The broken—“smashed” the doctor called them—ribs had been steadily improving, in spite of all the anxiety Tom suffered on his sister’s account, sanguine though he was of her yet being brought home; and by the time that Markworth divulged his plot, and Mr Trump hastened down to The Poplars to communicate it, Master Tom had progressed his cure as rapidly as did Don Quixote, being able to leave his bed and hobble about a bit before being declared by Doctor Jolly to be quite convalescent and out of his hands. The young squire had, however, youth and health to back him up, which enabled the “signal remedy,” perhaps, to have more effect on him than it had on Sancho Panza’s master.
The interest which the invalid Tom had created, had somewhat deadened the effect of Susan’s disappearance; and although that was as yet an unsolved secret, and the cause of much anxiety, still everyone, both in and out of the household, celebrated it as a day of rejoicing when Tom made his first re-appearance down stairs. The young Antinous had undergone the scars and strife of battle: it was meet that his recovery should be made much of, as indeed was the case.
Tom came down stairs, and all were glad to see him: even the dowager allowed a frigid smile of welcome to flit across her features as he entered the dining-room once more; and “Garge,” whom he met in the passage, exclaimed, with his customary “ploughishness—”
“Lor’ sakes, Measter Tummus! I are roight glad to say un!”
Miss Kingscott expressed her welcome by far too warmly, the old lady thought, for she advanced eagerly and squeezed the hand Tom offered, after curtseying low. Doctor Jolly was pleased to be present also on the occasion.
“Bless my soul, Tom!” he said. “Here we are, as right again as ninepence, my boy; I told you so, Mrs Hartshorne—I told you so,” as if that lady were disputing the point. She was too glad to see Tom, however, to argue with the doctor as usual, but yielded the point gracefully, only throwing cold water on the ecstasies of our friend Damon, by suggesting that Tom’s youth and constitution had pulled him through better perhaps than all the physic and meddling doctors in the world. Doctor Jolly, however, could also afford to be lenient; so he left the dowager’s challenge unanswered.
After a day or two, Tom hobbled out into the garden. He was still very weak and pale, but improving; and as soon as he had tried his powers at hobbling outside the front door, he determined to hobble down to the parsonage. “It was only right, you know, after all their kind enquiries every day about his health!” The Pringles had sent up every morning an extraordinary looking young female servant of theirs, whom the dowager christened “the Gezaba,” to ask how “Mister Tom was getting on.” Naturally Tom could do no less than return his thanks for such an attention: it could be no other motive that would take him out down to the parsonage so soon after he was able to stir—nothing else, of course!
Accordingly, Tom sallied out a day or two after he had come down stairs, telling no one of his venture, for they would all have been up in arms at his walking so far so soon after his illness.
It was now a month past the era of the pic-nic—a month remarkable for much besides his accident, and Tom had many things to think of, not the least of which was the recollection of what he had said to Lizzie, and she to him, just after he had been wounded. Doctor Jolly had acted as a sort of go-between to them, having carried many a little message twixt The Poplars and the parsonage, after Tom had been placed hors de combat. Kind hearted old Doctor Jolly—his is the truest and most pleasant face on these pages!
Tom remembered that walk of his for many a day afterwards. How he had paused at that corner to take breath, and rested on this stile here to recover his faintness; and how he thought he would never be able to reach his destination, until he saw the square old tower of the church and the trim built parsonage beyond. But he got over the ground heavily, hobbling along by the aid of his stick, and receiving hearty greetings of “Foine day, sir!” from the fat farmers, who rejoiced to see the “yoong squoire” about again.