A Woman-Hater Part 60

He hurried off, and Lord Uxmoor felt a certain relief.

The Master of Arts asked himself what he could do to propitiate the female M. D. He went to the gardener and got him to cut a huge bouquet, choice and fragrant, and he carried it all the way to Hillstoke. Miss Gale was at home. As he was introduced rather suddenly, she started and changed color, and said, sharply, "What do you want?" Never asked him to sit down, rude Thing!

He stood hanging his head like a culprit, and said, with well-feigned timidity, that he came, by desire of Miss Vizard, to inquire how she was getting on, and to hope the people were beginning to appreciate her.

"Oh! that alters the case; any messenger from Miss Vizard is welcome. Did she send me those flowers, too? They are beautiful."

"No. I gathered them myself. I have always understood ladies loved flowers."

"It is only by report you know that, eh? Let me add something to your information: a good deal depends on the giver; and you may fling these out of the window." She tossed them to him.

The Master of Arts gave a humble, patient sigh, and threw the flowers out of the window, which was open. He then sunk into a chair and hid his face in his hands.

Miss Gale colored, and bit her lip. She did not think he would have done that, and it vexed her economical soul. She cast a piercing glance at him, then resumed her studies, and ignored his presence.

But his patience exhausted hers. He sat there twenty minutes, at least, in a state of collapse that bid fair to last forever.

So presently she looked up and affected to start. "What! are you there still?" said she.

"Yes," said be; "you did not dismiss me; only my poor flowers."

"Well," said she, apologetically, "the truth is, I'm not strong enough to dismiss you by the same road."

"It is not necessary. You have only to say, 'Go.'"

"Oh, that would be rude. Could not you go without being told right out?"

"No, I could not. Miss Gale, I can't account for it, but there is some strange attraction. You hate me, and I fear you, yet I could follow you about like a dog. Let me sit here a little longer and see you work."

Miss Gale leaned her head upon her hand, and contemplated him at great length. Finally she adopted a cat-like course. "No," said she, at last; "I am going my rounds: you can come with me, if I am so attractive."

He said he should be proud, and she put on her hat in thirty seconds.

They walked together in silence. He felt as if he were promenading a tiger cat, that might stop any moment to fall upon him.

She walked him into a cottage: there was a little dead wood burning on that portion of the brick floor called the hearth. A pale old man sat close to the fire, in a wooden armchair. She felt his pulse, and wrote him a prescription.

"To Mr. Vizard's housekeeper, Vizard Court:

"Please give the bearer two pounds of good roast beef or mutton, not salted, and one pint port wine,

"RHODA GALE, M. D."

"Here, Jenny," she said to a sharp little girl, the man's grandniece, "take this down to Vizard Court, and if the housekeeper objects, go to the front-door and demand in my name to see the squire or Miss Vizard, and give _them_ the paper. Don't you give it up without the meat. Take this basket on your arm."

Then she walked out of the cottage, and Severne followed her: he ventured to say that was a novel prescription.

She explained. "Physicians are obliged to send the rich to the chemist, or else the fools would think they were slighted. But we need not be so nice with the poor; we can prescribe to do them good. When you inflicted your company on me, I was sketching out a treatise, to be ent.i.tled, 'Cure of Disorders by Esculents.' That old man is nearly exsanguis. There is not a drug in creation that could do him an atom of good. Nouris.h.i.+ng food may. If not, why, he is booked for the long journey. Well, he has had his innings. He is fourscore. Do you think _you_ will ever see fourscore--you and your vices?"

"Oh, no. But I think _you_ will; and I hope so; for you go about doing good."

"And some people one could name go about doing mischief?"

Severne made no reply.

Soon after they discovered a little group, princ.i.p.ally women and children. These were inspecting something on the ground, and chattering excitedly. The words of dire import, "She have possessed him with a devil," struck their ear. But soon they caught sight of Miss Gale, and were dead silent. She said, "What is the matter? Oh, I see, the vermifuge has acted."

It was so: a putty-faced boy had been unable to eat his breakfast; had suffered malaise for hours afterward, and at last had been seized with a sort of dry retching, and had restored to the world they so adorn a number of amphibia, which now wriggled in a heap, and no doubt bitterly regretted the reckless impatience with which they had fled from an unpleasant medicine to a cold-hearted world.

"Well, good people," said Miss Gale, "what are you making a fuss about?

Are they better in the boy or out of him?"

The women could not find their candor at a moment's notice, but old Giles replied heartily, "Why, hout! better an empty house than a bad tenant."

"That is true," said half a dozen voices at once. They could resist common sense in its liquid form, but not when solidified into a proverb.

"Catch me the boy," said Miss Gale, severely.

Habitual culpability destroys self-confidence; so the boy suspected himself of crime, and instantly took to flight. His companions loved hunting; so three swifter boys followed him with a cheerful yell, secured him, and brought him up for sentence.

"Don't be frightened, Jacob," said the doctress. "I only want to know whether you feel better or worse."

His mother put in her word: "He was ever so bad all the morning."

"Hold your jaw," said old Giles, "and let the boy tell his own tale."

"Well, then," said Jacob, "I was mortal bad, but now do I feel like a feather; wust on't is, I be so blessed hungry now. Dall'd if I couldn't eat the devil--stuffed with thunder and lightning."

"I'll prescribe accordingly," said Miss Gale, and wrote in pencil an order on a beefsteak pie they had sent her from the Court.

The boy's companions put their heads together over this order, and offered their services to escort him.

"No, thank you," said the doctress. "He will go alone, you young monkeys.

Your turn will come."

Then she proceeded on her rounds, with Mr. Severne at her heels, until it was past one o'clock.

Then she turned round and faced him. "We will part here," said she, "and I will explain my conduct to you, as you seem in the dark. I have been co-operating with Miss Vizard all this time. I reckon she sent you out of the way to give Lord Uxmoor his opportunity, so I have detained you.

While you have been studying medicine, he has been popping the question, of course. Good-by, Mr. Villain."

Her words went through the man like cold steel. It was one woman reading another. He turned very white, and put his hand to his heart. But he recovered himself, and said, "If she prefers another to me, I must submit. It is not my absence for a few hours that will make the difference. You cannot make me regret the hours I have pa.s.sed in your company. Good-by," and he seemed to leave her very reluctantly.

"One word," said she, softening a little. "I'm not proof against your charm. Unless I see Zoe Vizard in danger, you have nothing to fear from me. But I love _her,_ you understand."

He returned to her directly, and said, in most earnest, supplicating tones, "But will you ever forgive me?"

"I will try."