And now, on the morning of that same day on which Alice thus had pledged herself (being the third from her brother’s arrival, of which she was wholly ignorant), the Rector of West Lorraine arose, and girded himself, and ate his breakfast with no small excitement. He had received a new clerical vestment of the loftiest symbolism, and he hoped to exhibit it at the head of a very long procession.
“About poor Hilary? What am I to do?” asked Mrs. Hales, coming into the lobby, to see her good husband array himself. “All sorts of things may happen while you are away.”
“Now, Caroline, how can you ask such a question? Feed, feed, feed; that’s the line of treatment. And above all things, lock up your medicine-chest. He wants no squills, or scammony, or even your patent electuary—of all things the most abominable; though I am most ungrateful to call it so—for I owe to it half my burial-fees. He wants no murderous doctor’s stuff: he wants a good breakfast—that’s what he wants.”
“But, my dear, you forget,” answered good Mrs. Hales, who kept a small wardrobe of bottles, and pills, gallipots, powders, and little square scales; “you are quite overlooking the state of his tongue. He has not eaten the size of my little finger. Why? Why, because of the fur on his tongue!”
“Bless the boy’s tongue, and yours too!” cried the Rector. “I should not care twopence about his tongue, if he only used his teeth properly.”
“Ah, Struan, Struan! those who have never known what ache or pain is, cannot hope to understand the system. I know exactly how to treat him—a course of gentle drastics first, and then three days of my electuary, and then cardamomum, exhibited with liquor potassy. Doctoring has always been in my dear mother’s family; and when your time comes to be ill and weak, how often you will thank Providence!”
“I thank the Lord for all things,” said the parson, who was often of a religious turn: “but I must be brought very low indeed, ere I thank Him for your electuary.”
“Put on your new hunting-coat, my dear. There it hangs, and I know that you are dying to exhibit it. The vanity of men surpasses even the love of women. There, there! You never will learn how to put a coat on. Just come to the hall-chair, for me to pull it up. You are so unreasonably tall, that you never can get your coat up at the neck. Now, will you have it done, or will you go as you are, and look a regular figure in the saddle? You call it a ‘bottle-green’! I call it a green, without the bottle.”
“Caroline, sometimes you are most provoking. It is not your nature; but you try to do it. The cloth is of quite an invisible green, as the man in London told me—manufactured on purpose for ecclesiastics; though hundreds of parsons, God knows, go after the hounds in the good old scarlet. If you say any more, I will order a scarlet, and keep West Grinstead in countenance. They always do it in the West of England. In invisible green, I am a hypocrite.”
“Now, don’t excite yourself, Struan, or you won’t enjoy your opening day at all. And I am sure that the green is as bright as can be; and you look very well—very well indeed. Though I don’t quite see how you can button it. Perhaps it is meant for a button-hook, or a leather thong over your stomach, dear.”