Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

"I shall nail up a green baize every night. Oh, Dr. Jemmy, there is a knock at the door! Would you mind seeing who it is – that's a dear?"

Dr. Fox, with a pleasant smile, admitted Dr. Gronow, on his very first visit to the rectory.

"Others not come yet?" asked the elder gentleman, as the trembling housekeeper offered him a chair; "his Reverence would hardly like a pipe here, I suppose. Well, Jemmy, what is your opinion of all this strange affair?"

Mrs. Muggridge had hurried off, with a shiver and a prayer.

"I am mum, before my betters," the young man replied. "The case is gone out of my hands altogether."

"And a good thing for you. I am glad of it for your sake. But we must not anticipate Gowler. I have no business here, except as what the lawyers call Amicus curiæ. By the by, I suppose you have never seen the smallest ground for suspicion of foul play?"

"Never. I should have come to you first, if I had. There could be no possible motive, to begin with; and everybody loves him like a father."

"A man is too fatherly sometimes. One never can understand those foreign women. But you know the family, and I do not. Excuse me for a horrible suggestion. But I have had some very dark experiences."

"And so, no doubt, has Gowler. The idea crossed his brain; but was scattered immediately, when he knew the facts. Hush, here they come! Let us think no more of that."

Mr. Penniloe was tired, and in very low spirits; for he looked upon this meeting as the fatal crisis. After seeing to his visitors, and offering refreshment – which none of them accepted – he took a chair apart, being present as a listener only.

Thereupon Dr. Gowler in very few words gave his view of the case, premising only that he spoke with some doubt, and might well be mistaken, for the symptoms were perplexing, and the malady was one which had not as yet been studied at all exhaustively. His conclusion agreed in the main with that of his young and sagacious coadjutor, though he was enabled, by longer experience, to be perhaps a little more definite. He spoke very well, and with a diffidence which particularly impressed the others, on the part of a man whose judgment was of the very highest authority.

Dr. Gronow immediately confirmed his view, so far as the details at second hand could warrant, and gave his own account of a similar case, where the injury was caused by the handle of a barrow, and continued latent for several years. The unanimous decision was that no hope remained; unless the poor patient would submit to a surgical operation of great difficulty and danger, in the then condition of medical science; and for which it was advisable to have recourse to Paris.

"I know him too well. He will never consent," Mr. Penniloe came forward, and sought from face to face for some gleam of encouragement; "surely there must be some other course, something at least to alleviate – "

"There may be: but we do not know it yet, and I fear that we never shall do so. And for this very sufficient reason" – here Dr. Gowler took a glove from his pocket, and presented a most simple and convincing explanation of the mischief that had happened, and the consequence that must of necessity ensue, without surgical redress. Even that he admitted was of very doubtful issue, in plain English – "either kill, or cure."

The Parson sighed heavily, and even Dr. Fox was too much affected to say a word; but the elder physicians seemed to think it right and natural, and a credit to their science, that they knew so much about it. Gowler and Gronow were becoming mighty friends – so far as two men of the world care to indulge – and the great London doctor accepted with pleasure the offer of a day's fly-fishing.

"I have not thrown a fly, since I was quite a boy," he said.

"And I never threw a fly, till I was an old man," said the other; and their host knew well which would have the better chance, though he felt a little vexed at their light arrangements.

"It is not for the sake of the fishing, my dear fellow," Dr. Gowler assured him, when the other two were gone; "I was to have left you in the morning, as you know; and I have not had such a holiday for seven years. I positively needed it, and shall be twice the man. But I felt that I ought to stay one day longer, to give you one more chance of persuading poor Sir Thomas. See how handsomely he has behaved – I mean, according to country notions; though I often make more in one day, in Town. He slipped this into my hand, sealed up; and I did not refuse it, for fear of a fuss. But you will return it, when I am in the coach, and explain, with my kind regards, that it is against my rule to take any fee, upon a visit to a friend. I came to renew our old friendship only, and from my great regard for you. We do not think alike, upon the greatest of all matters. Perhaps that is better for your happiness than mine. But after all my knowledge of the world, I do believe that the best friends are those, who are like you."

Mr. Penniloe took the cheque for fifty guineas, and placed it in his desk, without a word; for he knew his friend's character too well to argue. Then he shook him very warmly by the hand, and said "Good night."

But as he sank back in his chair to reflect, and examine himself of the bygone day, he hoped that his ears had deceived him that night, in a matter which had shocked him sadly. Unless they had erred, Dr. Gronow had said – "In a case of this kind, for the advance of knowledge, autopsy should be compulsory." And Harrison Gowler had replied – "Exactly so; but in this benighted part, I suppose it is impossible."

CHAPTER VII.

R. I. P

"Oh, Mr. Sergeant, how you did alarm me!" cried a very pretty damsel one fine October evening, as she almost fell upon the breast of "High Jarks," from some narrow stone steps at the corner of a lane. She was coming by the nearest way to the upper village, from the side-entrance to Walderscourt, a picturesque way but a rough one. For the lane was overhung, and even overwhelmed, with every kind of hindrance to the proper course of trade. Out of the sides, and especially at corners, where the right of way should have been most sacred, jutted forth obstacles most inconsiderate, or even of set purpose, malicious. If a great stool of fern could be treated as nothing, even with its jagged saws quivering, or a flexible ash could be shoved aside lightly, with the cowardly knowledge that it had no thorns; yet in ambush with their spears couched, would be the files of furze, the barbed brigade of holly, or the stiff picket of blackthorn. And any man, engaged with these deliveries of the moment, might thank his stars (when visible through the tangle overhead) if by any chance he missed a blinding thump in both his eyes.

Alas, it would have been indeed a blessing, as well as a just correction, for the well-seasoned master of the youth of Perlycross, if a benevolent switch from the hedgerow had taken him sharply in the eyes, that had so long descried nothing but motes in more tender orbs. As the young maid drew back from the warlike arm, which had been quite obliged to encircle her, one flash of her eyes entered those of Mr. Jakes; and he never saw again as he had seen before.

But his usual composure was not gone yet. A true schoolmaster is well assured, whatever the circumstance may be, that he is in the right, and all others in the wrong.

"I beg you will offer no apologies, Miss," he began with a very gracious smile, as he rubbed up the nap of his old velvet coat where a wicked boy had tallow-candled it: "I take it that you are a stranger here, and not quite familiar with our kind of road. The roads about here have a manner of showing that they know not in what direction they are going?"

"But, Mr. Sergeant, don't you know me? Not so very long ago, I ran up this very lane, over the plank-bridge, and up to this heling, because of the temper you were in. It was my brother Watty you wanted to catch: but you flourished your cane so, that the girls ran too. But you would not have beaten poor me, Mr. Sergeant?"

She skipped back a step or two, as if still afraid, and curtsied to show her pretty figure, and managed to let her bright hair fall down over the blush of her soft round cheeks. Then she lifted her eyes with the sweetest appeal; for the fair Tamar Haddon was a born coquette.

"Why, Tamar, my dear, can it possibly be you? I could never have supposed that you would come to this. You were always the prettiest child among the girls. But, as you know, I had nothing to do with them. My business has always been with the boys."

"And quite right, Mr. Sergeant – they are so much better, so much quicker to learn, as well as better-looking, and more interesting!"

"That depends upon who it may be," said Mr. Jakes judicially; "some girls are much better at round-hand, as well as arithmetic. But why have I lost sight of you all these years? And why have you grown such a – well, such a size?"

"Oh, you are rude! I am not a size at all. I thought that you always learned politeness in the wars. I am only seventeen round the waist – but you shan't see. No, no, stick you to the boys, Mr. Sergeant. I must be off. I didn't come out for pleasure. Good evening, sir; good evening to you!"

"Don't be in such a hurry, Miss Haddon. Don't you know when I used to give you sugar-plums out of this horn box? And if I may say it without offence, you are much too pretty to be in this dark place, without somebody to take care of you."

"Ah, now you are more like the Army again. There is nothing like a warrior, in my opinion. Oh, what a plague these brambles are! Would you mind just holding my hat for a moment? I mustn't go into the village, such a fright, or everybody will stare at me. My hair is such a trouble, I have half a mind sometimes to cut off every snip of it. No, no, you can't help me; men are much too clumsy."

Mr. Jakes was lost in deep admiration, and Tamar Haddon knew it well, and turned away to smile, as she sat upon a bank of moss, drawing her long tresses through the supple play of fingers and the rosy curve of palms; while her cherry lips were pouting and her brown eyes sparkling, in and out the golden shower from her saucy forehead. The schoolmaster held her little hat, and watched every movement of her hands and eyes, and wondered; for the gaiety of girlhood, and the blushes and the glances were as the opening of a new world to him.

"I know what you are thinking now, it's no good to deny it," she cried as she jumped up, and snatched her hat away; "you are saying to yourself – 'What a poor vain creature! Servants' hats are not allowed in well-conducted households.' But you must understand that I am not a common servant. I am a private lady's-maid to her ladyship, the Countess; and she has none of your old-fashioned English ways about her. She likes to see me look – well, perhaps you would not call it 'pretty,' for that depends upon the wearer, and I have no pretension to it – but tidy, and decent, and tolerably nice – "

"Wonderfully nice, and as lovely as a rose."

"Oh, Mr. Sergeant, you who must know so much better! But I have no time for such compliments, and they would turn my little head, from such a learned man as you are. How can I think of myself for a moment, when things are so dreadful? Poor Sir Thomas – you know how ill he is; he is longing for something, and I am sent to fetch it on the sly, so that Dr. Fox should have no idea, but her ladyship says that it can do no harm, now."

"What, the poor Colonel waiting, Miss, and I have kept you all this time? I was just on my way to enquire for him, when – when I happened to meet you. I can scarcely believe in any doctor conquering him."

"They are though – they are doing it. He is very low to-day. They seem to have brought him down to a flat knock-under, just as you do with the schoolboys. I can't hardly think of it, without crying."

The fair Tamar dropped her eyes, and hung her head a little, and then looked softly at the veteran, to plead for his warmest sympathy.

"There, I declare to you, I have cried so much that I can't cry no more," she continued with a sigh; "but it is a calf's sweetbread that I be bound to get; and where from, I'd like to know, unless it is to Mr. Robert's."

A pang shot through the heart of Mr. Jakes, and if his cane had been at hand he would have grasped it. For Mr. Robert was his own brother, the only butcher in the village, a man of festive nature (as a butcher ought to be), of no habitual dignity – and therefore known as "Low Jarks" – a favourite with the fair sex, and worst of all, some twenty years the junior of "High Jarks."

"What, young Bobby!" cried the Sergeant, striking out, "there is nothing that he knows worth speaking of. And what is more to the purpose, he never will know nothing. I mean to say 'anything.' Sometimes I go back from all my instructions all over the world, to the way – to the way you talk, in this part of the world."

"But, Mr. Sergeant, that is only natural; considering that you belong to this part of the world. Now, you do – don't you? However learned you may be."

"Well, I will not deny that it comes up sometimes. A man of my years – I mean, a young man by age, and yet one who has partaken in great motions, feels himself so very much above butchers' shops, and the like of them. And all the women – or as they call themselves now – all the ladies of the neighbourhood, have now been so well educated, that they think a great deal of the difference."

"To be sure," said Tamar Haddon, "I can quite see that. But how could they get their meat, without the butchers' shops? Some people are too learned, Mr. Sergeant."

"I know it, Miss. But I am very particular, not to let any one say it of me. I could quote Latin, if I chose: but who would put a spill to my pipe afterwards? One must never indulge in all one knows."

"Well, it does seem a pity, after spending years about it. But here we are, come to the river-side at last. You mustn't think of coming across the plank with me. It would never do to have you drownded; and you know what Betty Cork is. Why, all the boys to Perlycross would be making mouths to-morrow? And I shall go home along the turnpike-road."

The schoolmaster saw the discretion of this. Charmed as he was with this gay young maid, he must never forget what was thought of him.