CHAPTER VIII.
The doctor had fallen into more than one fit of musing since the one that carried him three doors beyond his destination on the morning Enoch’s wheels were being fitted, and the result was, that he had come to a determination. But as he always kept his determinations very quietly to himself until it was time to act upon them, no one was any the wiser for it as yet. But at last, when the snow-banks had dwindled away under the spring sun, until only a stray mound was left here or there, and the earth began to peep out once more, brown and bare, the doctor made up his mind that the time had come. He had just arrived at that conclusion, when his office-door opened, and some one came softly in. He knew the step, and could see the tall, gaunt form of old Joan, the housekeeper, with her apron-strings tied in a hard knot, her silver-rimmed spectacles, and her high-crowned cap, just as well as if he had raised his eyes from his book. But Joan never liked to be noticed when she came in; so he went on reading, with his feet in the chair before him, as though no one were within a thousand miles.
Joan had only come to see about the fire, that was all; at least all she meant should be understood; but the doctor knew very well, from the endless brushing she was giving the hearth, that she had something on her mind that would bring her round in front of his chair if he only gave her time enough, and this suited him very well, as he had something to say to her himself. Joan had followed the doctor from the time he needed a nurse until he required a housekeeper, and she would have been almost ready to quarrel even with him, if she had heard him talk to Creepy about their owning shares in the world together, for it was very much her opinion that the world was made for the doctor exclusively; and if there were a few other people in it, that was principally for the purpose of supplying him with a round of patients.
“Ah but he’s a braw laddie, and ony auld heart might weel be proud o’ raising sic a bairn,” she said to herself, as she glanced toward him once or twice while she still brushed vigorously away at the hearth, “though it’s true I never taught him the fashion he has o’ taking the chair before him that’s almost higher than his head to tilt his feet in, like a parrot fingering the trammels o’ his cage. It’s no so unco handsome as the rest o’ him, but what can a young man do, shut up in a room like this, with never a fair face to smile on him from ane years end to anither; and if he were to bring a young wife hame wi’ him, wha kens where old Joan might find hersel’ then? Na, na, it’s no change o’ that kind I’m asking, but some things ought to gae differently, for the pride o’ the house, and if he doesna see it for himsel’, why then old Joan maun e’en speak her ain thocht, that is a’.”
But the speaking did not seem so easy after all, and Joan had come fairly round before the doctor’s chair, as he had expected, hearth-broom in hand, without getting her words into shape.
This wouldn’t do. He had something to settle with Joan himself, and he must catch her in a propitious frame: at the same time he knew that if he spoke first, everything would go wrong; so without looking up from his book, he carelessly touched another that lay on the chair before him, with his foot, and down it went upon the floor, and the flood gates were opened.
“Hoot, mon!” exclaimed Joan, stooping to pick it up, and wiping it tenderly with the corner of her apron, “hoot, mon, and canna ye be content wi’ finding yoursel’ maister o’ a book like this, that not one out o’ ten thousand o’ your neebors has learning eno’ to ken the meaning o’ the very cover itsel’, that ye maun toss it under foot in sic a fashion? It’s no that I begrudge gathering it up again, but I dinna like aught belonging to yoursel’ to meet wi’ disrespect, and that’s what I’m fearing ilka day will be coming to the house, a’though no fault o’ mine. Not that I fash mysel’ sae muckle if folk maun e’en mind ither folk’s affairs, but I’m an auld woman to be keeping up the credit o’ an establishment like this.”
“You want some one to help you, Joan?”
“Help me!” exclaimed Joan indignantly, brushing her apron off sidewise with both hands, as if to brush away the aspersion, “ye ken weel enough Joan wants nae help, nor ever will, while her two hands can serve the laddie she raised up to be the learned man he is, wi’ half the city running after him to save their lives and show them the way out o’ trouble. Nae, nae, it’s no the work I’m fretting after, it’s only the gude and proper face o’ things before the een o’ the world.”
The doctor looked up at her as if he could not understand a word.
“But you’ve always been called a remarkably good-looking woman, Joan, and I don’t see that you look a day older than you did the first time I saw you.”
“Whist, mon!” and Joan brushed the apron harder than ever, “wad ye drive the patience clear frae a body? Dinna ye ken that ilka time there’s a summons for your services, if it’s the richest mon in the town sending for you to come and bring him back from the grave, there’s naebody but an auld woman with her cap and spectacles to open the door for him? The cap may be as white as snaw, but it’s no the livery that’s becoming to a skelfu’ doctor’s house, and are whose name will soon be kenned far an’ wide among the wisest o’ ’em.”
“But what would you have me do, Joan? A young doctor may have all the wisdom of Solomon, but he’s got his way to make, and his porridge to earn, for all that, and he must wait awhile before he can afford to waste his fees on the vanities of life.”
“Waste! And wha kens better than yoursel’ that it would be neither waste nor vanity to ha’ things fitting and becoming and commanding the respect that’s due a high calling like your ain? And what great physician’s house did I ever see among my ain at home that had na his footman or two to open the door before ever a body had time to lay hold upon the handle o’ the bell?”
“Suppose I get one then?” asked the doctor, looking very gravely in her face.
“You’re no serious,” she said; “you’re no so easy to persuade, or to come round to the sound o’ reason a’ in the moment a body just sets it before your een.”
“No,” said the doctor, “I don’t suppose I am, but the truth is I’ve been thinking of the same thing myself. But you know,” and the doctor got up, laid down his book and shook himself, “you know, Joan, every ladder must have its lower rounds, and you must not expect all the glory of midday, when the sun is just getting above the horizon. Now suppose my new man should be rather small and rather young, so young in fact that it would be a good thing for him to go to school, out of office hours. That wouldn’t make any difference, I suppose, in the welcome you would give him, or the kindness you would show him when he came in your way?”
Joan looked doubtful.
“It’s no a’ the gither what I wad choose,” she said, “but half a bannock’s better than nae loaf at a’, and young folk grow, if you do but gie ’em time. But he suld be a braw laddie, weel favored and wi’ good back and legs.”
“Weel favored enough,” said the doctor laughing, “but as for the back and legs, they are good in their way; and getting better every day, but I fear we can’t make any more of them than the best a hunchback ever had.”
Joan’s face grew white. A hunchback opening the doctor’s door? She would open it herself if she were a hundred years old, sooner than that should happen!
“I’ll tell you about him,” went on the doctor, not seeming to notice her; and beginning as far back as the night in Ben’s room, he gave Joan a running sketch of the lame child as he had found him, of the dreary life, the great wistful eyes, the pain that was never tired, and the sensitive soul, shrinking away behind the “all but me” that had seemed always to rise like stony walls before it.
“Now a strong man with any soul in him can’t see a child in a prison like that, without wanting to knock the gates down for him, if he can,” went on the doctor, “and that’s what I’ve been trying to do the last six months, with the help of all hands out there; and I don’t think we’ve made a bad piece of work of it as far as we’ve gone. I’ve got the little fellow on his feet again, and he’s had more than one walk already, since the snow is passing off, and he’s beginning to believe all I’ve told him, or thinks he does, but it’s more like a story than anything else, so far, and I want to make it a reality. I want to get him away from that place out there, and get him in here where things are civilized, and put him, as soon as he gets a little more strength, into the best school there is, and let him measure himself with other boys of his age, and see what he can make of himself and the world he’s come into. And I don’t see any way to do this, but to indulge myself in an office-boy for certain hours of the day. The child must have a shelter, and some one to look to; and he’ll want more than I can be to him too. A friend something like yourself for instance, Joan;” and the doctor darted one of those quick looks and wonderful smiles at the housekeeper, that always made Creepy’s heart leap to his throat. Joan’s face ceased to be white long before the doctor had finished, and there was something the matter with her spectacles; she couldn’t see well through them, and there was a struggle going on behind them that was plain enough. It was a drawn battle for a few moments more, and Joan flourished the hearth-broom again, as if determined to knock over one side or the other with it, but at last she spoke.
“Puir bairnie,” she said, “it’s no mysel’ that wad we in the way o’ a work like what you hae been doin’, and if I have na the skill to help you in what you hae to do wi’ the puir crooked back, I can e’en comfort the lane heart a bit now and then, and help it take courage for the fight with the world, that is na sae bad after a’ as some folk would ca’ it, nor bad enough to think the worse o’ a young doctor that’s willing to shelter one o’ the Lord’s sorrowful bairns, when he might hae the finest pair o’ hands in the country to open the door for those that are looking for him.”
“Good for you, Joan,” said the doctor, smiling again, “and you needn’t fear any one is going to look as far as the limbs after they once get sight of the pair of eyes that shine out above them.”
“That’s all right,” he added to himself a moment later, as he shook the reins over the black horse’s head. “Creepy has Joan for his friend for ever; now for Mrs. Ganderby.”