, ‘you ain’t going to leave him, are you?’

Dr Thorne did not find it easy to explain to her ladyship that medical etiquette would not permit him to remain in attendance on her husband after he had been dismissed and another physician called in his place.

‘Etiquette!’ said she, crying. ‘What’s etiquette to do with it when a man is a-killing hisself with brandy?’

‘Fillgrave will forbid that quite as strongly as I can do.’

‘Fillgrave!’ said she. ‘Fiddlesticks! Fillgrave, indeed!’

Dr Thorne could almost have embraced her for the strong feeling of thorough confidence on the one side, and thorough distrust on the other, which she contrived to throw into those few words.

‘I’ll tell you what, doctor; I won’t let that messenger go. I’ll bear the brunt of it. He can’t do much now he ain’t up, you know. I’ll stop the boy; we won’t have no Fillgrave here.’

This, however, was a step to which Dr Thorne would not assent. He endeavoured to explain to the anxious wife, that after what had passed he could not tender his medical services till they were again asked for.

‘But you can slip in as a friend, you know; and then by degrees you can come round him, eh? can’t you now, doctor? And as to payment–‘

All that Dr Thorne said on the subject may easily be imagined. And in this way, and in partaking of the lunch which was forced upon him, an hour had nearly passed between his leaving Sir Roger’s bedroom and putting his foot in the stirrup. But no sooner had the cob begun to move on the gravel-sweep before the house than one of the upper windows opened, and the doctor was summoned to another conference with the sick man.

‘He says you are to come back, whether or no,’ said Mr Winterbones, screeching out of the window, and putting all his emphasis on the last words.

‘Thorne! Thorne! Thorne!’ shouted the sick man from his sick-bed, so loudly that the doctor heard him, seated as he was on horseback out before the house.

‘You’re to come back, whether or no,’ repeated Winterbones, with more emphasis, evidently conceiving that there was a strength of injunction in that ‘whether or no’ which would be found quite invincible.

Whether actuated by these magic words, or by some internal process of thought, we will not say; but the doctor did slowly, and as though unwillingly, dismount again from his steed, and slowly retrace his steps into the house.

‘It is no use,’ he said to himself, ‘for that messenger has already gone to Barchester.’

‘I have sent for Dr Fillgrave,’ were the first words which the contractor said to him when he again found himself by the bedside.

‘Did you call me back to tell me that?’ said Thorne, who now felt really angry at the impertinent petulance of the man before him: ‘you should consider, Scatcherd, that my time may be of value to others, if not to you.’

‘Now don’t be angry, old fellow,’ said Scatcherd, turning to him, and looking at him with a countenance quite different from any that he had shown that day; a countenance in which there was a show of manhood,–some show also of affection. ‘You ain’t angry now because I’ve sent for Fillgrave?’

‘Not in the least,’ said the doctor very complacently. ‘Not in the least. Fillgrave will do as much good as I can do.’

‘And that’s none at all, I suppose; eh, Thorne?’

‘That depends on yourself. He will do you good if you will tell him the truth, and will then be guided by him. Your wife, your servant, any one can be as good a doctor to you as either he or I; as good, that is, in the main point. But you have sent for Fillgrave now; and of course you must see him. I have much to do, and you must let me go.’

Scatcherd, however, would not let him go, but held his hand fast. ‘Thorne,’ said he, ‘if you like it, I’ll make them put Fillgrave under the pump directly he comes here. I will indeed, and pay all the damage myself.’

This was another proposition to which the doctor could not consent; but he was utterly unable to refrain from laughing. There was an earnest look of entreaty about Sir Roger’s face as he made the suggestion; and, joined to this, there was a gleam of comic satisfaction in his eye which seemed to promise, that if he received the least encouragement he would put his threat into execution. Now our doctor was not inclined to taking any steps towards subjecting his learned brother to pump discipline; but he could not but admit to himself that the idea was not a bad one.

‘I’ll have it done, I will, by heavens! if you’ll only say the word,’ protested Sir Roger.

But the doctor did not say the word, and so the idea was passed off.

‘You shouldn’t be so testy with a man when he is ill,’ said Scatcherd, still holding the doctor’s hand, of which he had again got possession; ‘specially not an old friend; and specially again when you’re been a-blowing him up.’

It was not worth the doctor’s while to aver that the testiness had all been on the other side, and that he had never lost his good-humour; so he merely smiled, and asked Sir Roger if he could do anything further for him.

‘Indeed you can, doctor; and that’s why I sent for you,–why I sent for you yesterday. Get out of the room, Winterbones,’ he then said gruffly, as though he were dismissing from his chamber a dirty dog. Winterbones, not a whit offended, again hid his cup under his coat-tail and vanished.

‘Sit down, Thorne, sit down,’ said the contractor, speaking in quite a different manner from any that he had yet assumed. ‘I know you’re in a hurry, but you must give me half an hour. I may be dead before you can give me another; who knows?’

The doctor of course declared that he hoped to have many a half-hour’s chat with him for many a year to come.

‘Well, that’s as may be. You must stop now, at any rate. You can make the cob pay for it, you know.’

The doctor took a chair and sat down. Thus entreated to stop, he had hardly any alternative but to do so.

‘It wasn’t because I’m ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you. Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don’t know what it is that makes me like this? When I see that poor wretch Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don’t know what’s coming to myself as well as him?

‘Why do you take it then? Why do you do it? Your life is not like his. Oh, Scatcherd! Scatcherd!’ and the doctor prepared to pour out the flood of his eloquence in beseeching this singular man to abstain from his well-known poison.

‘Is that all you know of human nature, doctor? Abstain. Can you abstain from breathing, and live like a fish does under water?’

‘But Nature has not ordered you to drink, Scatcherd.’

‘Habit is second nature, man; and a stronger nature than the first. And why should I not drink? What else has the world given me for all that I have done for it? What other resource have I? What other gratification?’

‘Oh, my God! Have you not unbounded wealth? Can you not do anything you wish? be anything you choose?’

‘No,’ and the sick man shrieked with an energy that made him audible all through the house. ‘I can do nothing that I would choose to do; be nothing that I would wish to be! What can I do? What can I be? What gratification can I have except the brandy bottle? If I go among gentlemen, can I talk to them? If they have anything to say about a railway, they will ask me a question: if they speak to me beyond that, I must be dumb. If I go among my workmen, can they talk to me? No; I am their master, and a stern master. They bob their heads and shake in their shoes when they see me. Where are my friends? Here!’ said he, and he dragged a bottle from under his very pillow. ‘Where are my amusements? Here!’ and he brandished the bottle almost in the doctor’s face. ‘Where is my one resource, my one gratification, my only comfort after all my toils. Here, doctor; here, here, here!’ and, so saying, he replaced his treasure beneath his pillow.

There was something so horrifying in this, that Dr Thorne shrank back amazed, and was for a moment unable to speak.

‘But, Scatcherd,’ he said at last; ‘surely you would not die for such a passion as that?’ ‘Die for it? Aye, would I. Live for it while I can live; and die for it when I can live no longer. Die for it! What is that for a man to do? What is a man the worse for dying? What can I be the worse for dying? A man can die but once, you said just now. I’d die ten times for this.’

‘You are speaking now either in madness, or else in folly, to startle me.’

‘Folly enough, perhaps, and madness enough, also. Such a life as mine makes a man a fool, and makes him mad too. What have about me that I should be afraid to die? I’m worth three hundred thousand pounds; and I’d give it all to be able to go to work to-morrow with a hod and mortar, and have a fellow clap his hand upon my shoulder, and say: “Well, Roger, shall us have that ‘ere other half-pint this morning?” I’ll tell you what, Thorne, when a man has made three hundred thousand pounds, there’s nothing left for him but to die. It’s all he’s good for then. When money’s been made, the next thing is to spend it. Now the man who makes it has not the heart to do that.’

The doctor, of course, in hearing all this, said something of a tendency to comfort and console the mind of his patient. Not that anything he could say would comfort or console the man; but that it was impossible to sit there and hear such fearful truths–for as regarded Scatcherd they were truths–without making some answer.’

‘This is as good as a play, isn’t, doctor?’ said the baronet. ‘You didn’t know how I could come out like one of those actor fellows. Well, now, come; at last I’ll tell you why I have sent for you. Before that last burst of mine I made my will.’

‘You had made a will before that.’

‘Yes, I had. That will is destroyed. I burnt it with my own hand, so that there should be no mistake about it. In that will I had named two executors, you and Jackson. I was then partner with Jackson in the York and Yeovil Grand Central. I thought a deal of Jackson then. He’s not worth a shilling now.’

‘Well, I’m exactly in the same category.’

‘No, you’re not. Jackson is nothing without money; but money’ll never make you.’

‘No, nor I shan’t make money,’ said the doctor.

‘No, you never will. Nevertheless, there’s my other will, there, under that desk there; and I’ve put you in as sole executor.’

‘You must alter that, Scatcherd; you must indeed; with three hundred thousand pounds to be disposed of, the trust is far too much for any one man: besides you must name a younger man; you and I are of the same age, and I may die first.’

‘Now, doctor, no humbug; let’s have no humbug from you. Remember this; if you’re not true, you’re nothing.’

‘Well, but, Scatcherd–‘

‘Well, but doctor, there’s the will, it’s already made. I don’t want to consult you about that. You are named as executor, and if you have the heart to refuse to act when I’m dead, why, of course, you can do so.’

The doctor was not lawyer, and hardly knew whether he had any means of extricating himself from this position in which his friend was determined to place him.

‘You’ll have to see that will carried out, Thorne. Now I’ll tell you what I have done.’

‘You’re not going to tell me how you have disposed of your property?’

‘Not exactly; at least not all of it. One hundred thousand I’ve in legacies, including, you know, what Lady Scatcherd will have.’

‘Have you not left the house to Lady Scatcherd?’

‘No; what the devil would she do with a house like this? She doesn’t know how to live in it now she has got it. I have provided for her; it matters not how. The house and the estate, and the remainder of my money I have left to Louis Philippe.’

‘What! two hundred thousand pounds?’ said the doctor.

‘And why shouldn’t I leave two hundred thousand pounds to my son, even to my eldest son if I have more than one? Does not Mr Gresham leave all his property to his heir? Why should not I make an eldest son as well as Lord de Courcy or the Duke of Omnium? I suppose a railway contractor ought not to be allowed an eldest son by Act of Parliament! Won’t my son have a title to keep up? And that’s more than the Greshams have among them.’

The doctor explained away what he said as well as he could. He could not explain that what he had really meant was this, that Sir Roger Scatcherd’s son was not a man fit to be trusted with the entire control of an enormous fortune.

Sir Roger Scatcherd had but one child; that child which had been born in the days of his early troubles, and had been dismissed from his mother’s breast in order that the mother’s milk might nourish the young heir of Greshamsbury. The boy had grown up, but had become strong neither in mind nor body. His father had determined to make a gentleman of him, and had sent to Eton and Cambridge. But even this receipt, generally as it is recognized, will not make a gentleman. It is hard, indeed, to define what receipt will do so, though people do have in their own minds some certain undefined, but yet tolerably correct ideas on the subject. Be that as it may, two years at Eton, and three terms at Cambridge, did not make a gentleman of Louis Philippe Scatcherd.

Yes; he was christened Louis Philippe, after the King of the French. If one wishes to look out in the world for royal nomenclature, to find children who have been christened after kings and queens, or the uncles and aunts of kings and queens, the search should be made in the families of democrats. None have so servile a deference for the very nail-parings of royalty; none feel so wondering an awe at the exaltation of a crowned head; none are so anxious to secure themselves some shred or fragment that has been consecrated by the royal touch. It is the distance which they feel to exist between themselves, and the throne which makes them covet the crumbs of majesty, the odds and ends and chance splinters of royalty.

There was nothing royal about Louis Philippe Scatcherd but his name. He had now come to man’s estate, and his father, finding the Cambridge receipt to be inefficacious, had sent him abroad to travel with a tutor. The doctor had from time to time heard tidings of this youth; he knew that he had already shown symptoms of his father’s vices, but no symptoms of his father’s talents; he knew that he had begun life by being dissipated, without being generous; and that at the age of twenty-one he had already suffered from delirium tremens.

It was on this account that he had expressed disapprobation, rather than surprise, when he heard that his father intended to bequeath the bulk of his large fortune to the uncontrolled will of this unfortunate boy.

‘I have toiled for my money hard, and I have a right to do as I like with it. What other satisfaction can it give me?’

The doctor assured him that he did not at all mean to dispute this.

‘Louis Philippe will do well enough, you’ll find,’ continued the baronet, understanding what was passing within his companion’s breast. ‘Let a young fellow sow his wild oats while he is young, and he’ll be steady enough when he grows old.’

‘But what if he never lives to get through the sowing?’ thought the doctor to himself. ‘What if the wild-oats operation is carried on in so violent a manner as to leave no strength in the soil for the product of a more valuable crop?’ It was of no use saying this, however, so he allowed Scatcherd to continue.

‘If I’d had a free fling when I was a youngster, I shouldn’t have been so fond of the brandy bottle now. But any way, my son shall be my heir. I’ve had the gumption to make the money, but I haven’t the gumption to spend it. My son, however, shall be able to ruffle it with the best of them. I’ll go bail he shall hold his head higher than ever young Gresham will be able to hold his. They are much of the same age, as well I have cause to remember;–and so has her ladyship here.’

Now the fact was, that Sir Roger Scatcherd felt in his heart no special love for young Gresham; but with her ladyship it might almost be a question whether she did not love the youth whom she had nursed almost as well as that other one who was her own proper offspring.

‘And will you not put any check on thoughtless expenditure? If you live ten or twenty years, as we hope you may, it will become unnecessary; but in making a will, a man should always remember he may go off suddenly.’

‘Especially if he goes to bed with a brandy bottle under his head; eh, doctor? But, mind, that’s a medical secret, you know; not a word of that out of the bedroom.’

Dr Thorne could but sigh. What could he say on such a subject to such a man as this?

‘Yes, I have put a check on his expenditure. I will not let his daily bread depend on any man; I have therefore let him five hundred a year at his own disposal, from the day of my death. Let him make what ducks and drakes of that he can.’

‘Five hundred a year is certainly not much,’said the doctor.

‘No; nor do I want to keep him to that. Let him have whatever he wants if he sets about spending it properly. But the bulk of the property–this estate of Boxall Hill, and the Greshamsbury mortgage, and those other mortgages–I have tied up in this way: they shall be all his at twenty-five; and up to that age it shall be in your power to give him what he wants. If he shall die without children before he shall be twenty-five years of age, they are all to go to Mary’s eldest child.’

Now Mary was Sir Roger’s sister, the mother, therefore, of Miss Thorne, and, consequently, the wife of the respectable ironmonger who went to America, and the mother of a family there.

‘Mary’s eldest child!’ said the doctor, feeling that the perspiration had nearly broken out on his forehead, and that he could hardly control his feelings. ‘Mary’s eldest child! Scatcherd, you should be more particular in your description, or you will leave your best legacy to the lawyers.’

‘I don’t know, and never heard the name of one of them.’

‘But do you mean a boy or a girl?’

‘They may be all girls for what I know, or all boys; besides, I don’t care which it is. A girl would probably do best with it. Only you’d have to see that she married some decent fellow; you’d be her guardian.’

‘Pooh, nonsense,’ said the doctor. ‘Louis will be five-and-twenty in a year or two.’

‘In about four years.’

‘And for all that’s come and gone yet, Scatcherd, you are not going to leave us yourself quite so soon as all that.’

‘Not if I can help it; but that’s as may be.’

‘The chances are ten to one that such a clause in your will will never come to bear.’

‘Quite so, quite so. If I die, Louis Philippe won’t, but I thought it right to put in something to prevent his squandering it all before he comes to his senses.’

‘Oh! quite right, quite right. I think I would have named a later age than twenty-five.’

‘So would not I. Louis Philippe will be all right by that time. That’s my lookout. And now, doctor, you know my will; and if I die to-morrow, you will know what I want you to do for me.’

‘You have merely said the eldest child, Scatcherd?’

‘That’s all; give it here; and I’ll read it to you.’

‘No; no; never mind. The eldest child! You should be more particular, Scatcherd; you should, indeed. Consider what an enormous interest may have to depend on those words.’

‘Why, what the devil could I say? I don’t know their names; never even heard them. But the eldest is the eldest, all the world over. Perhaps I ought to say the youngest, seeing that I am only a railway contractor.’

Scatcherd began to think that the doctor might now as well go away and leave him to the society of Winterbones and the brandy; but, much as our friend had before expressed himself in a hurry, he now seemed inclined to move very leisurely. He sat there by the bedside, resting his hands on his knees and gazing unconsciously at the counterpane. At last he gave a deep sigh, and then he said, ‘Scatcherd, you must be more particular in this. If I am to have anything to do with it, you must, indeed, be more explicit.’

‘Why, how the deuce can I be more explicit? Isn’t her eldest living child plain enough, whether he be Jack, or she be Gill?’

‘What did your lawyer say to this, Scatcherd?’

‘Lawyer! You don’t suppose I let my lawyer know what I was putting. No; I got the form and the paper, and all that from him, and I did it in another. It’s all right enough. Though Winterbones wrote it, he did it in such a way he did not know what he was writing.’

The doctor sat a while longer, still looking at the counter-pane, and then got up to depart. ‘I’ll see you again soon,’ said he; ‘to-morrow, probably.’

‘To-morrow!’ said Sir Roger, not at all understanding why Dr Thorne should talk of returning so soon. ‘To-morrow! why I ain’t so bad as that, man, am I? If you come so often as that you will ruin me.’

‘Oh, not as a medical man; not as that; but about this will, Scatcherd. I must think if over; I must, indeed.’

‘You need not give yourself the least trouble in the world about my will till I’m dead; not the least. And who knows–may be, I may be settling your affairs yet; eh, doctor? looking after your niece when you’re dead and gone, and getting a husband for her, eh? Ha! ha! ha!’

And then, without further speech, the doctor went his way.

CHAPTER XI

THE DOCTOR DRINKS HIS TEA

The doctor got on his cob and went his way, returning duly to Greshamsbury. But, in truth, as he went he hardly knew whither he was going, or what he was doing. Sir Roger had hinted that the cob would be compelled to make up for lost time by extra exertion on the road; but the cob had never been permitted to have his own way as to pace more satisfactorily than on the present occasion. The doctor, indeed, hardly knew that he was on horseback, so completely was he enveloped in the cloud of his own thoughts.

In the first place, that alternative which it had become him to put before the baronet as one unlikely to occur–that of the speedy death of both father and son–was one which he felt in his heart of hearts might very probably come to pass.

‘The chances are ten to one that such a clause will never be brought to bear.’ This he had said partly to himself, so as to ease the thoughts which came crowding on his brain; partly, also, in pity for the patient and the father. But now that he thought the matter over, he felt that there were no such odds. Were not the odds the other way? Was it not almost probable that both these men might be gathered to their long account within the next four years? One, the elder, was a strong man, indeed; one who might yet live for years to come if he could but give himself fair play. But then, he himself protested, and protested with a truth too surely grounded, that fair play to himself was beyond his own power to give. The other, the younger, had everything against him. Not only was he a poor, puny creature, without physical strength, one of whose life a friend could never feel sure under any circumstances, but he also was already addicted to his father’s vices; he also was already killing himself with alcohol.

And then, if these two men did die within the prescribed period, if this clause of Sir Roger’s will were brought to bear, it should become his, Dr Thorne’s, duty to see that clause carried out, how would he be bound to act? That woman’s eldest child was his own niece, his adopted bairn, his darling, the pride of his heart, the cynosure of his eye, his child also, his own Mary. Of all his duties on this earth, next to that one great duty to his God and conscience, was his duty to her. What, under these circumstances, did his duty to her require of him?

But then, that one great duty, that duty which she would be the first to expect from him; what did that demand of him? Had Scatcherd made his will without saying what its clauses were, it seemed to Thorne that Mary must have been the heiress, should that clause become necessarily operative. Whether she were so or not would at any rate be for lawyers to decide. But now the case was very different. This rich man had confided in him, and would it not be a breach of confidence, an act of absolute dishonesty–an act of dishonesty both to Scatcherd and to that far-distant American family, to that father, who, in former days, had behaved so nobly, and to that eldest child of his, would it not be gross dishonesty to them all if he allowed this man to leave a will by which his property might go to a person never intended to be his heir?

Long before he had arrived at Greshamsbury his mind on this point had been made up. Indeed, it had been made up while sitting there by Scatcherd’s bedside. It had not been difficult to make up his mind to so much; but then, his way out of this dishonesty was not so easy for him to find. How should he set this matter right to as to inflict no injury on his niece, and no sorrow to himself–if that indeed could be avoided?

And then other thoughts crowded on his brain. He had always professed–professed at any rate to himself and to her–that of all the vile objects of a man’s ambition, wealth, wealth merely for its own sake, was the vilest. They, in their joint school of inherent philosophy, had progressed to ideas which they might find it not easy to carry out, should they be called on by events to do so. And if this would have been difficult to either when acting on behalf of self alone, how much more difficult when one might have to act for the other! This difficulty had now come to the uncle. Should he, in this emergency, take upon himself to fling away the golden chance which might accrue to his niece if Scatcherd should be encouraged to make her partly his heir?

‘He’d want her to go and live there–to live with him and his wife. All the money in the Bank of England would not pay her for such misery,’ said the doctor to himself, as he slowly rode into is own yard.

On one point, and one only, had he definitely made up his mind. On the following day he would go over again to Boxall Hill, and would tell Scatcherd the whole truth. Come what might, the truth must be best. And so, with some gleam of comfort, he went into the house, and found his niece in the drawing-room with Patience Oriel.

‘Mary and I have been quarrelling,’ said Patience. ‘She says the doctor is the greatest man in a village; and I say the parson is of course.’

‘I only say that the doctor is the most looked after,’ said Mary. ‘There’s another horrid message for you to go to Silverbridge, uncle. Why can’t that Dr Century manage his own people?’

‘She says,’ continued Miss Oriel, ‘that if a parson was away for a month, no one would miss him; but that a doctor is so precious that his very minutes are counted.’

‘I am sure uncle’s are. They begrudge him his meals. Mr Oriel never gets called away to Silverbridge.’

‘No; we in the Church manage our parish arrangements better than you do. We don’t let strange practitioners in among our flocks because the sheep may chance to fancy them. Our sheep have to put up with our spiritual doses whether they like them or not. In that respect we are much the best off. I advise you, Mary, to marry a clergyman, by all means.’

‘I will when you marry a doctor,’ said she.

‘I am sure nothing on earth would give me greater pleasure,’ said Miss Oriel, getting up and curtseying very low to Dr Thorne; ‘but I am not quite prepared for the agitation of an offer this morning, so I’ll run away.’

And so she went; and the doctor, getting to his other horse, started again for Silverbridge, wearily enough. ‘She’s happy now where she is,’ said he to himself, as he rode along. ‘They all treat her there as an equal at Greshamsbury. What though she be no cousin to the Thornes of Ullathorne. She has found her place there among them all, and keeps it on equal terms with the best of them. There is Miss Oriel; her family is high; she is rich, fashionable, a beauty, courted by every one; but yet she does not look down on Mary. They are equal friends together. But how would it be if she were taken to Boxall Hill, even as a recognized niece of the rich man there? Would Patience Oriel and Beatrice Gresham go there after her? Could she be happy there as she is in my house here, poor though it be? It would kill her to pass a month with Lady Scatcherd and put up with that man’s humours, to see his mode of life, to be dependent on him, to belong to him.’ And then the doctor, hurrying on to Silverbridge, again met Dr Century at the old lady’s bedside, and having made his endeavours to stave off the inexorable coming of the grim visitor, again returned to his own niece and his own drawing-room.

‘You must be dead, uncle,’ said Mary, as she poured out his tea for him, and prepared the comforts of that most comfortable meal-tea, dinner, and supper, all in one. ‘I wish Silverbridge was fifty miles off.’

‘That would only make the journey worse; but I am not dead yet, and, what is more to the purpose, neither is my patient.’ And as he spoke he contrived to swallow a jorum of scalding tea, containing in measure somewhat near a pint. Mary, not a whit amazed at this feat, merely refilled the jorum without any observation; and the doctor went on stirring the mixture with his spoon, evidently oblivious that any ceremony had been performed by either of them since the first supply had been administered to him.

When the clatter of knives and forks was over, the doctor turned himself to the hearthrug, and putting one leg over the other, he began to nurse it as he looked with complacency at his third cup of tea, which stood untasted beside him. The fragments of the solid banquet had been removed, but no sacrilegious hand had been laid on the teapot and the cream-jug.

‘Mary,’ said he, ‘suppose you were to find out to-morrow morning that, by some accident, you had become a great heiress, would you be able to suppress your exultation?’

‘The first thing I’d do, would be to pronounce a positive edict that you should never go to Silverbridge again; at least without a day’s notice.’

‘Well, and what next? what would you do next?’

‘The next thing–the next thing would be to send to Paris for a French bonnet exactly like the one Patience Oriel had on. Did you see it?’

‘Well I can’t say I did; bonnets are invisible now; besides I never remark anybody’s clothes, except yours.’

‘Oh! do look at Miss Oriel’s bonnet the next time you see her. I cannot understand why it should be so, but I am sure of this–no English fingers put together such a bonnet as that; and I am nearly sure that no French fingers could do it in England.’

‘But you don’t care so much about bonnets, Mary!’ This the doctor said as an assertion; but there was, nevertheless, somewhat of a question involved in it.

‘Don’t I though?’ said she. ‘I do care very much about bonnets; especially since I saw Patience this morning. I asked how much it cost–guess.’

‘Oh! I don’t know–a pound?’

‘A pound, uncle!’

‘What! a great deal more? Ten pounds?’

‘Oh, uncle.’

‘What! more than ten pounds? Then I don’t think even Patience Oriel ought to give it.’

‘No, of course she would not; but, uncle, it really cost a hundred francs!’

‘Oh! a hundred francs; that’s four pounds, isn’t it? Well, and how much did your last new bonnet cost?’

‘Mine! oh, nothing–five and ninepence, perhaps; I trimmed it myself. If I were left a great fortune, I’d send to Paris to-morrow; no, I’d go myself to Paris to buy a bonnet, and I’d take you with me to choose it.’

The doctor sat silent for a while meditating about this, during which he unconsciously absorbed the tea beside him; and Mary again replenished his cup.

‘Come, Mary,’ he said at last, ‘I’m in a generous mood; and as I am rather more rich than usual, we’ll send to Paris for a French bonnet. The going for it must wait a while longer I am afraid.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No, indeed. If you know the way to send–that I must confess would puzzle me; but if you’ll manage the sending, I’ll manage the paying; and you shall have a French bonnet.’

‘Uncle!’ said she, looking up at him.

‘Oh, I’m not joking; I owe you a present, and I’ll give you that.’

‘And if you do, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with it. I’ll cut it into fragments, and burn them before your face. Why, uncle, what do you take me for? You’re not a bit nice to-night to make such an offer as that to me; not a bit, not a bit.’ And then she came over from her seat at the tea-tray and sat down on a foot-stool close at his knee. ‘Because I’d have a French bonnet if I had a large fortune, is that a reason why I should like one now? if you were to pay four pounds for a bonnet for me, it would scorch my head every time I put it on.’

‘I don’t see that: four pounds would not ruin me. However, I don’t think you’d look a bit better if you had it; and, certainly, I should not like to scorch these locks,’ and putting his hand upon her shoulders, he played with her hair.

‘Patience has a pony-phaeton, and I’d have one if I were rich; and I’d have all my books bound as she does; and, perhaps, I’d give fifty guineas for a dressing-case.’

‘Fifty guineas!’

‘Patience did not tell me; but so Beatrice says. Patience showed it to me once, and it is a darling. I think I’d have the dressing-case before the bonnet. But, uncle–‘

‘Well?’

‘You don’t suppose I want such things?’

‘Not improperly. I am sure you do not.’

‘Not properly, or improperly; not much, or little. I covet many things; but nothing of that sort. You know, or should know, that I do not. Why do you talk of buying a French bonnet for me?’

Dr Thorne did not answer this question, but went on nursing his leg.

‘After all,’ said he, ‘money is a fine thing.’

‘Very fine, when it is well come by,’ she answered; ‘that is, without detriment to the heart and soul.’

‘I should be a happier man if you were provided for as Miss Oriel. Suppose, now, I could give you up to a rich man who would be able to insure you against all wants?’

‘Insure me against all wants! Oh, that would be a man. That would be selling me, wouldn’t it, uncle? Yes, selling me; and the price you would receive would be freedom from future apprehensions as regards me. It would be a cowardly sale for you to make; and then, as to me–me the victim. No, uncle; you must bear the misery of having to provide for me–bonnets and all. We are in the same boat, and you shan’t turn me overboard.’

‘But if I were to die, what would you do then?’

‘And if I were to die, what would you do? People must be bound together. They must depend on each other. Of course, misfortunes may come; but it is cowardly to be afraid of them beforehand. You and I are bound together, uncle; and though you say these things to tease me, I know you do not wish to get rid of me.’

‘Well, well; we shall win through, doubtless; if not in one way, then in another.’

‘Win through! Of course we shall; who doubts our winning? but, uncle–‘

‘But, Mary.’

‘Well?’

‘You haven’t got another cup of tea, have you?’

‘Oh, uncle! you have had five.’

‘No, my dear! not five; only four–only four. I assure you; I have been very particular to count. I had one while I was–‘

‘Five uncle; indeed and indeed.’

‘Well, then, as I hate the prejudice which attaches luck to an odd number, I’ll have the sixth to show that I am not superstitious.’

While Mary was preparing the sixth jorum, there came a knock at the door. Those late summonses were hateful to Mary’s ear, for they were usually forerunners of a midnight ride through the dark lanes to some farmer’s house. The doctor had been in the saddle all day, and, as Janet brought the note into the room, Mary stood up as though to defend her uncle from any further invasion on his rest.

‘A note from the house, miss,’ said Janet: now ‘the house’, in Greshamsbury parlance, always meant the squire’s mansion.

‘No one ill at the house, I hope,’ said the doctor, taking the note from Mary’s hand. ‘Oh–ah–yes; it’s from the squire–there’s nobody ill: wait a minute, Janet, and I’ll write a line. Mary, lend me your desk.’

The squire, anxious as usual for money, had written to ask what success the doctor had had in negotiating the new loan with Sir Roger. That fact, however, was, that in his visit to Boxall Hill, the doctor had been altogether unable to bring on the carpet the matter of this loan. Subjects had crowded themselves in too quickly during that interview–those two interviews at Sir Roger’s bedside; and he had been obliged to leave without even alluding to the question.

‘I must at any rate go back now,’ he said to himself. So he wrote to the squire, saying that he was to be at Boxall Hill again on the following day, and that he would call at the house on his return.

‘That’s all settled, at any rate,’ said he.

‘What’s settled?’ said Mary.

‘Why, I must go to Boxall Hill again to-morrow. I must go early, too, so we’d better both be off to bed. Tell Janet I must breakfast at half-past seven.’

‘You couldn’t take me, could you? I should so like to see that Sir Roger.’

‘To see Sir Roger! Why, he’s ill in bed.’

‘That’s an objection, certainly; but some day, when he’s well, could you not take me over? I have the greatest desire to see a man like that; a man who began with nothing and now has more than enough to buy the whole parish of Greshamsbury.’

‘I don’t think you’d like him at all.’

‘Why not? I am sure I should; I am sure I should like him, and Lady Scatcherd too. I’ve heard you say that she is an excellent woman.’

‘Yes, in her way; and he, too, is good in his way; but they are neither of them in your way: they are extremely vulgar–‘

‘Oh! I don’t mind that; that would make them more amusing; one doesn’t go to those sort of people for polished manners.’

‘I don’t think you’d find the Scatcherds pleasant acquaintances at all,’ said the doctor, taking his bed-candle, and kissing his niece’s forehead as he left the room.

CHAPTER XII

WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK, THEN COMES THE TUG OF WAR

The doctor, that is our doctor, had thought nothing more of the message which had been sent to that other doctor, Dr Fillgrave; nor in truth did the baronet. Lady Scatcherd had thought of it, but her husband during the rest of the day was not in a humour which allowed her to remind him that he would soon have a new physician on his hands; so she left the difficulty to arrange itself, waiting in some little trepidation till Dr Fillgrave should show himself.

It was well that Sir Roger was not dying for want of his assistance, for when the message reached Barchester, Dr Fillgrave was some five or six miles out of town, at Plumstead; and as he did not get back till late in the evening, he felt himself necessitated to put off his visit to Boxall Hill till next morning. Had he chanced to have been made acquainted with that little conversation about the pump, he would probably have postponed it even yet a while longer.

He was, however, by no means sorry to be summoned to the bedside of Sir Roger Scatcherd. It was well known at Barchester, and very well known to Dr Fillgrave, that Sir Roger and Dr Thorne were old friends. It was very well known to him also, that Sir Roger, in all his bodily ailments, had hitherto been contented to entrust his safety to the skill of his old friend. Sir Roger was in his way a great man, and much talked of in Barchester, and rumour had already reached the ears of the Barchester Galen, that the great railway contractor was ill. When, therefore, he received a peremptory summons to go over to Boxall Hill, he could not but think that some pure light had broken in upon Sir Roger’s darkness, and taught him at last where to look for true medical accomplishment.

And then, also, Sir Roger was the richest man in the county, and to county practitioners a new patient with large means is a godsend; how much greater a godsend when not only acquired, but taken also from some rival practitioner, need hardly be explained.

Dr Fillgrave, therefore, was somewhat elated when, after an early breakfast, he stepped into the post-chaise which was to carry him to Boxall Hill. Dr Fillgrave’s professional advancement had been sufficient to justify the establishment of a brougham, in which he paid his ordinary visits round Barchester; but this was a special occasion, requiring special speed, and about to produce no doubt a special guerdon, and therefore a pair of post-horses were put into request.

It was hardly yet nine when the post-boy somewhat loudly rang the bell at Sir Roger’s door; and then Dr Fillgrave, for the first time, found himself in the new grand hall of Boxall Hill house.

‘I’ll tell my lady,’ said the servant, showing him into the grand dining-room; and there for some fifteen minutes or twenty minutes Dr Fillgrave walked up and down the length of the Turkey carpet all alone.

Dr Fillgrave was not a tall man, and was perhaps rather more inclined to corpulence than became his height. In his stocking-feet, according to the usually received style of measurement, he was five feet five; and he had a little round abdominal protuberance, which an inch and a half added to the heels of his boots hardly enabled him to carry off as well as he himself would have wished. Of this he was apparently conscious, and it gave to him an air of not being entirely at his ease. There was, however, a personal dignity in his demeanour, a propriety in his gait, and an air of authority in his gestures which should prohibit one from stigmatizing those efforts at altitude as a failure. No doubt he did achieve much; but, nevertheless, the effort would occasionally betray itself, and the story of the frog and the ox would irresistibly force itself into one’s mind at those moments when it most behoved Dr Fillgrave to be magnificent.

But if the bulgy roundness of his person and the shortness of his legs in any way detracted from his personal importance, these trifling defects were, he was well aware, more than atoned for by the peculiar dignity of his countenance. If his legs were short, his face was not; if there was any undue preponderance below the waistcoat, all was in due symmetry above the necktie. His hair was grey, not grizzled, nor white, but properly grey; and stood up straight from his temples on each side, with an unbending determination of purpose. His whiskers, which were of an admirable shape, coming down and turning gracefully at the angle of his jaw, were grey also, but somewhat darker than his hair. His enemies in Barchester declared that their perfect shade was produced by a leaden comb. His eyes were not brilliant, but were very effective, and well under command. He was rather short-sighted, and a pair of eye-glasses was always on his nose, or in his hand. His nose was long, and well pronounced, and his chin, also, was sufficiently prominent; but the great feature of his face was his mouth. The amount of secret medical knowledge of which he could give assurance by the pressure of those lips was truly wonderful. By his lips, also, he could be most exquisitely courteous, or most sternly forbidding. And not only could he be either the one or the other; but he could at his will assume any shade of difference between the two, and produce any mixture of sentiment.

When Dr Fillgrave was first shown into Sir Roger’s dining-room, he walked up and down the room for a while with easy, jaunty step, with his hands joined together behind his back, calculating the price of the furniture, and counting the heads which might be adequately entertained in a room of such noble proportions; but in seven or eight minutes an air of impatience might have been seen to suffuse his face. Why could he not be shown into the sick man’s room? What necessity could there be for keeping him there, as though he were some apothecary with a box of leeches in his pocket? He then rang the bell, perhaps a little violently. ‘Does Sir Roger know that I am here?’ he said to the servant. ‘I’ll tell my lady,’ said the man, again vanishing.

For five minutes more he walked up and down, calculating no longer the value of the furniture, but rather that of his own importance. He was not wont to be kept waiting in this way; and though Sir Roger Scatcherd was at present a great and rich man, Dr Fillgrave had remembered him a very small and a very poor man. He now began to think of Sir Roger as the stone-mason, and to chafe somewhat more violently at being so kept by such a man.

When one is impatient, five minutes is as the duration of all time, and a quarter of an hour is eternity. At the end of twenty minutes the step of Dr Fillgrave up and down the room had become very quick, and he had just made up his mind that he would not stay there all day to the serious detriment, perhaps fatal injury, of his other expectant patients. His hand was again on the bell, and was about to be used with vigour, when the door opened and Lady Scatcherd entered.

‘Oh, laws!’ Such had been her first exclamation on hearing that the doctor was in the dining-room. She was standing at the time with her housekeeper in a small room in which she kept her linen and jam, and in which, in company with the same housekeeper, she spent the happiest moments of her life.

‘Oh laws! now, Hannah, what shall we do?’

‘Send ‘un up at once to master, my lady! let John take ‘un up.’

‘There’ll be such a row in the house, Hannah; I know there will.’

‘But surely didn’t he send for ‘un? Let the master have the row himself, then; that’s what I’d do, my lady,’ added Hannah, seeing that her ladyship still stood trembling in doubt, biting her thumb-nail.

‘You couldn’t go up to the master yourself, could now, Hannah?’ said Lady Scatcherd in her most persuasive tone.

‘Why no,’ said Hannah, after a little deliberation; ‘no, I’m afeard I couldn’t.’

‘Then I must just face it myself.’ And up went the wife to tell her lord that the physician for whom he had sent had come to attend his bidding.

In the interview which then took place the baronet had not indeed been violent, but he had been very determined. Nothing on earth, he said, should induce him to see Dr Fillgrave and offend his dear old friend Dr Thorne.