“No,” said Little, “I won't go there; my mother would hear of it.”
“Oh, then your mother is not to know?”
“Not for all the world! She has had trouble enough. I'll just wash my face and buy a clean shirt, and she'll never know what has happened. It would kill her. Oh, yes, it would kill her!”
The doctor eyed him with warm approval. “You are a fine young fellow. I'll see you safe through this, and help you throw dust in your mother's eyes. If you go to her with that scratched face, we are lost. Come, get into my carriage, and home with me.”
“Mayn't I wash my face first? And look at my shirt: as black as a cinder.”
“Wash your face, by all means: but you can button your coat over your shirt.”
The coat was soon brought, and so was a pail of water and a piece of yellow soap. Little dashed his head and face into the bucket, and soon inked all the water. The explosion had filled his hair with black dust, and grimed his face and neck like a sweep's. This ablution made him clean, but did not bring back his ruddy color. He looked pale and scratched.
The men helped him officiously into the carriage, though he could have walked very well alone.
Henry asked leave to buy a clean shirt. The doctor said he would lend him one at home.
While Henry was putting it on Dr. Amboyne ordered his dog-cart instead of his brougham, and mixed some medicines. And soon Henry found himself seated in the dog-cart, with a warm cloak over him, and whisking over the stones of Hillsborough.
All this had been done so rapidly and unhesitatingly that Henry, injured and shaken as he was, had yielded passive obedience. But now he began to demur a little. “But where are we going, sir?” he asked.
“To change the air and the scene. I'll be frank with you—you are man enough to bear the truth—you have received a shock that will very likely bring on brain-fever, unless you get some sleep tonight. But you would not sleep in Hillsborough. You'd wake a dozen times in the night, trembling like an aspen leaf, and fancying you were blown up again.”
“Yes, but my mother, sir! If I don't go home at seven o'clock, she'll find me out.”
“If you went crazy wouldn't she find you out? Come, my young friend, trust to my experience, and to the interest this attempt to murder you, and your narrow escape, have inspired in me. When I have landed you in the Temple of Health, and just wasted a little advice on a pig-headed patient in the neighborhood (he is the squire of the place), I'll drive back to Hillsborough, and tell your mother some story or other: you and I will concoct that together as we go.”
At this Henry was all obedience, and indeed thanked him, with the tears in his eyes, for his kindness to a poor stranger.
Dr. Amboyne smiled. “If you were not a stranger, you would know that saving cutlers' lives is my hobby, and one in which I am steadily resisted and defeated, especially by the cutlers themselves: why, I look upon you as a most considerate and obliging young man for indulging me in this way. If you had been a Hillsborough hand, you would insist upon a brain-fever, and a trip to the lunatic asylum, just to vex me, and hinder me of my hobby.”
Henry stared. This was too eccentric for him to take it all in at once. “What!” said Dr. Amboyne, observing his amazement, “Did you never hear of Dr. Doubleface?”
“No, sir.”
“Never hear of the corpulent lunatic, who goes about the city chanting, like a cuckoo, 'Put yourself in his place—put yourself in her place—in their place?'
“No, sir, I never did.”
“Then such is fame. Well, never mind that just now; there's a time for every thing. Please observe that ruined house: the ancient family to whom it belongs are a remarkable example of the vicissitude of human affairs.” He then told him the curious ups and downs of that family, which, at two distant periods, had held vast possessions in the county; but were now represented by the shell of one manor house, and its dovecote, the size of a modern villa. Next he showed him an obscure battlefield, and told him that story, and who were the parties engaged; and so on. Every mile furnished its legend, and Dr. Amboyne related them all so graphically that the patient's mind was literally stolen away from himself. At last, after a rapid drive of eleven miles through the pure invigorating air, they made a sudden turn, and entered a pleasant and singularly rural village: they drew up at a rustic farmhouse, clad with ivy; and Dr. Amboyne said, “This is the temple: here you can sleep as safe from gunpowder as a field-marshal born.”
The farmer's daughter came out, and beamed pleasure at sight of the doctor: he got down, and told her the case, privately, and gave her precise instructions. She often interrupted the narrative with “Lawkadaisies,” and other rural interjections, and simple exclamations of pity. She promised faithful compliance with his orders.
He then beckoned Henry in, and said, “This picture of health was a patient of mine once, as you are now; there's encouragement for you. I put you under her charge. Get a letter written to your mother, and I'll come back for it in half an hour. You had a headache, and were feverish, so you consulted a doctor. He advised immediate rest and change of air, and he drove you at once to this village. Write you that, and leave the rest to me. We doctors are dissembling dogs. We have still something to learn in curing diseases; but at making light of them to the dying, and other branches of amiable mendacity, we are masters.”
As soon as he was gone, the comely young hostess began on her patient. “Dear heart, sir, was it really you as was blowed up with gunpowder?”
“Indeed it was, and not many hours ago. It seems like a dream.”
“Well, now, who'd think that, to look at you? Why, you are none the worse for, by a scratch or two, and dear heart, I've seen a young chap bring as bad home, from courting, in these parts; and wed the lass as marked him—within the year.”
“Oh, it is not the scratches; but feel my hand, how it trembles. And it used to be as firm as a rock; for I never drink.”
“So it do, I declare. Why, you do tremble all over; and no wonder, poor soul. Come you in this minut, and sit down a bit by the fire, while I go and make the room ready for you.”
But, as soon as he was seated by the fire, the current began to flow again. “Well, I never liked Hillsborough folk much—poor, mean-visaged tykes they be—but now I do hate 'em. What, blow up a decent young man like you, and a well-favored, and hair like jet, and eyes in your head like sloes! But that's their ground of spite, I warrant me; the nasty, ugly, dirty dogs. Well, you may just snap your fingers at 'em all now. They don't come out so far as this; and, if they did, stouter men grows in this village than any in Hillsborough: and I've only to hold up my finger, for as little as I be, and they'd all be well ducked in father's horsepond, and then flogged home again with a good cart-whip well laid on. And, another thing, whatever we do, Squire, he will make it good in law: he is gentle, and we are simple; but our folk and his has stood by each other this hundred year and more. But, la, I run on so, and you was to write a letter again the doctor came back. I'll fetch you some paper this minut.”
She brought him writing materials, and stood by him with this apology, “If 'twas to your sweetheart I'd be off. But 'tis to your mother.” (With a side glance), “She have been a handsome woman in her day, I'll go bail.”
“She is as beautiful as ever in my eyes,” said Henry, tenderly. “And, oh, heaven! give me the sense to write to her without frightening her.”
“Then I won't hinder you no more with my chat,” said his hostess, with kindly good humor, and slipped away upstairs. She lighted a great wood fire in the bedroom, and laid the bed and the blankets all round it, and opened the window, and took the homespun linen sheets out of a press, and made the room very tidy. Then she went down again, and the moment Henry saw her, he said “I feel your kindness, miss, but I don't know your name, nor where in the world I am.” His