"Yes," said Dr Fillgrave, with one foot on the step of the carriage, but pausing at the sight of so well-turned-out a servant. "Yes; I am Dr Fillgrave."
"Then you be to go to Boxall Hill immediately; before anywhere else."
"Boxall Hill!" said the doctor, with a very angry frown.
"Yes; Boxall Hill: my master's place—my master is Sir Louis Scatcherd, baronet. You've heard of him, I suppose?"
Dr Fillgrave had not his mind quite ready for such an occasion. So he withdrew his foot from the carriage step, and rubbing his hands one over another, looked at his own hall door for inspiration. A single glance at his face was sufficient to show that no ordinary thoughts were being turned over within his breast.
"Well!" said Joe, thinking that his master's name had not altogether produced the magic effect which he had expected; remembering, also, how submissive Greyson had always been, who, being a London doctor, must be supposed to be a bigger man than this provincial fellow. "Do you know as how my master is dying, very like, while you stand there?"
"What is your master's disease?" said the doctor, facing Joe, slowly, and still rubbing his hands. "What ails him? What is the matter with him?"
"Oh; the matter with him? Well, to say it out at once then, he do take a drop too much at times, and then he has the horrors—what is it they call it? delicious beam-ends, or something of that sort."
"Oh, ah, yes; I know; and tell me, my man, who is attending him?"
"Attending him? why, I do, and his mother, that is, her ladyship."