“And no physic?” asked Sir Horace.
“Sorra screed! not as much as a powder or a draught—barrin',” said he, suddenly catching the altered expression of the sick man's face, “a little mixture of hyoscyamus I' ll compound for you myself. This, and friction over the region of the heart, with a mild embrocation, is all my tratement!”
“And you have hopes of my recovery?” asked Sir Horace, faintly.
“My name isn't Billy Traynor if I'd not send you out of this hale and hearty before two months. I read you like a printed book.”
“You really give me great confidence, for I perceive you understand the tone of my temperament. Let us try this same embrocation at once; I'll most implicitly obey you in everything.”
“My head on a block, then, but I'll cure you,” said Billy, who determined that no scruples on his side should mar the trust reposed in him by the patient. “But you must give yourself entirely up to me; not only as to your eatin' and drinkin', but your hours of recreation and study, exercise, amusement, and all, must be at my biddin'. It is the principle of harmony between the moral and physical nature constitutes the whole sacret of my system. To be stimulatin' the nerves, and lavin' the arteries dormant, is like playing a jig to minuet time—all must move in simultaneous action; and the cerebellum, the great flywheel of the whole, must be made to keep orderly time. D'ye mind?”
“I follow you with great interest,” said Sir Horace, to whose subtle nature there was an intense pleasure in the thought of having discovered what he deemed a man of original genius under this unpromising exterior. “There is but one bar to these arrangements: I must leave this at once; I ought to go to-day. I must be off to-morrow.”
“Then I'll not take the helm when I can't pilot you through the shoals,” said Billy. “To begin my system, and see you go away before I developed my grand invigoratin' arcanum, would be only to destroy your confidence in an elegant discovery.”
“Were I only as certain as you seem to be——” began
Sir Horace, and then stopped.
“You 'd stay and be cured, you were goin' to say. Well, if you did n't feel that same trust in me, you 'd be right to go; for it is that very confidence that turns the balance. Ould Babbington used to say that between a good physician and a bad one there was just the difference between a pound and a guinea. But between the one you trust and the one you don't, there's all the way between Billy Traynor and the Bank of Ireland!”
“On that score every advantage is with you,” said Upton, with all the winning grace of his incomparable manner; “and I must now bethink me how I can manage to prolong my stay here.” And with this he fell into a musing fit, letting drop occasionally some stray word or two, to mark the current of his thoughts: “The Duke of Headwater's on the thirteenth; Ardroath Castle the Tuesday after; More-hampton for the Derby day. These easily disposed of. Prince Boratinsky, about that Warsaw affair, must be attended to; a letter, yes, a letter, will keep that question open. Lady Grencliffe is a difficulty; if I plead illness, she 'll say I 'm not strong enough to go to Russia. I 'll think it over.” And with this he rested his head on his hands, and sank into profound reflection. “Yes, Doctor,” said he, at length, as though summing up his secret calculations, “health is the first requisite. If you can but restore me, you will be—I am above the mere personal consideration—you will be the means of conferring an important service on the King's Government. A variety of questions, some of them deep and intricate, are now pending, of which I alone understand the secret meaning. A new hand would infallibly spoil the game; and yet, in my present condition, how could I hear the fatigues of long interviews, ministerial deliberations, incessant note-writing, and evasive conversations?”
“Utterly unpossible!” exclaimed the doctor.
“As you observe, it is utterly impossible,” rejoined Sir Horace, with one of his own dubious smiles; and then, in a manner more natural, resumed: “We public men have the sad necessity of concealing the sufferings on which others trade for sympathy. We must never confess to an ache or a pain, lest it be rumored that we are unequal to the fatigues of office; and so is it that we are condemned to run the race with broken health and shattered frame, alleging all the while that no exertion is too much, no effort too great for us.”
“And maybe, after all, it's that very struggle that makes you more than common men,” said Billy. “There's a kind of irritability that keeps the brain at stretch, and renders it equal to higher efforts than ever accompany good everyday health. Dyspepsia is the soul of a prose-writer, and a slight ossification of the aortic valves is a great help to the imagination.”
“Do you really say so?” asked Sir Horace, with all the implicit confidence with which he accepted any marvel that had its origin in medicine.
“Don't you feel it yourself, sir?” asked Billy. “Do you ever pen a reply to a knotty state-paper as nately as when you've the heartburn?—are you ever as epigrammatic as when you're driven to a listen slipper?—and when do you give a minister a jobation as purtily as when you are laborin' under a slight indigestion? Not that it would sarve a man to be permanently in gout or the colic; but for a spurt like a cavalry charge, there's nothing like eatin' something that disagrees with you.”
“An ingenious notion,” said the diplomatist, smiling.
“And now I 'll take my lave,” said Billy, rising. “I'm going out to gather some mountain-colchicum and sorrel, to make a diaphoretic infusion; and I've to give Master Charles his Greek lesson; and blister the colt—he's thrown out a bone spavin; and, after that, Handy Care's daughter has the shakin' ague, and the smith at the forge is to be bled—all before two o 'dock, when 'the lord' sends for me. But the rest of the day, and the night too, I'm your honor's obaydient.”
And with a low bow, repeated in a more reverential man-ner at the door, Billy took his leave and retired.
CHAPTER X. A DISCLOSURE
“Have you seen Upton?” asked Glencore eagerly of Harcourt as he entered his bedroom.
“Yes; he vouchsafed me an audience during his toilet, just as the old kings of France were accustomed to honor a favorite with one.”
“And is he full of miseries at the dreary place, the rough fare and deplorable resources of this wild spot?”
“Quite the reverse; he is charmed with everything and everybody. The view from his window is glorious; the air has already invigorated him. For years he has not breakfasted with the same appetite; and he finds that of all the places he has ever chanced upon, this is the one veritable exact spot which suits him.”
“This is very kind on his part,” said Glencore, with a faint smile. “Will the humor last, Harcourt? That is the question.”
“I trust it will—at least it may well endure for the short period he means to stay; although already he has extended that, and intends remaining till next week.”
“Better still,” said Glencore, with more animation of voice and manner. “I was already growing nervous about the brief space in which I was to crowd in all that I want to say to him; but if he will consent to wait a day or two, I hope I shall be equal to it.”
“In his present mood there is no impatience to be off; on the contrary, he has been inquiring as to all the available means of locomotion, and by what convenience he is to make various sea and land excursions.”
“We