The Man with a Shadow

“Mr Candlish is a gentleman,” cried Leo fiercely.

“People call him so, and his brother by the same name, because of the old family property; but if they are gentlemen, thank Heaven I am a poor curate!”

“Your conduct – ”

“Hush!” said the curate firmly. “We will say no more about this, Leo, my dear. You are angry without cause. I have acceded to your request for a fresh horse, so as to indulge you in your love of hunting, and at more cost than you imagine. I shall always be glad to do anything that I can to make my sisters happy; but I must be judge and master here, though I fear I am often very weak.”

“It is insufferable,” cried Leo indignantly; and she raised quite a little whirlwind as she swept out of the room.

The curate sighed, and sank back in his chair with his brow knit, till he felt a soft arm encircle his neck and a rounded cheek rest against his temple.

“Ah!” he exclaimed; “that’s better;” and he passed his arm round the graceful form. “This is very sad, Mary. But, there; we will not brood over it; difficulties often settle themselves.”

“Yes, Hartley.”

“But that Candlish business must not go on.”

“No, Hartley. It is impossible.”

She kissed his forehead, and the breakfast was finished in silence – supposed to be finished. It had really ended when Leo Salis quitted the room.

It was about an hour later that as the Reverend Hartley Salis was hard at work over his sermon, striving his best to keep out college lore, and to write in language that the Duke’s Hampton villagers could easily understand, that he came to the sentence following —

“Now a man’s duty, my friends – and a woman’s” – he added parenthetically.

“Now, what shall I tell them a man’s duty is – and a woman’s?”

That required thought, and he laid down his pen, rose, and walked to the study window, to look out on the pleasant landscape; beautiful still, though not in the most goodly time of year.

“Obedience!” he cried angrily, for just passing out of the little rustic gate at the bottom of the Rectory grounds he saw his sister Leo.

She was in hat and cloak. Her movements were rapid, and the furtive look she darted back told tales.

“No,” said the curate; “it would be spying. I cannot.”

“It is your duty,” something seemed to whisper to him.

“Perhaps I am contemptibly mean and suspicious,” he muttered. “I hope I am. If it is so, I’ll – No, no, no, Hartley, my son! Recollect what you are. Such as the bishop should be, such must you be – no brawler – no striker. No: it must be a favourable opportunity for a quiet chat with Leo, for we cannot go on like this, poor child.”

He went into the hall, took down his hat, reached a stout cudgel-like stick which his hand gripped firmly, as his nerves tingled, while his left hand clenched, and felt as if it were grasping some one by the collar.

“A scoundrel!” he muttered.

“Going out, dear?”

“Ah, Mary! You there! You go about like a mouse. Yes, I’ve just got to ‘a man’s duty is’ in my sermon, and can’t get any farther, so I’ll go as far as Red Cliff Wood and back for a refresher.”

He nodded and went out.

“Poor Mary!” he muttered; “she must not know; but if I had stayed a minute longer she would have found me out. Now, Master Tom Candlish, if you are there, I’ll – ”

He gave himself a sharp slap on the mouth.

“Steady! Man, man, man! how you do forget your cloth! But if Tom Candlish – Pish! Steady, man! Let’s go and see.”

Mary Salis stood in the deep old mullioned window, gazing after him.

“Hartley never leaves and speaks like that unless there is something wrong,” she said to herself. “If that wretched man has persuaded Leo – she has just gone out – without a word. Oh, no, no! she would not do such a thing as that. How I do picture troubles where there are none!”

She stood watching until her brother disappeared, and then went back into the dining-room, telling herself that it was folly, but her heart refused to be convinced, and set up a low, heavy, ominous throb.

Chapter Two.

Dr North Gets in Hot Water

“Yah!”

A virtuous mob’s war-cry. The favourite ejaculation of the unwashed scoundrels who are always ready to redress grievances and hunt down their fellow-creatures for the crimes they glory in themselves – when they can commit them safely.

There is always a large floating contingent ready for this duty, and also – to use their own expression – “to have a go at any think;” and upon several occasions they had had “a go” at the lecture-room of St. Sector’s Hospital, Florsbury, the consequence of such “goes” being that the neighbouring glaziers had a large job; but the authorities preferred to content themselves with keeping out the wind and water, and left the exterior unpainted, showing the stone dents, chipped paint, and batterings of the insensate crew of virtuous beings who revel in destruction whenever they have a chance.

The “Yahoos” had their own theory about St. Sector’s, and allowed themselves to smoulder for a time, but every now and then they burst forth into eruption, and then the consequences were not pleasant to behold.

Lecture night at St. Sector’s, and a goodly gathering present to witness an operation performed by one of the greatest surgical savants of the day. There were medical students present, but some of the cleverest surgeons of London and the country had made a point of being there to see the operation and learn how to combat a terrible disease which, up to that date, had been considered certain death to the unfortunate being who contracted that ill.

The old savant had thought, had experimented, and had given years of his life to studying that evil, and now, having proclaimed the result of his discoveries, and coming as the announcement did from a man of such weight in the profession, a strong band of the lights of surgical science had gathered together to witness the experiment; and also hear a paper read by a young surgeon from the country – Dr Horace North.

Precedence was given to the paper, and a keen, intelligent, handsome young man of thirty stepped up to the lecturer’s table with a roll of papers in his hand. He looked rather pale, and there was a slight twitching at the corners of his lips as he bowed to his audience, after a few words of introduction from the grey-haired chairman of the evening. Then the buzz of conversation, which had ceased for a few moments, began again.

He felt that he had a task before him, that of stopping a gap in front of which an eager crowd were ready to clamour for the treat they had come to hear. Dr Horace North was nothing to them, and the young students voted his paper a bore.

He began to read in a calm, clear voice, expounding his views, and the buzz of voices increased as first one and then another page was read and turned over, scarcely a word being heard.

He stopped and poured out a glass of water, and the carafe was heard to clatter against the glass as the lecturer’s hand trembled.

This was the signal for a titter, which was repeated by some thoughtless student, as the reading was resumed without the water being tasted.

Then five minutes of painful reading ensued, with the buzz of voices increasing.

There was a sudden stoppage, and all were attentive.

For, with an angry gesture, the young doctor rolled up his papers, threw them aside, and took a step forward.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, in a voice which rang through the theatre, “I am addressing you who in the conceit of youth believe that there is little more to learn, and who have treated my reading with such contempt.”

“Hear, hear!” cried the old chairman.

Those two encouraging words touched the speaker, and, with a dramatic earnestness of manner, he exclaimed: