"Ay, and where did he walk to?" demanded the Doctor.
It was explained that it was at the time for nursing him, and he was sitting in his little chair at one end of the nursery, when Maggie had entered at the other. As soon as he clapped eyes on her, he had set up his usual impatient outcries; but Maggie, instead of going directly to him, had stopped to exchange a few words with the head-nurse, unfastening the front of her dress the while, however, so that Master Archibald's impatience was carried to the point of intolerance by the glimpse thus afforded of the good things in store for him. And then, before you had time to think, he had got up from his chair, and trotted across the floor, bellowing all the time, and had tugged at Maggie's dress.
"Bellowing all the time, eh?" said the Doctor.
"And walking all the same like he was ten year old, sir: and it did give us all a turn; and if you please, sir, what do you say to that?"
"What do I say to that?--why, that it's just what I should have expected--that's what I say!" replied Dr. Rollinson, who had apparently begun to divine some clew to the grand mystery. But he vouchsafed no explanations as yet.
Archibald did not repeat the walking miracle, although, within the space of a few weeks only, he passed through the regular gradations of crawling, tottering, and toddling, to normal pedestrianism of the most active kind. His progress in other accomplishments was almost parallel with this. From inarticulate gabble he trained his tongue to definite speech; his vocabulary expanded with astonishing rapidity, and, contrary to his previous habit, he made incessant use of it. He was now as remarkable for loquacity as formerly for the opposite characteristic; and his keenness of observation and retentive memory were a theme of general admiration. In a word, he used his five senses to ten times better effect than had ever been expected of him in the old days; and no one who had not seen him for a year from the time of his fit would have recognized him as the same child, He was not only making up for lost time--he was incomparably outstripping his earlier self; he seemed to have emerged from a mental and physical cocoon--to have cast aside an incrustation of deterrent clumsiness, and to be hastening onward with the airy case and accuracy of perfect self-possession. At the end of a year he was to all intents and purposes ten years old; and what was most remarkable about this swift advance lay in the fact that a year had seen the whole of it. Though he had been eight years in the world, the first seven had furnished none of the mental or moral material for the last: it stood alone and disconnectedly. Of those seven years it is certain that he retained not the smallest recollection; they were to him as if they had never been. The only thing they did provide him with was a well-fed and sound body; in other respects Archibald was positively new. He had to make the acquaintance of his family and friends over again; but it was done with modifications. In other cases besides that of his uncle, it was observed that he felt antipathies where formerly he loved, and vice versa.
A minor instance, but interesting as must be all evidence in a case so strange as this, is that of the brindled cat that was buried in the garden. Archibald was brought to the grave, which he had so pathetically haunted before his metamorphosis, not many weeks after the metamorphosis occurred; and every means was used to revive in him some recollection of the bereavement; they even went so far as to uncover poor pussy's remains.... Archibald was first unconscious and indifferent, then curious, finally disgusted. His feelings were not otherwise touched. All associations connected with this whilom pet of his, grief for whose loss was supposed to have been the impelling cause of the fit itself, were as utterly expunged from his mind as if they had never existed there. Moreover, aversion from all cats was from this time forth so marked in him as almost to amount to horror; while dogs, whose presence had been wont to fill him with dismay, were now his favorite companions. It was the same in other things; the boy formed independent opinions and prejudices in all the relations of life--independent, that is, of his past. His temper, too, was changed; no longer timid, appealing and docile, it was now determined, enterprising, and bold. It was manifest even thus early that here was a character fitted to make its way in the world.
"No, I protest, Doctor, I can never believe it's the same child," said Lady Malmaison, with a sigh. "That noisy, self-willed boy is never my quiet, affectionate little Archie. And yesterday he beat his brother Edward, that is two years older than he. Heigho! Pray, dear Doctor, what is your opinion?"
"My opinion, Lady Malmaison, is that women will never be content," answered the bluff old physician. "I can remember the time when you thought your quiet little Archie was a nincompoop--and quite right too. And now because a monstrous piece of good luck has made a Crichton of him, you begin to regret the nincompoop! It ain't logical;" and the Doctor took snuff.
"But who ever heard of a child changing his whole nature all in a moment?" persisted Lady Malmaison.