"Finally this lad went to college, and coming here one summer after the breaking up of the classes he must needs fall in love with Ailie—my daughter, that is. What?—You never knew that I had a daughter! Ah, Alec, I was not always the man you see me—I too have had ambitions. But after—well, what use is there to speak of it? At any rate, young Roger Campbell fell in love with my Ailie, and she, I suppose, liked it well enough, but like a sensible girl gave him no immediate answer. Then after that came his half-brother, who was heir to the little property on Loch Aweside, and he too fell in love with Ailie. There was no girl like her in all the Glen of Kells; and as for him, he was a tall, handsome, fair lad, not crowled and misshapen like this one. Well, Ailie and he fell in love, and then Roger's mother moved heaven and earth to disinherit Archie. It was for this cause that I went up to Inchtaggart and watched my brother during the last weeks of his life. The woman fought like a wild cat for her son, but I and Archie watched in turns. It was I who found the will by which Archie inherited all. In three months Ailie and he were married. Roger Campbell failed in his examinations the same year, and the next mother and son came back here to her native village to live on their savings.
"The mere choice of this place showed their spite against me, but that is not the worst. Ever since that day they have devoted themselves to discrediting me in my profession. And you, who know these people, know to what an extent they have succeeded. My practice has shrunk to nothing—almost. Even the patients I have, when they do call me in, send secretly for my enemy before my feet are cold off the doorstep. Yet I have no redress, for I have never been able to bring a case of taking fees home to him. Ah! if only I could!"
Dr. Ignatius fell back exhausted, for towards the last he had been talking with a vehemence that shook the casements and set the prisms of the little old chandelier a-tingling.
"And that is why I say you must choose between us," he said. "Is it not enough? Have I asked too much?"
"It is enough for me," I said; "I will do as you wish!"
Now I did not see anything in his story very much against the young man; but, after all, the lad was nothing to me, and I had known Dr. Ignatius a long time.
So I asked him how it came that the young man was called Roger and not Campbell.
"Oh!" he said, "that is the one piece of decent feeling he has shown in the whole affair. He called himself Campbell Roger when he came here. You are the only person who knows that he is my nephew."
* * * * *
I was glad afterwards that I had made him the promise he asked for. I never saw him in life again. Dr. Ignatius Campbell died two days after, being found dead in bed with his tiny pipe clutched in his hand. I went up that same day, and in conjunction with Dr. John Thoburn Brown of Drumfern, found that our colleague had long suffered from an acute form of heart disease, and that it was wonderful how he had survived so long. The body was lying at the time in the room where he died. The maid-servant had gone to stay with relatives in the village, not being willing to remain all night in the house alone; for which, all things considered, I did not greatly blame her. I asked if there was anything I could do, but was informed that all arrangements for the funeral had been made. It was to be on the Friday, two days after.