“Bless you my child!” said the mother, “you are rash and impetuous, but you have a good heart.”
Volume One—Chapter Ten.
A Call and its Consequences.
Doctor Jolly trotted along the road from Bigton to Hartwood, with Huz and Buz his brother, cantering at his horse’s heels, and making short predatory excursions every now and then into neighbouring gardens and farmyards on the way, to the apoplectic scaring and bewilderment of sundry unhappy fowls and ducks. In about half an hour, as he always rode at a sharp pace, he had reached The Poplars to make his weekly visit.
“How-de-do!” he shouted to Tom, when he was half a mile off, seeing him at the gate; and presently the stout doctor was dismounting from his quadruped with extreme difficulty, owing to the still painful gout, and limping up the steps of the dowager’s mansion.
“So you are here again, are you?” observed that lady with her customary acrimony, from the open window of the dining-room, which faced the entrance gate. “Why, you’re always running here, now; you’d better come and live here at once; it would, at all events, save your gouty legs some exertion.”
“Bless my soul! Mrs Hartshorne, why you are looking as blooming as a daisy. I wish I could wear like you, madam; why you must be sixty, if you are a day!”
“I’ll outlast you at all events, Mister Jolly,” said the old lady, as our friend the doctor, who hated being called “Mister” instead of by his medical title, walked into the house.