A TANGLE OF VEINS
Human resolution, energy, experience, and reason in its loftiest form may fight against the doctor; but he beats them all, maintains at least his own vitality, and asserts his guineas. Two more resolute men than Mr. Mordacks and Sir Duncan Yordas could scarcely be found in those resolute times. They sternly resolved to have no sort of doctor; and yet within three days they did have one; and, more than that, the very one they had positively vowed to abstain from.
Dr. Stirbacks let everybody know that he never cared two flips of his thumb for anybody. If anybody wanted him, they must come and seek him, and be thankful if he could find time to hear their nonsense. For he understood not the system only, but also the nature of mankind. The people at the Thornwick did not want him. Very good, so much the better for him and for them; because the more they wanted him, the less would he go near them. Tut! tut! tut! he said; what did he want with crack-brained patients?
All this compelled him, with a very strong reluctance, to be dragged into that very place the very same day; and he saw that he was not come an hour too soon. Sir Duncan was lying in a bitterly cold room, with the fire gone out, and the spark of his life not very far from following it. Mr. Mordacks was gone for the day upon business, after leaving strict orders that a good fire must be kept, and many other things attended to. But the chimney took to smoking, and the patient to coughing, and the landlady opened the window wide, and the fire took flight into the upper air. Sir Duncan hated nothing more than any fuss about himself. He had sent a man to Scarborough for a little chest of clothes, for his saddle-kit was exhausted; and having promised Mordacks that he would not quit the house, he had nothing to do except to meditate and shiver.
Gil Beilby's wife Nell, coming up to take orders for dinner, “got a dreadful turn” from what she saw, and ran down exclaiming that the very best customer that ever drew their latch was dead. Without waiting to think, the landlord sent a most urgent message for Dr. Stirbacks. That learned man happened to be round the corner, although he lived at Bempton; he met the messenger, cast to the winds all sense of wrong, and rushed to the succor of humanity.
That night, when the general factor returned, with the hunger excited by feeding the hungry, he was met at the door by Dr. Stirbacks, saying, “Hush, my good sir,” before he had time to think of speaking. “You!” cried Mr. Mordacks, having met this gentleman when Rickon Goold was near his last. “You! Then it must be bad indeed!”
“It is bad, and it must have been all over, sir, but for my being providentially at the cheese shop. I say nothing to wound any gentleman's feelings who thinks that he understands everything; but our poor patient, with the very best meaning, no doubt, has been all but murdered.”
“Dr. Stirbacks, you have got him now, and of course you will make the best of him. Don't let him slip through your fingers, doctor; he is much too good for that.”
“He shall not slip through my fingers,” said the little doctor, with a twinkle of self-preservation. “I have got him, sir, and I shall keep him, sir; and you ought to have put him in my hands long ago.”
The sequel of this needs no detail. Dr. Stirbacks came three times a day; and without any disrespect to the profession, it must be admitted that he earned his fees. For Sir Duncan's case was a very strange one, and beyond the best wisdom of the laity. If that chill had struck upon him when his spirit was as usual, he might have cast it off, and gone on upon his business. But coming as it did, when the temperature of his heart was lowered by nip of disappointment, it went into him, as water on a duck's back is not cast away when his rump gland is out of order.