"I'll pop in and look at her," he said. "Why don't you give her the same magic physic you've poured down the throat of my old friend Evans? He's taken on a new lease of life. I tell you it's a miracle, and he says you did it, but he won't divulge the secret. Dear! dear! we old fogeys are no use at all in competition with the women! But come, let's have a look at the old girl."
He walked brusquely in and sat astride a chair, leaning his chin on the high back, and talked with her for ten minutes. Then he came out to me again.
"Can't say much without an examination, but appears to me the machinery's getting done. We can none of us last for ever, you know. Keep her still, if you can, and tell her she needn't be up every two minutes to flick the dust off the fireirons. Drive her out, now and then, and let her have exercise without exertion; and don't you pull a long face before her or get excited or boisterous."
I pulled a face at him, and he grinned as he mounted his horse. "I'll send her up a bottle," he said; "works wonders, does a bottle, if it's mixed with faith in them that take it;" and the caustic old man moved slowly away.
The bottle came, but so far it has wrought no miracle, and there has crept into my heart the unwelcome suggestion of loss. I have tried not to admit it, not to recognise it when admitted, but the attempt is vain. Dr. Trempest shakes his head and repeats his sagacious remark that we can't live for ever, and the squire presses my hand in sympathy, being too honest to attempt to comfort me with hollow hopes.
Only Mother Hubbard herself is cheerful, and as her physical strength decreases she appears to gain self-possession and mental vigour. When the squire suggested that she should be asked to accompany us on the drives which he so much enjoys I anticipated considerable opposition, and felt certain that she would yield most reluctantly, but to my surprise she consented without demur.
"This is very kind of Mr. Evans, love," she said, "and if you do not mind having an old woman with you I shall be glad to go."
She did not say much on these excursions, but when she was directly spoken to she answered without confusion, and was quite unconscious that she occasionally addressed the squire as "love." He never betrayed any consciousness of it, but I once noticed a repressed smile steal over Webster's face as he sat upon the box.
Now it was that I saw the full beauty of the moorland which had made so strong an appeal to my father's heart. I felt my own strangely stirred, and my two companions were also full of emotion. I believe it spoke to each of us with a different voice, and had not quite the same message for any two of us. I have hardly analysed my own feelings, but I think the rich and yet subdued colouring got hold of my imagination, and the wildness of the scene impressed me powerfully.
I had always known these moors—known them from my childhood; but only as one knows many things—the moon or the Mauritius, for instance—from the description of others. The picture painted for me had been true to life, but not living; yet it had been sufficiently lifelike to make the reality strangely familiar. And now I looked at it with double vision—through my own eyes and my father's; and the thought of what he would have felt quickened my perceptions and attuned them to the spirit of my ancestors. The moors were sheeted in purple, brightened by clumps of golden gorse, and I could easily have followed the example of Linnæus, who, when he first saw the yellow blossom, is said to have fallen on his knees and praised God for its beauty.