“By my faith, Captain MacTurk,” said the Doctor, “you speak as if you were graduated!—I have known these treacherous articles play their master many a cursed trick. The very sight of my forceps, without the least effort on my part, once cured an inveterate toothache of three days' duration, prevented the extraction of a carious molendinar, which it was the very end of their formation to achieve, and sent me home minus a guinea.—But hand me that great-coat, Captain, and we will place the instruments in ambuscade, until they are called into action in due time. I should think something will happen—Sir Bingo is a sure shot at a moorcock.”
“Cannot say,” replied MacTurk; “I have known the pistol shake many a hand that held the fowlingpiece fast enough. Yonder Tyrrel looks like a teevilish cool customer—I watched him the whole time I was delivering my errand, and I can promise you he is mettle to the backbone.”
“Well—I will have my bandages ready secundum artem,” replied the man of medicine. “We must guard against hæmorrhage—Sir Bingo is a plethoric subject.—One o'clock, you say—at the Buck-stane—I will be punctual.”
“Will you not walk with us?” said Captain MacTurk, who seemed willing to keep his whole convoy together on this occasion, lest, peradventure, any of them had fled from under his patronage.
“No,” replied the Doctor, “I must first make an apology to worthy Mrs. Blower, for I had promised her my arm down to the river-side, where they are all to eat a kettle of fish.”
“By Cot! and I hope we shall make them a prettier kettle of fish than was ever seen at St. Ronan's,” said the Captain, rubbing his hands.
“Don't say we, Captain,” replied the cautious Doctor; “I for one have nothing to do with the meeting—wash my hands of it. No, no, I cannot afford to be clapt up as accessory.—You ask me to meet you at the Buck-stane—no purpose assigned—I am willing to oblige my worthy friend, Captain MacTurk—walk that way, thinking of nothing particular—hear the report of pistols—hasten to the spot—fortunately just in time to prevent the most fatal consequences—chance most opportunely to have my case of instruments with me—indeed, generally walk with them about me—nunquam non paratus—then give my professional definition of the wound and state of the patient. That is the way to give evidence, Captain, before sheriffs, coroners, and such sort of folk—never commit one's self—it is a rule of our profession.”
“Well, well, Doctor,” answered the Captain, “you know your own ways best; and so you are but there to give a chance of help in case of accident, all the laws of honour will be fully complied with. But it would be a foul reflection upon me, as a man of honour, if I did not take care that there should be somebody to come in thirdsman between Death and my principal.”
At the awful hour of one afternoon, there arrived upon the appointed spot Captain MacTurk, leading to the field the valorous Sir Bingo, not exactly straining like a greyhound in the slips, but rather looking moody like a butcher's bull-dog, which knows he must fight since his master bids him. Yet the Baronet showed no outward flinching or abatement of courage, excepting, that the tune of Jenny Sutton, which he had whistled without intermission since he left the Hotel, had, during the last half mile of their walk, sunk into silence; although, to look at the muscles of the mouth, projection of the lip, and vacancy of the eye, it seemed as if the notes were still passing through his mind, and that he whistled Jenny Sutton in his imagination. Mr. Winterblossom came two minutes after this happy pair, and the Doctor was equally punctual.