<h2> <SPAN name="XXXI"> </SPAN> CHAPTER XXXI. <br/><br/> <span class="small"> THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS. </span> </h2>
<p>"In all my life I never knew such a very extraordinary thing," said
Squire Oglander on the following Tuesday, to his old friend Dr.
Splinters. "Why, look you here, he was wholly given up by the very
first man in London—that the poor young fellow was—can you deny
that, Splinters?"</p>
<p>"Well, between you and me and the door-post, Squire," answered his
learned visitor, "I am not quite so sure that Sir Anthony is quite the
rose and crown of the profession. He may be a great Court card and all
that, and the rage with all the nobility; but for all that, Squire,
there are good men in comparatively obscure positions; men who have
devoted their lives to science from the purest motives; modest men,
sir, who are thankful to pocket their poor guinea; men who would scorn
any handle to their name or any shabby interloping; sir, I say there
are d——d good men——"</p>
<p>"But even you, Splinters, come now—even you gave him up—unless we
are wholly misinformed."</p>
<p>"Not at all. That was quite a mistake. The fact was simply this. When
Sir Anthony pronounced his opinion at our last consultation, it was
not my place to contradict him—we never do that with a London
man—but I ventured in my own mind to differ even from our brilliant
light, sir. For I said to myself, 'first see the effect of the
remedial agent which I myself, in the absence of this Londoner, have
exhibited.' I was suddenly called away to retrieve a case of shocking
blundering by a quack at Iffley. That was why you did not see me,
Squire."</p>
<p>"Oh, yes, to be sure! I quite see now," answered Mr. Oglander, with a
quiet internal wink. "And when you came you found the most wonderful
effect from your remedial agent."</p>
<p>"That I did. Something I could scarcely have believed. Soft sweet
sleep, a genial perspiration, an equable pulse, nice gentle
breathing—the very conditions of hygiene which Sir Anthony's efforts
could never produce. Why, my good sir, in all the records of the
therapeutic art, there is no example of such rapid efficacy. I think
it will henceforth be acknowledged that Dr. Splinters knows what he is
about. My dear friend, you know that there is nothing I dislike so
much as the appearance of vaunting. If I had only condescended to
that, nobody could have stopped me, sir. But no, Squire, no; I have
always been the same; and I have not an enemy, except myself."</p>
<p>"You may say more than that, sir—a great deal more than that. You may
say that you have many friends, doctor, who admire your great
abilities. But as to Russel Overshute, if the poor fellow does come
round the general belief will be that he must thank the fire-bell."</p>
<p>"The fire-bell! My dear sir, in this age of advanced
therapeutics—Oglander, you must know better than to listen to that
low story!"</p>
<p>"Splinters, I know that foolish tales are told about almost
everything. But being there myself, I thought there might be something
in it."</p>
<p>"Nothing whatever! I never heard such nonsense! I was quite angry with
Esther Cripps. What can chits of girls know? They must have their
chatter."</p>
<p>"I suppose they must," said the Squire sadly, thinking of his own dear
Grace; "still they may be right sometimes. At any rate, doctor, the
fire-bell did as much good as your medicine did. Take another glass of
wine. I would not hurt your feelings for the world, my dear old
friend."</p>
<p>"Oglander," answered Dr. Splinters, putting up his great gold
spectacles, so that beneath them he might see—for he never could see
through them—how to pour out his fine glass of port, "Oglander, you
have something or other that you are keeping in the background.
Squire, whatever it is, out with it. Between you and me, sir, there
should be nothing but downright yes or no, Mr. Oglander. Downright yes
or no, sir."</p>
<p>"Of course, of course," said the Squire, relapsing into some quiet
mood again; "that was how I always liked it. Splinters, you must know
I did. And I never meant anything against it, by bringing this here
little bottle back. It may have saved the poor boy's life; and of
course it did, if you say so. But the seal is still on the cork, and
the stuff all there; so it may do good again. I dare say the good came
through the glass; you doctors have such devices!" Mr. Oglander took a
small square bottle from his inner peculiar pocket, and gave it to the
doctor, so as not to disturb his wine-glass.</p>
<p>"How the deuce did you get hold of this?" cried Splinters, being an
angry man when taken without notice; "this is some of that girl's
insolent tricks!—I call her an insolent and wicked girl!"</p>
<p>"I call her a good and a brave girl!—the very best girl in Beckley,
since—but, my dear Splinters, you must not be vexed. She told me that
you had the greatest faith in this last idea of yours; and it struck
me at once that you might wish to try it in some other case; and so I
brought it. You see it has not been opened."</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter whether it was used or not," cried Dr. Splinters
vehemently; "there is the stuff, sir; and here is the result! Am I to
understand, sir, that you deny the existence of Providence?"</p>
<p>"Far be such a thing from me!" the Squire replied, with a little
indignation at such an idea; and then, remembering that Splinters was
his guest, he changed the subject. "How could I help having faith in
the Lord, when I see His care made manifest? Why, look at me,
Splinters; I am twice the man I was last Sunday morning! Why is it so?
Why, because it pleased a gracious Providence to make it my duty, as a
man, to ride!—to ride, sir, a very considerable distance, on a mare
who had been eating her head off. Every one vowed that I never could
do it; and my good housekeeper locked me in; and when I unscrewed the
lock, she sent two men after me, to pick me up. Very good, sir; here I
am, enjoying my glass of port, with the full intention of having
another. Yesterday I sent to our road-contractor for a three-headed
and double-handed hammer; and Kale smashed up, in about two minutes,
three hundred and twenty medicine bottles! They will come in for the
top of the orchard wall."</p>
<p>"Squire," answered Splinters, with a twinkling eye, "it is not at all
improbable that you may be right. There are some constitutions so
perverse that to exhibit the best remedial agent is just the same
thing as to reason with a pig. But it is high time for me to be
jogging on my road. If Beckley and Shotover discard my extremely
humble services, there are other places in the world, sir, besides
Beckley and Shotover."</p>
<p>"There is no other place in the world for you, except Beckley, for
some hours, my friend. We have known one another long enough, to allow
for one another now. I would have arranged a rubber for you—but,
but—well, you know what I mean—sadly selfish; but I cannot help it."</p>
<p>The doctor, though vain and irritable, was easily touched with
softness. He thought of all his many children, and of the long pain he
had felt at losing one out of a dozen; then without process of thought
he felt for the loss of one; where one was all.</p>
<p>"Oglander, you need not say another word," he answered, putting forth
his hand, to squeeze any trifle away between them. "A rubber in winter
is all very well; and so it is in summer, at the proper time, but on a
magnificent spring evening, to watch the sunset between one's cards is
not—I mean that it is very nice indeed, but still it ought scarcely
to be done, when you can help it. Now, I will just take the leastest
little drop of your grand Curaçoa before I smoke; and then if you have
one of those old Manillas, I am your man for a stroll in the garden."</p>
<p>To go into a garden in good weather soothes the temper. The freedom of
getting out of doors is a gracious joy to begin with; and when the
first blush of that is past, without any trouble there come forward so
many things to be looked at. Even since yesterday—if we had the good
hap to see them yesterday—many thousand of little things have spent
the time in changing. Even with the weather scarcely different from
yesterday's—though differ it must in some small points, when in its
most consistent mood—even with no man to come and dig, and fork, and
roll, and by all human devices harass; and even without any children
dancing, plucking, pulling, trampling, and enjoying their blessed
little hearts, as freely as any flower does; yet in the absence of all
those local contributions towards variety, variety there will be for
all who have the time to look for it.</p>
<p>The most observant and delightful poets of the present age, instead of
being masters of nature, prefer to be nature's masters. Having
obtained this power they use it with such diligence and spirit, that
they make the peach and the apple bloom together, and the plum keep
the kalendar of the lilac. Once in a way, such a thing does almost
happen (without the poet's aid)—that is to say, when a long cold
winter is broken by a genial outburst waking every dormant life; and
after that, a repressive chill returns, and lasts to the May month. At
such a time, when hope deferred springs anew as hope assured, and fear
breaks into fluttering joy, and faith moves steadily into growth, then
a truly poetic confusion arises in the works of earth.</p>
<p>In such a state of things the squire and the doctor walked to and fro
in the garden; the Squire still looking very pale and feeble, but with
the help of his favourite spud, managing to get along, and to enjoy
the evening. The blush of the peach wall was not over, and yet the
trellised apple-tree was softly unsheathing puckered buds, all in
little clusters pointed like rosettes of coral. The petals of the
plum-bloom still were hovering with their edges brown, although in a
corner near a chimney, positively a lilac-bush was thrusting forth
those livid jags which lift and curve themselves so swiftly into
plumes of beauty. The two good gentlemen were surprised; each wanted
particularly to hear what the other thought of it; but neither would
deign to ask; and either feared to speak his thoughts, for fear of
giving the other an advantage. Because they were rival gardeners; and
so they avoided the subject.</p>
<p>"This is the very first cigar," said the Squire, as they turned at the
end of the peach wall, over against a young Grosse Mignonne,
beautifully trained on the Seymour system, and bright with the central
glow of pistil, although the petals were dropping—"my very first
cigar, since that—you know what I mean, of course—since I have cared
whether I were in my garden, or in my grave. But the Lord supports me.
Providence is good; or how could I be smoking this cigar?"</p>
<p>"You must not learn to look at things in that way," Dr. Splinters
answered; "Oglander, you must learn to know better. You are in an
uncomfortable frame of mind, or you would not have flouted me with
that bottle, after all our friendship. Why, bless me! Only look around
you. Badly pruned as your trees are, what a picture there is of
largeness!"</p>
<p>"Yes, Splinters, more than you could find in yours; which you amputate
into a doctor's bamboo. But now, perhaps, you may doubt it, Splinters,
because your trees are so very poor—but I have not felt any pride at
all, any pride at all, in one of them. What is the good of lovely
trees, with only one's self to enjoy them?"</p>
<p>"Now, Oglander, there you are again! How often must I tell you? Your
poor little Gracie is gone, of course; and a nice little thing she
was, to be sure. But here you are again as well as ever, or at any
rate as positive. I judge a man's state of health very much by his
powers of contradiction. And yours are first-rate. Go to, go to! You
are equal to another wife. Take a young one, and have more Gracies."</p>
<p>"Splinters, do you know what I should do," Mr. Oglander answered, with
his spud uplifted, "if my powers were such as you suppose—because I
smashed your bottles?"</p>
<p>"Yes, I dare say you would knock me down, and never beg my pardon till
the wedding breakfast."</p>
<p>"You are right in the first part; but wrong in the second. Oh, doctor,
is there no one able to share the simplest thoughts we have?"</p>
<p>"To minister to a mind diseased? First, he must have his own mind
diseased; as all the blessed poets have. But look! The green fly—who
would ever believe it, after our Siberian winter? The aphis is hatched
in your young peach-shoots before they have made even half a joint.
That comes of your Seymour system."</p>
<p>"Ridiculous!" answered the Squire; "but never mind! What matter now?
Then you really do think, Splinters—now, as an old friend, try to
tell me—in pure sincerity, do you think that I have altogether lost
my Gracie?"</p>
<p>"Oglander, no! I can truly say no. We are all good Christians, I
should hope. She is not lost, but gone before."</p>
<p>"But, my dear fellow, will you never understand that she ought to have
gone, long after? It is all very well for you, who have got some
baker's dozen of little ones, and lost only one in the
measles—forgive me, I know it was hard upon you—I say things that I
should not say—but if you could only bring your mind—however, I
daresay you have tried to do it; and what right have I to ask you?
Splinters, I know I am puzzle-headed; and many people think me worse
than that. But you have the sense to understand me, because for many
years you have been acquainted with my constitution. Now, Splinters,
tell me, in three words—shall I live to see my Gracie?"</p>
<p>"That you will, Squire; and to see her married; and to dance on your
lap her children!" So said Dr. Splinters, fearing what might happen,
if he did not say it.</p>
<p>"Only to see her. That is all I want. And to have her in my arms once
more. And to hear her tell me, with her own true tongue, that she
never ran away from me. After that I shall be ready for my coffin, and
know that the Lord has ordered it. Here comes more of your dust into
my eyes! Splinters, will you never learn how to knock your ash off?"</p>
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