Dr. Scott, whom Effie represented, was a man of few words, who never attempted to explain the philosophy, if he knew it, of his treatment, but prescribed his doses as firmly and unfeelingly as the gunner loads his cannon. He left his patients to choose life or death, apparently as if their choice was a matter of indifference to him: yet nevertheless he possessed a most kind and feeling heart, revealed not in looks or words, but in deeds of patience and self-sacrifice, for which, from too many, he got little thanks, and less pay, as Effie had more than insinuated. Every one in the parish seemed to have a firm conviction as to the duty of the Doctor to visit them, when unwell, at all hours, and at all distances, by day or night; while their duty of consideration for his health was dim, and for his pocket singularly procrastinating. "I do not grudge," he once said, "to give my professional aid gratis to the poor and needy, and even to others who could pay me if they would; nay, I do not grudge in many cases to send a bag of meal to the family, but I think I am entitled, without being considered greedy, and without my sending for it, to get my empty bag returned!"
The Doctor was ever riding to and fro, his face red with winter's cold and summer's heat, nodding oftener on his saddle than at his own fire-side, watching all sorts of cases in farmhouses and lowly cottages, cantering for miles to the anxiety and discomforts of the sick-room.
All liked the Doctor, and trusted him; though, alas! such men as Dr. Mair--herbalists, vendors of wonderful pills and "saws", bone-setters, and that whole race of ignorant and presuming quacks, resident or itinerant, could always impose on the credulous, and dispose of their marvellous cures for such prices as seldom entered honest Scott's pocket.
The Doctor in due time visited Adam.
"What's wrong, Sergeant?" was his abrupt question; and he immediately proceeded to examine tongue and pulse, and other signs and symptoms. He then prescribed some simple medicine, rather gentler than Effie's; and said little, except that he would call back soon. The case was at last declared to be of a bad type of typhoid fever.
CHAPTER XXV
MR. SMELLIE'S DIPLOMACY
Mr. Smellie was not only a draper, but was the greatest in that line in the parish of Drumsylie. His shop had the largest display of goods in the village. Handkerchiefs, cravats, Paisley shawls, printed calicoes, &c., streamed in every variety of colour from strings stretched across the large window, dotted with hats and bonnets for male and female customers. He was looked upon as a well-to-do, religious man, who carefully made the most of both worlds. He was a bachelor, and lived in a very small house, above his shop, which was reached by a screw stair. A small charity boy, with a singularly sedate countenance--he may for aught I know be now a rich merchant on the London Exchange--kept the shop. I mention his name, Eben or Ebenezer Peat, to preserve for some possible biographer the important part which the as yet great unknown played in his early life. The only domestic was old Peggy; of whom, beyond her name, I know nothing. She may have been great, and no doubt was, if she did her duty with zeal and love to Peter Smellie. Peggy inhabited the kitchen, and her master the parlour, attached to which was a small bed-closet. The parlour was cold and stiff, like a cell for a condemned Pharisee. There was little furniture in it save an old sofa whose hard bony skeleton was covered by a cracked skin of black haircloth, with a small round cushion of the same character, roughened by rather bristly hairs, which lay in a recess at the end of it. A few stuffed mahogany chairs were ranged along the wall; while a very uncomfortable arm-chair beside the small fire, and a round table with a dark wax-cloth cover, completed the furniture of the apartment. There were besides, a few old books of theology--which guaranteed Mr. Smellie's orthodoxy, if not his reading; a copy of Buchan's Domestic Medicine; and a sampler which hung on the wall, sewed by his only sister, long dead, on which was worked a rude symbol of Castle Bennock with three swans floating under it, nearly as large as the castle, and beneath what was intended to represent flowers were the symbols, "For P. S. by M. S."
Mr. Smellie, near a small fire, that twinkled like a yellow cairngorm amidst basalt, sat reading his newspaper, when a letter was laid upon the table by Peggy without any remark except "A letter."
"From whom, Peggy?" asked Smellie.