My Novel Part 129

SQUIRE.--"That's it. You see the captain went to live with one Sharpe Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little liver;--made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you understand. The captain had expectations of the money. Very natural, I dare say; but Lord, sir, what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie has done him. Would not die, Sir; got back his liver, and the captain has lost his own. Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has dismissed the captain, saying, 'He can't bear to have invalids about him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt will have children by the dozen!"

PARSON.--"It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that Mr. Currie recovered; and as he had the selfish inhumanity to make the captain go through a course of waters simultaneously with himself, it has so chanced that the same waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have destroyed Captain Higginbotham's. An English h.o.m.oeopathic physician, then staying at the Spa, has attended the captain hither, and declares that he will restore him by infinitesimal doses of the same chemical properties that were found in the waters which diseased him. Can there be anything in such a theory?"

LEONARD.--"I once knew a very able, though eccentric h.o.m.oeopathist, and I am inclined to believe there may be something in the system. My friend went to Germany; it may possibly be the same person who attends the captain. May I ask his name?"

SQUIRE.--"Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You may ask it of himself, for here we are at his chambers. I say, Parson" (whispering slyly), "if a small dose of what hurt the captain is to cure him, don't you think the proper thing would be a--legacy? Ha! ha!"

PARSON (trying not to laugh).--"Hush, Squire. Poor human nature! We must be merciful to its infirmities. Come in, Leonard."

Leonard, interested in his doubt whether he might thus chance again upon Dr. Morgan, obeyed the invitation, and with his two companions followed the woman, who "did for the captain and his rooms," across the small lobby, into the presence of the sufferer.

CHAPTER III.

Whatever the disposition towards merriment at his cousin's expense entertained by the squire, it vanished instantly at the sight of the captain's doleful visage and emaciated figure.

"Very good in you to come to town to see me,--very good in you, cousin, and in you, too, Mr. Dale. How very well you are both looking! I'm a sad wreck. You might count every bone in my body."

"Hazeldean air and roast beef will soon set you up, my boy," said the squire, kindly. "You were a great goose to leave them, and these comfortable rooms of yours in the Albany."

"They are comfortable, though not showy," said the captain, with tears in his eyes. "I had done my best to make them so. New carpets, this very chair--(morocco!), that j.a.pan cat (holds toast and m.u.f.fins)--just when--just when"--(the tears here broke forth, and the captain fairly whimpered)--"just when that ungrateful, bad-hearted man wrote me word 'he was--was dying and lone in the world;' and--and--to think what I've gone through for him;--and to treat me so! Cousin William, he has grown as hale as yourself, and--and--"

"Cheer up, cheer up!" cried the compa.s.sionate squire. "It is a very hard case, I allow. But you see, as the old proverb says, ''T is ill waiting for a dead man's shoes;' and in future--I don't mean offence--but I think if you would calculate less on the livers of your relations, it would be all the better for your own. Excuse me!"

"Cousin William," replied the poor captain, "I am sure I never calculated; but still, if you had seen that deceitful man's good-for-nothing face--as yellow as a guinea--and have gone through all I've gone through, you would have felt cut to the heart, as I do.

I can't bear ingrat.i.tude. I never could. But let it pa.s.s. Will that gentleman take a chair?"

PARSON.--"Mr. Fairfield has kindly called with us, because he knows something of this system of homeeopathy which you have adopted, and may, perhaps, know the pract.i.tioner. What is the name of your doctor?"

CAPTAIN (looking at his watch).--"That reminds me" (swallowing a globule). "A great relief these little pills--after the physic I've taken to please that malignant man. He always tried his doctor's stuff upon me. But there's another world, and a juster!"

With that pious conclusion the captain again began to weep.

"Touched," muttered the squire, with his forefinger on his forehead.

"You seem to have a good--tidy sort of a nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I hope she 's pleasant, and lively, and don't let you take on so."

"Hist!--don't talk of her. All mercenary; every bit of her fawning!

Would you believe it? I give her ten s.h.i.+llings a week, besides all that goes down of my pats of b.u.t.ter and rolls, and I overheard the jade saying to the laundress that 'I could not last long; and she 'd--EXPECTATIONS!' Ah, Mr. Dale, when one thinks of the sinfulness there is in this life! But I'll not think of it. No, I'll not. Let us change the subject. You were asking my doctor's name. It is--"

Here the woman with "expectations" threw open the door, and suddenly announced "DR. MORGAN."

CHAPTER IV.

The parson started, and so did Leonard.

The h.o.m.oeopathist did not at first notice either. With an un.o.bservant bow to the visitors, he went straight to the patient, and asked, "How go the symptoms?"

Therewith the captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy reciting the catalogue of the s.h.i.+ps in Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single nook or corner in his anatomical organization, so far as the captain was acquainted with that structure, but what some symptom or other was dragged therefrom, and exposed to day. The squire listened with horror to the morbific inventory, muttering at each dread interval, "Bless me!

Lord bless me! What, more still! Death would be a very happy release!"

Meanwhile the doctor endured the recital with exemplary patience, noting down in the leaves of his pocketbook what appeared to him the salient points in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and then, drawing forth a minute paper said,

"Capital,--nothing can be better. This powder must be dissolved in eight tablespoonfuls of water; one spoonful every two hours."

"Tablespoonful?"

"Tablespoonful."

"'Nothing can be better,' did you say, sir?" repeated the squire, who in his astonishment at that a.s.sertion applied to the captain's description of his sufferings, had hitherto hung fire,--"nothing can be better?"

"For the diagnosis, sir!" replied Dr. Morgan.

"For the dogs' noses, very possibly," quoth the squire; "but for the inside of Cousin Higginbotham, I should think nothing could be worse."

"You are mistaken, sir," replied Dr. Morgan. "It is not the captain who speaks here,--it is his liver. Liver, sir, though a n.o.ble, is an imaginative organ, and indulges in the most extraordinary fictions. Seat of poetry and love and jealousy--the liver. Never believe what it says.

You have no idea what a liar it is! But--ahem--ahem. Cott--I think I've seen you before, sir. Surely your name's Hazeldean?"

"William Hazeldean, at your service, Doctor. But where have you seen me?"

"On the hustings at Lansmere. You were speaking on behalf of your distinguished brother, Mr. Egerton."

"Hang it!" cried the squire: "I think it must have been my liver that spoke there! for I promised the electors that that half-brother of mine would stick by the land, and I never told a bigger lie in my life!"

Here the patient, reminded of his other visitors, and afraid he was going to be bored with the enumeration of the squire's wrongs, and probably the whole history of his duel with Captain Dashmore, turned with a languid wave of his hand, and said, "Doctor, another friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. Dale, and a gentleman who is acquainted with h.o.m.oeopathy."

"Dale? What, more old friends!" cried the doctor, rising; and the parson came somewhat reluctantly from the window nook, to which he had retired.

The parson and the h.o.m.oeopathist shook hands.

"We have met before on a very mournful occasion," said the doctor, with feeling.

The parson held his finger to his lips, and glanced towards Leonard. The doctor stared at the lad, but he did not recognize in the person before him the gaunt, care-worn boy whom he had placed with Mr. p.r.i.c.kett, until Leonard smiled and spoke. And the smile and the voice sufficed.

"Cott! and it is the poy!" cried Dr. Morgan; and he actually caught hold of Leonard, and gave him an affectionate Welch hug. Indeed, his agitation at these several surprises became so great that he stopped short, drew forth a globule--"Aconite,--good against nervous shocks!"

and swallowed it incontinently.

"Gad," said the squire, rather astonished, "'t is the first doctor I ever saw swallow his own medicine! There must be something in it."

The captain now, highly disgusted that so much attention was withdrawn from his own case, asked in a querulous voice, "And as to diet? What shall I have for dinner?"

"A friend!" said the doctor, wiping his eyes.

"Zounds!" cried the squire, retreating, "do you mean to say, that the British laws (to be sure they are very much changed of late) allow you to diet your patients upon their fellow-men? Why, Parson, this is worse than the donkey sausages."

"Sir," said Dr. Morgan, gravely, "I mean to say, that it matters little what we eat in comparison with care as to whom we eat with. It is better to exceed a little with a friend than to observe the strictest regimen, and eat alone. Talk and laughter help the digestion, and are indispensable in affections of the liver. I have no doubt, sir, that it was my patient's agreeable society that tended to restore to health his dyspeptic relative, Mr. Sharpe Currie."