“Neither a fall nor a rise,” rejoined Elsworth, quietly; “nothing but a very matter-of-fact story of disgust with the noisy world of men, and a relish for a sojourn in the wilderness for study and meditation. Not quite without precedent in the history of civilisation, eh, Mr. Crowe?”
“Well, friend, I always said that a man who refused to learn practical physiology was a ‘heathen man and a publican,’ so I am surprised at nothing that has happened to you.”
“Is the evisceration of a living cat the passport to all the Beatitudes with you, Mr. Crowe?” asked Miss Lee, in a rather contemptuous manner.
“Symbolically, for a medical man, yes,” said he, “as implying the true scientific mind.”
The ladies had now re-entered their carriage, and warmly thanking Elsworth for his assistance, and expressing their delight at having discovered him, like Stanley finding Livingstone, they ended by begging that he would join them at dinner that day at their hotel. He declared his readiness to do so, and bowing with all the dignity and grace of a real Spaniard, he turned and left them.
The guide who had taken the party to the gipsy quarter knew and saluted Elsworth, and when he had taken his place beside the coachman, turning to the party, said, “That gentleman is the friend of all the poor in Granada. The gipsies call him their English king; he has lived here several years. When the people are sick he attends them, for he is a clever doctor; he takes no money from anybody, but he gives away a great deal to the poor. He can go amongst the worst people unmolested. Where the priest goes, he can go—to brigands, to thieves, to all the gipsies everywhere. He can travel alone over the mountains where none of us could go safely without an escort. He is a good man—a saint I ought to have said.”
“Why does he stay so long in Granada?” asked Mildred.
“Oh, he is studying the language and the manners and customs of the gipsies; he has a printing press, and he prints books to give them. He has a school, and he teaches their children. He is writing, they say, a great work on the origin and the life of the Spanish gipsies; but we hear he is going back soon to his own country. He had a hospital down in the city for the cholera patients last year, and has been decorated by the king for his services in the epidemic. There will be many tears when he leaves us, señora.”
The exile dined with his friends at the hotel, and enlightened them all on many points of interest which a mere tourist would be certain to miss. Every one noticed the change in Elsworth. Even Mr. Crowe, with his hard, unsympathetic soul, could not help seeing that in him was a renewed man, “one who had been set apart by Nature (as he expressed it to his colleague afterwards) for some great work.” Mildred and Aunt Janet saw that here was a man called to be an apostle; called, like the men of Galilee, from their nets and money tables, to serve the highest purposes of God; and they longed to hear the story they knew he must have to tell. After dinner the ladies contrived to have a chat with him, while Mr. Crowe and Dr. Graves were walking on the terrace smoking. To no one had he spoken, during these years of retirement, of the causes which had led him away from his haunts and profession; but these sweet women, with their sympathy which invited his confidence, soon heard his story; and in listening to it Mildred felt as Desdemona when Othello told his own; and listening, loved. Here, she thought, is a man with a heart and a conscience! All her life had been spent amongst selfish seekers after fame, wealth, or the amusements of life; men who cared not whom they overthrew could they but climb themselves; men of genius, who cared no more for the troubles of their fellowmen than the heartless libertines for the victims of their pleasures. She remembered Moore’s lines:—
“Out on the craft—I’d rather be