A theory of this kind came well enough from Colonel Stanburne. He was six feet high, and the picture of health. He brought forth the fruits of good living, not, as Mr. Garley did, in a bloated and rubicund face and protuberant corporation, but in that admirable balance of the whole human organism which proves the regular and equal performance of all its functions. Dr. Bardly was a good judge of a man, and he had the same pleasure in looking at the Colonel that a fox-hunter feels in contemplating a fine horse. Beyond this, he liked Colonel Stanburne's society, not precisely, perhaps, for intellectual reasons—for, intellectually, there was little or nothing in common between the two men—but because he found in it a sort of mental refreshment, very pleasant to him after the society at Shayton. The Colonel was a different being—he lived in a different world from the world of the Ogdens and their friends; and it amused and interested the Doctor to see how this strange and rather admirable creature would conduct itself under the conditions of its present existence. The Doctor, as the reader must already feel perfectly assured, had not the weakness of snobbishness or parasitism in any form whatever; and if he liked to go to Wenderholme with the Colonel, it was not because there was an earl's daughter there, and the sacred odor of aristocracy about the place, but rather because he had a genuine pleasure in the society of his friend, whether amongst the splendors of Wenderholme, or in the parlor of the inn at Sootythorn.
The Colonel, too, on his part, liked the Doctor, though he laughed at him, and mimicked him to Lady Helena. The mimicry was not, however, very successful, for the Doctor's Lancashire dialect was too perfect and too pure for any mere ultramontane (that is, creature living beyond the hills that guarded the Shayton valley) to imitate with any approximation to success. If the Colonel, however, notwithstanding all his study and effort, could not succeed in imitating the Doctor's happy selection of expressions and purity of style, he could at any rate give him a nickname—so he called him Hoftens, not to his face, but to Lady Helena at home, and to the adjutant, and to one or two other people who knew him, and the nickname became popular; and, after a while, the officers called Dr. Bardly Hoftens to his face, which he took with perfect good-nature. The first time that this occurred, the Doctor (such was the delicacy of his ear) believed he detected something unusual in the way an impudent ensign pronounced the word often, and asked what he meant, on which the adjutant interposed, and said,—"Don't mind his impudence, Doctor; he's mimicking you." "Well," said the Doctor, simply, "I wasn't aware that there was hany thing peculiar in my pronunciation of the word, but people hoftens are unaware of their own defects." But we anticipate.
They lunched at the Thorn with the adjutant, a fair-haired and delicate-looking little gentleman of exceedingly mild and quiet manners, whose acquaintance the Doctor had made very recently. Captain Eureton had retired a year or two before from the regular army, and was now living in the neighborhood of Sootythorn with his old mother whom he loved with his whole heart. He had never married, and now there was little probability of his ever marrying. The people of Sootythorn would have set him down as a milk-sop if he had not seen a good deal of active service in India and at the Cape; but a soldier who has been baptized in the fire of the battle-field has always that fact in his favor, and has little need to give himself airs of boldness in order to impose upon the imagination of civilians.
"I believe, Dr. Bardly," said Eureton, "that we are going to have an officer from your neighborhood, a Mr. Ogden. His name has been put down for a lieutenant's commission."
"Yes, he's a neighbor of mine," answered the Doctor, rather curtly.
"You should have brought him with you, Doctor," said Colonel Stanburne, "that we might make his acquaintance. I've never seen him, you know, and he gets his commission on your recommendation. I should like, as far as possible, to know the officers personally before we meet for our first training. What sort of a fellow is Mr. Ogden? Tell us all about him."
The Doctor felt slightly embarrassed, and showed it in his manner. Any true description of Isaac Ogden, as he was just then, must necessarily seem very unfavorable. Dr. Bardly had been to Twistle that very morning before daylight, and had found Mr. Ogden suffering from the effects of that fall down the cellar-steps in a state of drunkenness. The Doctor had that day abandoned all hope of reclaiming Isaac Ogden, and saving him from the fate that awaited him.
"I've nothing good to tell of Mr. Ogden, Colonel Stanburne. I wish I hadn't recommended him to you. He's an irreclaimable drunkard!"
"Well, if you'd known it you wouldn't have recommended him, of course. You found it out since, I suppose. You must try and persuade him to resign. Tell him there'll be some awfully hard work, especially for lieutenants."
"I knew that he drank occasionally, but I believed that it was because he had nobody to talk to except a drunken set at the Red Lion at Shayton. I thought that if he came into the regiment it would do him good, by bringing him into more society. Shayton's a terrible place for drinking. There's a great difference between Shayton and Sootythorn."