Then, with much learned language, he endeavoured to explain to me how well it was that my wound had broken out afresh. He bathed and cleansed the arm, anointed and tied it up, talking all the time to Anna and Martha, who stood by to hand him things he wanted; but I was too heavy to pay attention, being half asleep before he had done with me. I felt some surprise at the appearance of Luke on the scene, but he had me speedily to bed.
Late the next day I awoke, brighter and fresher than I had been for many days, but exceedingly feeble. Luke brought me a draught of some strange kind of beer, which revived me greatly, and when I had taken it, he told me how he had returned late yesterday from Doncaster with the physician, and found everybody at Temple Belwood in much trouble about my disappearance. No one had surmised I might be gone to Sandtoft, but Luke naturally guessed my purpose; so, taking pole, lantern and cleat-boards, he made off to Belshaw, where he heard of my doings, and struck across the fen in a bee-line for the settlement. He had only to make the signals which had been agreed on between him and Martha, a whistle like that of the grey plover, followed by an owl's cry, to bring his sweetheart to their trysting place, but was confounded to learn that nothing had been seen or heard of me at Doctor Goel's. Prowling cautiously about, Martha keeping watch, he found the punt, and having this assurance of my being in the neighbourhood, he returned to Martha. As they entered within the palisade through an opening concealed by a clump of willows, a flare of cressets and torches showed me and my conductors going from the guard-room to the gallows, and they hurried to the doctor's house with the news. What followed is already written.
When I spoke of going home, the doctor took a tone of authority, and vowed he would detain me, by force, if need were, until he had satisfied himself I ran no more danger of losing my arm. I made no stout resistance, but despatched Luke to Temple to set my father's mind at ease, and bring me a change of clothing and other matters of which I stood in need, and settled myself down in the doctor's household most contentedly. A marvellous change had come over me, which may have been due to the removal of the venom from my blood, as the doctor affirmed, or to my being under the same roof with Anna, as I inclined to believe. No one seemed to apprehend further trouble from Vliet, and I began to doubt whether my experience of the previous evening had been real or only a nightmare. Doctor Goel sat in his own room, pipe in mouth, over leaves and roots and such like rubbish, now and then coming out to ask me questions, giving as his reason for so doing that I had a quick eye, and a habit of observation remarkable in one unskilled in the sciences, but I thought his true intent was to hinder my being alone with his daughter, albeit there was small chance of that, for Anna had housewifely duties (or made them), which caused her to be going and coming continually. Now it was to make up medicine for her father's patients; now to confer with Martha about kitchen matters; now to look out old clothing for some of the poorer sort among the settlers; always something to break off our converse as I approached the topic nearest my heart. So, despairing of a talk with her for the present, I made bold to interrupt the doctor in his curious pastime. He bore the interruption courteously, though he sighed as he put down his glass and ceased to pore over the stuff on the table. I asked him whether Vliet had abandoned his drunken freak at Mistress Goel's intercession.
"Freak? That is joke, is it not?" he replied. "It was no joke, Mr. Vavasour. Sebastian was enraged by the mischief done on the previous night, and he would have hanged you, but for my daughter's intervention. Oh yes. Perhaps he would have endangered his own neck. I know not. The law appears to be in abeyance in this part of England. But Sebastian would have taken his chance of that. It was inconvenient for you at the time, but what says your proverb? 'All's well that ends well.' My daughter was at hand to save your life. I was at hand to save your arm. I have the satisfaction to be of some service to a gentleman who has laid me under obligation. And there is now an end to a misunderstanding between my daughter and her affianced husband. She has consented to marriage within three months, and I have some hope of being permitted to return to my own country by that time. So 'all's well,'" the doctor concluded, smiling.
Married within three months! I wished Luke had lost his way, or Vliet had been more stubborn. What was my life worth to me, Anna being lost? But chained to a drunken ruffian! Better far, if I had been strangled last night. It could not be. It should not be.
I know not how my outward bearing betrayed my feelings, but the doctor perceived something of them, for he went on—
"There is a little irregularity, almost impropriety, in what I am about to say, but there will be mutual advantage, perhaps. I am aware you admire my daughter, and imagine yourself in love with her. Stay: listen to me for a short time. Doubtless you would describe your feeling in stronger terms. We will say you love her. Consider, will you, please, how impossible it is that her father should entertain a proposal of marriage from you. Your inheritance of your father's estate depends on your father's pleasure, if I am rightly informed?" (Who had informed him? I asked myself, as I nodded.) "The estate is heavily burdened, or so I am told?" Again I nodded, and wondered. "But, supposing your prospects were as good as they appear to be bad, could I consent to my daughter's being buried in a half-savage region like this? Could I allow her, esteemed as an ornament of the most intellectual society of Europe, to become the despised associate of fat farmers' wives, to whom the sale of poultry and butter is the main business of life, and whose amusements are coarse and frivolous in the extreme? It would be an unheard of folly on my part, even if there were no precontracted arrangement for my daughter's settlement in life. But it so happens she is affianced to a gentleman of large fortune, who has shown the sincerity of his attachment by striking proofs" ("And particularly last night," I murmured to myself), "not the least being that he has forsaken agreeable scenes and companions to endure exile to be near the lady of his choice."
I could hold my tongue no longer.
"You have brought Mynherr Vliet into discussion, doctor, so you must pardon me for asking whether you believe any lady can love the drunken brute? And, if not——"
"There is no need to treat the matter hypothetically," the doctor interrupted. "I can assure you my daughter has all the affection for Mynherr Vliet which her betrothed could reasonably look for. We are somewhat indelicate to touch on such a subject, but as I desire to clear away any delusion which may exist in your mind, I give you my word that any inclination toward yourself which you may have imagined, was nothing more than a passing sentiment. Young women of a certain turn of mind, nourished by poetry and the drama, are apt to entertain a transient fancy for a handsome young man, encountered in new scenes, especially when they are somewhat piqued by the supposed desertion of the accepted lover."