The House by the Church-Yard Part 76

After a while, Toole, absolutely pale, and looking very stern, opened the door, and, said he, in a quiet way--

'Ma'am, may I send Katty down to the King's House, with a note to Mr.--a note to the King's House, Ma'am--I thank you--and see, Katty, good girl, ask to see the gentleman himself, and take his answer from his own lips.'

And he tore off the back of a letter, and pencilled on it these words--

'MY DEAR SIR,--Dr. Sturk has been successfully operated upon by me and another gentleman; and being restored to speech and recollection, but very weak, desires earnestly to see you, and make an important disclosure to you as a justice of the peace.

'I am, Sir, your very obedient, humble servant, 'THOMAS TOOLE.

Upon this note he clapt a large seal with the Toole arms, and when it was complete, placed it in the hands of Katty, who, with her riding-hood on and her head within it teeming with all sorts of wild conjectures and horrible images, and her whole soul in a whirl of curiosity, hurried along the dark street, now and then glinted on by a gleam through a shutter, or enlivened by the jingle of a harpsichord, or a s.n.a.t.c.h of talk and laughter heard faintly through the windows, and along the Dublin-road to the gate of the King's House. The hall-door of this hospitable mansion stood open, and a flood of red candle-light fell upon one side of the gray horse, saddle, and holster pipes, which waited the descent of Mr. Lowe, who was shaking hands with the hospitable colonel at the threshold.

Katty was just in time, and the booted gentleman, in his surtout and cape, strode back again into the light of the hall-door, and breaking the seal, there read, with his clear cold eye, the lines which Toole had pencilled, and thrusting it into his coat pocket, and receiving again the fuddled butler's benedictions--he had given him half-a-crown--he mounted his gray steed, and at a brisk trot, followed by his servant, was, in little more than two minutes' time, at Dr. Sturk's door.

Moore, the barber, _functus officio_, was now sitting in the hall, with his razors in his pocket, expecting his fee, and smelling pleasantly of the gla.s.s of whiskey which he had just drunk to the health and long life of the master--G.o.d bless him--and all the family.

Doctor Toole met Mr. Lowe on the lobby; he was doing the honours of the ghastly eclairciss.e.m.e.nt, and bowed him up to the room, with many an intervening whisper, and a sort of apology for Dillon, whom he treated as quite unpresentable, and resolved to keep as much as practicable in the background.

But that gentleman, who exulted in a good stroke of surgery, and had no sort of professional delicacy, calling his absent fathers and brethren of the scalpel and forceps by confounded hard names when he detected a blunder or hit a blot of theirs, met Mr. Lowe on the upper lobby.

'Your servant, Sir,' said he, rubbing his great red hands with a moist grin; 'you see what I've done. Pell's no surgeon, no more than that--(Toole, he was going to say, but modified the comparison in time)--that candlestick! to think of him never looking at the occiput; and _he_ found lying on his back--'twas well Mr. Dangerfield pitched on me--though I say it--why _shouldn't_ I say it--a depression, the size of a s.h.i.+lling in the back of the head--a bit of depressed bone, you see, over the cerebellum--the trepan has relieved him.'

'And was it Mr. Dangerfield?' enquired Lowe, who was growing to admire that prompt, cynical hero more and more every hour.

'By gannies, it just was. He promised me five hundred guineas to make him speak. What all them solemn a.s.ses could not compa.s.s, that's sweeping in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh!

He had heard of a rake-h.e.l.ly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and he came to me--and I done it--Black Dillon done it--ha, ha! that's for the pack of them. Baugh!'

Doctor Dillon knew that the profession slighted him; and every man's hand against him, his was against every man.

Sturk was propped up and knew Lowe, and was, in a ghastly sort of way, glad to see him. He looked strangely pale and haggard, and spoke faintly.

'Take pen and ink,' said he.

There were both and paper ready.

'He would not speak till you came,' whispered Toole, who looked hotter than usual, and felt rather small, and was glad to edge in a word.

'An' don't let him talk too long; five minutes or so, and no more,' said Doctor Dillon; 'and give him another spoonful now--and where's Mr.

Dangerfield?'

'And do you really mean to say, Sir, he promised you a fee of _five_--eh?' said Toole, who could not restrain his somewhat angry curiosity.

'Five hundred guineas--ha, ha, ha! be gannies, Sir, there's a power of divarsion in that.'

''Tis a munificent fee, and prompted by a fine public spirit. We are all his debtors for it! and to you, Sir, too. He's an early man, Sir, I'm told. You'll not see him to-night. But, whatever he has promised is already performed; you may rely on his honour.'

'If you come out at nine in the morning, Dr. Dillon, you'll find him over his letters and desk, in his breakfast parlour,' said Toole, who, apprehending that this night's work might possibly prove a hit for the disreputable and savage luminary, was treating him, though a good deal stung and confounded by the prodigious amount of the fee, with more ceremony than he did at first. 'Short accounts, you know,' said Dillon, locking the lid of his case down upon his instruments. 'But maybe, as you say, 'tis best to see him in the morning--them rich fellows is often testy--ha! ha! An' a word with you, Dr. Toole,' and he beckoned his brother aside to the corner near the door--and whispered something in his ear, and laughed a little awkwardly, and Toole, very red and grave, lent him--with many misgivings, two guineas.

'An' see--don't let them give him too much of that--the chicken broth's too sthrong--put some wather to that, Miss, i' you plaze--and give him no more to-night--d'ye mind--than another half a wine-gla.s.s full of clar't unless the docthor here tells you.'

So Dr. Dillon took leave, and his fiery steeds, whirling him onward, devoured, with their resounding hoofs, the road to Dublin, where he had mentally devoted Toole's two guineas to the pagan divinities whose wors.h.i.+p was nightly celebrated at the old St. Columbkill.

'We had best have it in the shape of a deposition, Sir, at once,' said Lowe, adjusting himself at the writing-table by the bed-side, and taking the pen in his fingers, he looked on the stern and sunken features of the resuscitated doctor, recalled, as it were, from 'the caverns of the dead and the gates of darkness,' to reveal an awful secret, and point his cold finger at the head of the undiscovered murderer.

'Tell it as shortly as you can, Sir, but without haste,' said Toole, with his finger on his pulse. Sturk looked dismal and frightened, like a man with the hangman at his elbow.

'It was that d--d villain--Charles Archer--write that down--'twas a foul blow--Sir, I'm murdered--I suppose.'

And then came a pause.

'Give me a spoonful of wine--I was coming out of town at dusk--this evening--'

'No, Sir; you're here some time, stunned and unconscious.'

'Eh! how long?'

'No matter, Sir, now. Just say the date of the night it happened.'

Sturk uttered a deep groan.

'Am I dying?' said he.

'No, Sir, please goodness--far from it,' said Toole.

'Fracture?' asked Sturk, faintly.

'Why--yes--something of the sort--indeed--altogether a fracture; but going on mighty well, Sir.'

'Stabbed anywhere--or gunshot wound?' demanded Sturk.

'Nothing of the kind, Sir, upon my honour.'

'You think--I have a chance?' and Sturk's cadaverous face was moist with the dews of an awful suspense.

'Chance,' said Toole, in an encouraging tone, 'well, I suppose you have, Sir--ha, ha! But, you know, you must not tire yourself, and we hope to have you on your legs again, Sir, in a reasonable time.'

'I'm very bad--the sight's affected,' groaned Sturk.

'See, Sir, you tire yourself to no purpose. You're in good hands, Sir--and all will go well--as we expect--Pell has been with you twice--'

'H'm! Pell--that's good.'

'And you're going on mighty well, Sir, especially to-night.'

'Doctor, upon your honour, have I a chance?'

'You have, Sir,--certainly--yes--upon my honour.'

'Thank G.o.d!' groaned Sturk, turning up the whites of his eyes, and lifting up two very shaky hands.