– he was really a surgeon – but everyone called him Dr. Dale, was a stout, florid man, with his hair cut short as that of a Frenchman, like the fur on the back of a mole. He was fresh, boisterous in manner when out of the sick-room, but when engaged on a patient, laid aside his roughness and noise. His cheeriness, his refusal to take a gloomy view of a case, made him popular, and perhaps went some way towards encouraging nature to make an effort to throw off disease.
Jeremiah told him the story of his escape.
'And now,' said Dale, 'I suppose you are going back. By Jove, I should like to see the faces when you reappear in the family circle thus dressed and behaired.'
'Before I consider about going back, I want you to overhaul me,' said Jeremiah, 'and please to tell me plainly what you find. I'm not a woman to be frightened at bad news.'
'At once, old man. Off with those togs,' shouted the surgeon.
When the medical examination was over, Dale told Mr. Pennycomequick that his heart was weak, but that there was no organic derangement. He must be careful of himself for some time to come. He must avoid climbing hills, ascending many stairs.
'As, for instance, the several flights of my factory.'
'Yes – you must content yourself with the office.'
'I might as well give up at once the entire management if I may not go to the several departments and see what is going on there.'
'You must economize the pulsations of your heart for awhile. You will find yourself breathless at every ascent. Your heart is at fault, not your lungs. The machine is weak, and you must not make an engine of one-horse power undertake work that requires one of five. If you could manage to knock off work altogether – '
'For how long?'
'That depends. You are not a boy with super-abundant vitality and any amount of recuperative power. After the age of fifty we have to husband our strength; we get well slowly, not with a leap. A child is down to-day and up to-morrow. An old man who is down to-day is up perhaps that day month. The thing of all others for you would be to go abroad for a bit, to – let us say, the South of France or Sicily, or better still, Cairo, lead a dolce far niente life, forget worries, neglect duties, disregard responsibilities, and let Nature unassisted be your doctor and nurse.'
'Now look here, Dale,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'your advice jumps with my own opinion. I have been considering whilst convalescent what was the good of my drudging on at Mergatroyd. I have made a fortune – a moderate one, but one that contents me – and have no need to toil through the last years of life, to fag out the final straws of existence.'
'Fag out!' exclaimed Dale, 'you dog, you – why, you have gone into the Caldron of Pelias, and have come forth rejuvenated.'
'If I remember the story aright,' retorted Jeremiah, 'Pelias never came out of the caldron. I am like Pelias in this, that I have gone into the waters of Lethe.'
'Now, Jeremiah, old boy,' said the surgeon, 'let this be a settled thing, you husband your strength for a twelvemonth at least, and you will then be vigorous as ever. If you insist on going into harness at once, in two years I shall be attending your funeral.'
'Very well,' said Jeremiah, 'if things are in order at Mergatroyd, I will go, but I cannot allow the business to fall into confusion. To tell you the truth, I have reasons which make me wish not to go back there till I am quite restored, but I should like to know what is going on there.'
'That I can perhaps tell you. I have had a letter from Salome. Do you know, my friend, when I have been away from Bridlington, on a holiday, I have been on thorns, thinking that everything must be going out of gear on account of my absence, that my locum tenens has let patients slip and mismanaged difficult cases; yet when I have returned I have found that I was not missed – all has gone on swimmingly without me. You will find that it has been the same at Mergatroyd.'
'But what says Salome?'
'In the first place that cricket, Janet, is back. She was sent home lest an Uhlan should fall in love with her or she fall in love with an Uhlan, and now her husband is dead. Like a fool he served as a volunteer, uncalled for, as he was an Englishman.'
'Albert Baynes dead! Then you will have some work on your hands as trustee.'
'So I shall. Now about your affairs. It seems that the will you drew up against my advice, without taking legal opinion, was so much waste-paper; Salome says merely that it proved invalid, so Mrs. Sidebottom had to take out letters of administration, and divide your property between her and your nephew Philip.'
'What! – Salome get nothing! I shall go back at once and send those two vultures to the right about.'
'Have patience; they came out better than you might have expected. It has been arranged that Philip shall live in your house and undertake the management of the factory, and he has asked Mrs. Cusworth to remain on in the old place in the same position as she occupied before.'
'I am glad they have had the grace not to turn her out.'
'That is not all. As it was clearly your wish that Salome should be liberally provided for, your sister and nephew have agreed to fund for her the same amount that was invested for her sister Janet. Now I do not know what your will was, but it seems to me that nothing could have been better, even if you had the disposing of it. Your natural heirs get their rights, and your pet Salome is honourably and even handsomely treated by them.'
Jeremiah said nothing; his chin fell on his breast. He had not thought that Mrs. Sidebottom would do a generous thing. Of Philip he knew nothing; but what he had just heard predisposed him in his favour.
'Now take my advice, Jeremiah,' continued Dr. Dale. 'Let Philip go on where he is. He has thrown up his place in a solicitor's office at Nottingham, and, as Salome writes, is devoting himself energetically to the work of the mill, and learning all the ramifications of the business. You wanted someone to relieve you, and you have the man – the right man, already in the place.'
'He may get everything wrong.'
'I do not believe it. You have an aversion to lawyers, but let me tell you that a lawyer's office is an excellent school; there men learn to know human nature, how to deal with men, and get business habits. The fellow must have a good heart, or he would not have come to an arrangement with his aunt to part with a large sum of money for Salome. Besides, Salome is no fool, and she writes of him in high praise for his diligence, his regular habits, and his kindness and consideration for her mother.'
John Dale paused for Jeremiah to say something; but his friend remained silent, with his head down, thinking.
'If you go back,' said the doctor, 'you will throw everything wrong. You will worry yourself and will take the spirit out of Philip. Trust him. He is on his mettle. If he makes a blunder, that is natural, and he will suffer for it; but he will commit none that is fatal; he is too shrewd for that.'
'Dale,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'if I make up my mind not to return to Mergatroyd, I make up my mind at the same time to leave those there in ignorance that I am still alive.'
'As you like. It would not be amiss. Then Philip would work with better energy. If things go wrong I can always drop you a line and recall you, and you can appear as Deus ex machinâ, and set all to rights. I have often thought that half the aggravation of leaving this world must be the seeing things going to sixes and sevens without being able to right them, a business we have got together being scattered, a reputation we have built up being pulled down; to have to see things going contrary to our intentions, and
