Two Years Ago Volume I Part 13

And Frank told him the story.

"Whew! I hope she won't expect me to marry her as payment.--Handsome?"

"Beautiful," said Frank.

"Money?"

"The village schoolmistress."

"Clever?"

"A sort of half-baked body," said Heale.

"A very puzzling intellect," said Frank

"Ah--well--that's a fair excuse for declining the honour. I can't be expected to marry a frantic party, as you called me down stairs just now, Doctor."

"I, sir?"

"Yes, I heard; no offence, though, my good sir,--but I've the ears of a fox. I hope really, though, that she is none the worse for her heroic flights."

"How is she this morning, Mr. Heale?"

"Well--poor thing, a little light-headed last night: but kindly when I went in last."

"Whew! I hope she has not fallen in love with me. She may fancy me her property--a private waif and stray. Better send for the Coast-guard officer, and let him claim me as belonging to the Admiralty, as flotsom, jetsom, and lagend; for I was all three last night."

"You were, indeed, sir," said Frank, who began to be a little tired of this levity; "and very thankful to Heaven you ought to be."

Frank spake this in a somewhat professional tone of voice; at which the stranger arched his eyebrows, screwed his lips up, and laid his ears back, like a horse when he meditates a kick,

"You must be better acquainted with my affairs than I am, my dear sir, if you are able to state that fact.--Doctor! I hear a patient coming into the surgery."

"Extraordinary power of hearing, to be sure," said Heale, toddling down stairs, while the stranger went on, looking Frank full in the face.

"Now that old fogy's gone down stairs, my dear sir, let us come to an understanding at the beginning of our acquaintance. Of course, you're bound by your cloth to say that sort of thing to me, just as I am bound by it not to swear in your company: but you'll allow me to remark, that it would be rather trying even to your faith, if you were to be thrown ash.o.r.e with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where you hoped to land with fifteen hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket."

"My dear sir," said Frank, after a pause, "whatsoever comes from our Father's hand must be meant in love. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.'"

A quaint wince pa.s.sed over the stranger's face.

"Father, sir? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father's hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. And now what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only knows--if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much doubt. I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees in mud and water. Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes. I shan't run away with them, for as I've been thrown ash.o.r.e here, here I shall stay."

Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his Stoicism;--would he have behaved even as well in such a case?

"I have not five pounds in the world."

"Good! we shall understand each other better."

"But the suit of clothes you shall have at once."

"Good again! Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own."

So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new paris.h.i.+oner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it had seen.

When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar.

"That's a shrewd mark," said he, as he caught Frank's eye fixed on it, while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. "I got it in fair fight, though, by a Crow's tomahawk in the Rocky Mountains. And here's another token (lifting up his black curls), which a Greek robber gave me in the Morea. I've another under my head, for which I have to thank a Tartar, and one or two more little remembrances of flood and field up and down me. Perhaps they may explain to you why I take life and death so coolly. I've looked too often at the little razor-bridge which parts them, to care much for either. Now, don't let me trouble you any longer. You have your flock to see to, I don't doubt. You'll find me at church on Sunday. I always do at Rome as Rome does."

"Then you will stay away," said Frank, with a sad smile.

"Ah? No. Church is respectable and aristocratic; and there one don't get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, by some inspired tinker. Beside, country people like the Doctor to go to church with their betters; and the very fellows who go to the Methodist meeting themselves would think it _infra dig._ in me to walk in there. Now, good-bye--though I haven't introduced myself--not knowing the name of my kind preserver."

"My name is Frank Headley, Curate of the Parish," said Frank, smiling: though he saw the man was rattling on for the purpose of preventing his talking on serious matters.

"And mine is Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S., Licentiate of the Universities of Paris, Glasgow, and whilome surgeon of the good clipper Hesperus, which you saw wrecked last night. So, farewell!"

"Come over with me, and have some breakfast."

"No, thanks; you'll be busy. I'll screw some out of old bottles here."

"And now," said Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but recollect them all;--if I could but stop the nugget, too!"

So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked round.

Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the bottles, and armies of mites played at bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its contents were two old dried-up horse-b.a.l.l.s, and a dirty tobacco-pipe.

He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol.

The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue.

The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vegetable and mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco ashes, and broken gla.s.s.

Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear up, whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale.

"I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see."

"Then you really are a professional pract.i.tioner, sir, as Mr. Headley informs me: though, of course, I don't doubt the fact?" said Heale, summoning up all the little courage he had, to ask the question with.

"F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write and ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law union, and to a Brazilian man-of-war. Have seen three choleras, two army fevers, and yellow-jack without end. Have doctored gunshot wounds in the two Texan wars, in one Paris revolution, and in the Schleswig-Holstein row; beside accident practice in every country from California to China, and round the world and back again. There's a fine nest of Mr.

Weekes's friend (if not creation), Acarus Horridus," and Tom went on dusting and arranging.

Heale had been fairly taken aback by the imposing list of acquirements, and looked at his guest awhile with considerable awe: suddenly a suspicion flashed across him, which caused him (not unseen by Tom) a start and a look of self-congratulatory wisdom. He next darted out of the shop, and returned as rapidly, rather redder about the eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"But, sir, though, though"--began he--"but, of course you will allow me, being a stranger--and as a man of business--all I have to say is, if--that is to say--"

"You want to know why, if I've had all these good businesses, why I haven't kept them?"

"Ex--actly," stammered Heale much relieved.

"A very sensible and business-like question: but you needn't have been so delicate about asking it as to want a screw before beginning."

"Ah, you're a wag, sir," keckled the old man,