dear friend, I spoke to her about it yesterday, in such a way as not to cause anxiety or alarm: and she made no objection, but left everything to me. So you have only to agree; and all is settled."
"In that case, Tom," said Mr. Penniloe arising, and offering both hands to his friend, "I will not shirk my duty to a man I love so much. May the Lord be with me, for I am not a man of business—or at least, I have not attained that reputation yet! But I will do my best, and your Nicie's interests shall be as sacred to me, as my own child's. Is there anything you would like to say about her?"
"Yes, Phil, one thing most important. She is a very loving girl; and I trust that she will marry a good man, who will value her. I have fancied, more than once, that Jemmy Fox is very fond of her. He is a manly straightforward fellow, and of a very good old family, quite equal to ours, so far as that goes. He has not much of this world's goods at present; and her mother would naturally look higher. But when a man is in my condition, he takes truer views of life. If Jemmy loves her, and she comes to love him, I believe that they would have a very happy life. He is very cheerful, and of the sweetest temper—the first of all things in married life—and he is as upright as yourself. In a few years he will be very well off. I could wish no better fortune for her—supposing that she gives her heart to him."
"He is a great favourite of mine as well;" the Curate replied, though surprised not a little. "But as I have agreed to all that you wish, Tom, you must yield a little to my most earnest wish, and at the same time discharge a simple duty. I cannot help hoping that your fears—or I will not call them that, for you fear nothing—but your views of your own case are all wrong. You must promise to take the highest medical opinion. If I bring Gowler over, with Fox's full approval, will you allow him to examine you?"
"You are too bad, Phil. But you have caught me there. If you let me put you into the hands of lawyers, it is tit for tat that you should drive me into those of doctors."
CHAPTER VI. DOCTORS THREE.
Public opinion at Perlycross was stirred, as with a many-bladed egg-whisk, by the sudden arrival of Dr. Gowler. A man, who cared nothing about the crops, and never touched bacon, or clotted cream, nor even replied to the salutation of the largest farmer, but glided along with his eyes on the ground, and a broad hat whelmed down upon his hairless white face; yet seemed to know every lane and footpath, as if he had been born among them—no wonder that in that unsettled time, when frightful tales hung about the eaves of every cottage, and every leathern latch-thong was drawn inside at nightfall, very strange suspicions were in the air about him. Even the friendship of the well-beloved Parson, and the frank admiration of Dr. Fox, could not stem the current against him. The children of the village ran away at his shadow, and the mothers in the doorway turned their babies' faces from him.
Every one who loved Sir Thomas Waldron, and that meant everybody in the parish, shuddered at hearing that this strange man had paid two visits at Walderscourt, and had even remained there a great part of one night. And when it was known that the yearly cricket-match, between the north side of the Perle and the south, had been quenched by this doctor's stern decree, the wrath of the younger men was rebuked by the sorrow of the elder. Jakes the schoolmaster, that veteran sergeant (known as "High Jarks," from the lofty flourish of his one remaining arm, and thus distinct from his younger brother, "Low Jarks," a good but not extraordinary butcher), firm as he was, and inured to fields of death, found himself unable to refuse his iron cheeks the drop, that he was better fitted to produce on others.
Now that brave descendant of Mars, and Minerva, feared one thing, and one alone, in all this wicked world; and that was holy wedlock. It was rumoured that something had befallen him in Spain, or some other foreign outlands, of a nature to make a good Christian doubt whether woman was meant as a helpmate for him, under the New Covenant. The Sergeant was not given to much talking, but rigid, and resolute, and self-contained; more apt to point, and be, the moral of his vast experience, than to adorn it with long tales. Many people said that having heard so much of the roar of cannon and the roll of drums, he could never come to care again for any toast-and-butter; while others believed that he felt it his duty to maintain the stern silence, which he imposed in school.
There was however one person in the parish, with whom he indulged in brief colloquy sometimes; and strange to say, that was a woman. Mrs. Muggridge, the Curate's housekeeper, felt more indignation than she could express, if anybody whispered that she was fond of gossip. But according to her own account, she smiled at such a charge, coming as it only could from the lowest quarters, because she was bound for her master's sake, to have some acquaintance with her neighbours' doings; for they found it too easy to impose on him. And too often little Fay would run, with the best part of his dinner to some widow, mourning deeply over an empty pot of beer. For that mighty police-force of charity, the district-visitors, were not established then.
Thyatira, though not perhaps unduly nervous—for the times were sadly out of joint—was lacking to some extent in that very quality, which the Sergeant possessed in such remarkable degree. And ever since that shocking day, when her dear mistress had been brought home from the cliff, stone-dead, the housekeeper had realised the perils of this life, even more deeply than its daily blessings. Susanna, the maid, was of a very timid nature, and when piously rebuked for her want of faith in Providence, had a knack of justifying her distrust by a course of very creepy narratives. Mrs. Muggridge would sternly command her to leave off, and yet contrive to extract every horror, down to its dying whisper.
Moreover the rectory, a long and rambling house, was not a cheerful place to sit alone in after dark. Although the high, and whitewashed, back abutted on the village street, there was no door there, and no window looking outwards in the basement; and the walls being very thick, you might almost as well be fifty miles from any company. Worst of all, and even cruel on the ancient builder's part, the only access to the kitchen and the rooms adjoining it was through a narrow and dark passage, arched with rough flints set in mortar, which ran like a tunnel beneath the first-floor rooms, from one end of the building to the other. The front of the house was on a higher level, facing southwards upon a grass-plat and flower-garden, and as pretty as the back was ugly.
Even the stoutest heart in Perlycross might flutter a little in the groping process, for the tunnel was pitch-dark at night, before emerging into the candlelight twinkling in the paved yard beside the kitchen-door. While the servants themselves would have thought it a crime, if the butcher, or baker, or anyone coming for them (except the Postman) had kept the front way up the open gravel walk, and ventured to knock at the front door itself. There was no bell outside to call them, and the green-baize door at the end of the passage, leading to the kitchen stairs, deadened the sound of the knocker so much, that sometimes a visitor might thunder away for a quarter of an hour, with intervals for conscientious study of his own temper, unless little Fay's quick ears were reached, and her pink little palms and chest began to struggle with the mighty knob.
So it happened, one evening in the first week of August, when Mr. Penniloe was engaged in a distant part of the parish, somebody or other came and knocked—it was never known how many times or how long—at the upper-folk door of the rectory.
There was not any deafness about Thyatira; and as for Susanna, she could hear too much; neither was little Fay to blame, although the rest were rather fond of leaving things to her. If the pupils had returned, it could not have happened so; for although they made quite enough noise of their own in the little back-parlour allotted to them, they never failed to hear any other person's noise, and to complain of it next morning, when they did not know their lessons.
But the present case was, that the whole live force of the rectory, now on the premises, was established quite happily in the kitchen yard; with a high wall between it and the village
