"By the way," he added, "I didn't see you when I came in last night. I hope I didn't disturb either of you. No? That's right; if I ever make a noise coming in late, shoot me at sight, please. You took the powder, Miss Blyth? and slept well? Hurrah! Well, I was going to say, I had a rather amusing time at Sh.e.l.lback."

Sh.e.l.lback was a village some ten miles off, whither he had been summoned the evening before. Both ladies brightened up. They delighted to hear of the young doctor's experiences.

"I don't suppose you know," Doctor Strong went on,--"no, you wouldn't be likely to,--an old man named b.u.t.ters, Ithuriel b.u.t.ters? Quaint name!

suggests 'Paradise Lost' and buns. Old Man b.u.t.ters they call him. Well, I went to see him; and I got a lesson in therapeutics, and two recipes for curing rheumatism, beside. I think I must try one of them on you, Miss Blyth."

Miss Phoebe, who was literal, was about to a.s.sure him that she was amply satisfied with the remedies already in use; but he went on, in high enjoyment, evidently seeing almost with his bodily vision the figures he conjured up.

"It seems the old gentleman didn't want me sent for; in fact, the family had done it on the sly, being alarmed at certain symptoms new to them. I got out there, and found the old fellow sitting in his armchair, smoking his pipe; fine-looking old boy, white hair and beard, and all that. Looked me all over, and asked me what I wanted. Wife and daughter kept out of the way, evidently scared at what they had done. I went in alone. I said I had come to see him.

"'All right,' says he. 'No extra charge!' and he shut his eyes, and smoked away for dear life. Presently he opened his eyes, and looked at me again.

"'Like my looks?' he says.

"'Yes,' said I. I thought he might have returned the compliment, but he didn't; he only grunted. I waited a bit, talked of this and that; at last I said, 'How are you feeling this evening, Mr. b.u.t.ters?'

"'First-rate!' said he. 'How be you?'

"'I'm all right,' said I,' but I don't believe you are, sir. You are not the right colour at all.'

"'What colour be I? not green, I calc'late!' Then we both laughed, and felt better. I asked if I might smoke, too, and took out my pipe.

Pretty soon the old fellow began to talk.

"'My women-folks sent for you, did they? I suspicioned they had. Fact, I was slim this mornin'; took slim suddin, whilest I was milkin'.

Didn't relish my victuals, and that scairt the woman. But I took my physic, and, come afternoon, I was spryer 'n a steer agin.'

"'What is your physic, if I may ask, Mr. b.u.t.ters?'

"'Woodpile!' says the old fellow.

"'Woodpile?' said I.

"'Cord o' wood. Axe. Sweat o' the brow. Them's the best physic I know of.'

"He smoked on for a bit, and I sat and looked at him, admiring how the world was made. I don't know whether you read Kipling, Miss Vesta. I was rewarded for my patience.

"'Young feller,' said the old man, after awhile, 'how old do you s'pose I be?'

"'Seventy,' said I; and he looked it, not a day over.

"'Add fifteen to that,' says he, 'and you have it. Eighty-five year last Jenooary. You are under thirty, I reckon? Thought so! Well, I was gettin' on for sixty year old when you was born. See?'

"I did see, but I wasn't going to give in yet. 'Did you ever study medicine, Mr. b.u.t.ters?' I said.

"'Study medicine? No, sir! but I've lived with my own bones and insides till I know 'em consid'able well; and I've seen consid'able of folks, them as doctored and them as didn't. My wives doctored, all three of 'em. I buried two of 'em, and good ones, too; and, like as not, I'll bury the third. She ain't none too rugged this summer, though she ain't but seventy. But, what I say is, start well, and stay well, and don't werry. You tell your patients that, and fust thing you know you won't have any.'"

"A singularly ignorant person, this Mr. b.u.t.ters!" said Miss Phoebe.

"I don't know!" said the young doctor. "I'm not so sure about that. I know it would be a bad thing for the medical profession if his ideas were generally taken up. Well, he went on over his pipe. I wish you could have seen him, Miss Vesta. He looked like a veritable patriarch come to life. Fancy Abraham with a T.D. pipe, and you have Ithuriel b.u.t.ters. Awfully sad for those poor old duffers not to have tobacco. I beg your pardon, Miss Blyth.

"'Yes,' said the old fellow. 'I've seen folks as doctored, and I've seen folks as fooled.'

"'Fooled?' said I.

"'Notions; fool's tricks; idees! Take my brother Reuel. He used to have rheumatiz; had it bad. One day there was a thunder-storm, and he was out gettin' in his hay, and was struck by lightnin'. Fluid run along the rake and spit in his face, he used to say. He lost the use of his eyes and hands for six months, but he never had rheumatiz again for twenty years. Swore it was the electricity; said he swallered it, and it got into his system and cured him. What do you say to that, young feller?'

"'It's an experiment I never tried,' said I. 'I'm not going to commit myself, Mr. b.u.t.ters. But that's a good story.'

"'Hold on!' said he; 'that ain't all. 'Bout twenty-five years after that--Reuel was gettin' on by that time--he was out fishin', and a squall come up and swamped his boat. He was in the water quite a spell, and come next day he was all doubled up with rheumatiz. He was the maddest man you ever see. He wouldn't do a thing, only sit hunched up in his chair and ask about the weather. It was summer-time, and good hayin' weather as a rule. b.u.mbye come a fryin' hot day, and sure enough we had a thunder-storm in the afternoon. When it was bangin' away good and solid, Reuel hitched himself out of his chair, took an iron rake in one hand and a hoe in the other, crep' out of the house, and went and sat down under a tree in the middle of the pasture. Wife tried to stop him, but she might as well have tried to stop the lightnin'. Well, sir, the tree was struck, and Reuel never had no more rheumatiz. Couldn't tell which was tree and which was him. That comes of havin' idees.'"

"Dear me!" said Miss Vesta. "What a painful story! His poor wife!"

"Such impious ignorance I think I never heard of!" said Miss Phoebe, rigidly. "I should think the--a--family a most unprofitable one for you to visit, Doctor Strong."

"But so consistent!" said Geoffrey. "Knowing their own minds, and carrying out their own theories of hygiene. It's very refreshing, I must admit. But"--Geoffrey saw that his hostesses were not amused, nor anything but pained and shocked--"this is enough about Ithuriel b.u.t.ters, isn't it? We decided that he would better take a little something dark-coloured, with a good solid smell to it, to please his 'women-folks;' he'll go out some day like the snuff of a candle, and he knows it. But you don't want to try the lightning cure, do you, Miss Blyth?"

"I most certainly do not!" said Miss Phoebe, concisely; and she reflected that even the best and most intelligent of men might often be lacking in delicate perception.

CHAPTER V.

LETTER-WRITING AND HYSTERICS

The young doctor sat in his room writing. It was a pleasant room, looking upon the garden, and in style and furnishing altogether to the young doctor's taste. He liked the tall narrow mantel, with its delicate mouldings; he liked the white paint, and the high wainscoting against which, the old mahogany came out so well; and he liked the mahogany itself, which was in quaint and graceful shapes. The dimity curtains, too, with their ball and ta.s.sel fringe, were of such a fresh clear white. They had never been dirty, they never could be dirty, the young doctor thought; some things must always be fresh and clean; like that girl's dresses. He was sitting in his favourite chair; a chair that stimulated to effort or wooed to repose, according to the att.i.tude one a.s.sumed in it. Geoffrey Strong felt a sort of ownership in this chair, for he had discovered the secret pocket in one arm; the tiny panel which, when pressed one day by his careless fingers, slipped aside, revealing a dark polished well, and in the well an ancient vinaigrette of green and gold gla.s.s. Sometimes Geoffrey would take out the vinaigrette and sniff its faded perfume, and it told him a new story every time. Now, however, it lay quiet in its nest, for Geoffrey was writing busily.

"You can't laugh any more at me and my old ladies, Jim. There's a new development, a young lady; niece, visitor here, and invalid visitor at that.

Neurasthenia, overwork at college, the old story.

When will young women learn that they are not young men? Malady in this case takes the form of aversion to the male s.e.x in general, and G. S. in particular. Handsome, sullen creature, tawny hair, eyes no particular colour, but very brilliant; pupils much dilated. I won't bother you with symptoms while you are off on your vacation, but she has some interesting ones. The dear old ladies want me to prescribe for her, but she prefers to play with pills herself. Has a remarkable voice, deep notes now and again that thrill like the middle tones of a 'cello; or might, if they said anything but 'Please pa.s.s the b.u.t.ter!' If she were better tempered, I should be tempted to send for you; you are simply spoiling for some one to fall in love with, I can tell that from your last letter. The pretty brunette had not intellectuality enough, had she? My dear fellow, as if that had anything to do with it! You were not ready, that was all. You fall in love by clockwork once every year; and it is time now. If you should see the P. B. again to-morrow, you'd be lost directly. As for me--I should think you would be tired of asking. No, I am not in love.

No, I feel no inclination whatever to become so.

No, there is no 'charmer' (what vile expressions you use, James; go back to the English Department, and learn how to speak of Woman!) who interests me in the least (except pathologically, of course), except Miss Vesta Blyth, aged sixty. I am in love with her, I grant you; anybody would be, with eyes in his head. Don't I know that I would amount to twice as much if the society of women formed part of my life? Numskull, it _does_ form part of it, a very important part. In the first place, I have my patients. Body of me, my patients! Did I not sit a stricken hour with Mrs. Abigail Plummer yesterday afternoon? She 'feels a crawling in her pipes,'--I'll spare you Mrs. Plummer, but you must hear how Mrs. Cotton cured her lumbago. (I am still hunting rheumatic affections, yes, and always shall be.) She took a quart of rum, my Christian friend; she put into it a pound and a half of sulphur and three-quarters of a pound of cream tartar, and took 'a good swaller' three or four times a day. There's therapeutics for you, sir! Lady weighs three hundred pounds if she does an ounce, and has a colour like a baby's. Well, I could go on indefinitely.

That's in the first place. In the second, I have here in this house society that is absolutely to my mind. Experience is life, you grant that. Therefore, the person of experience is the person who really lives. (Of course I admit exceptions.) Therefore, the society of a woman of sixty--an intelligent woman--is infinitely more to be desired than that of a callow girl with nothing but eyes and theories.

It is profitable, it is delightful; and this with no hurrying of the heart, no upsetting of the nerves, none of the deplorable symptoms that I observe annually in my friend Mr. James Swift. That for the second place. There is a third. Jim, Jim, do you forget that I was brought up with 'six female cousins, and all of them girls?' They were virtuous young women, every one of them; one or two were good looking; four of them (including the plainest), have married, and I trust their husbands find them interesting. I did not, but I 'learned about women from them,' as the lynx-eyed schoolboy does learn.

I divided them into three cla.s.ses, sugary, vinegary, peppery; to-day I should be more professional; let us say saccharine, acidulated, irritant. These cla.s.ses still seem to me to include the greater part of young womankind. Sorry to displease, but sich am de facts. And--yes, I still sing '_aber hierathen ist nie mein Sinn_!' Business? oh, so so! A country doctor doesn't make a fortune, but he learns a power, if he isn't an idiot. Now here is enough about me, in all conscience. When you write, tell me about yourself, and what the other fellows are doing.

After all, that is--"

Geoffrey came to the end of his paper, and paused to take a fresh sheet. Glancing up as he did so, he also glanced out of the window, to see what was going on in the garden. He always liked to keep in touch with the garden, and was on intimate terms with every bird and blossom in it. It was neither bird nor blossom that his eyes lighted on now. A young girl stood on the gravel-path, near his favourite syringa arbour.

A hammock hung over her arm, and she carried a book and a pillow. She was looking about her, evidently trying to select a place to hang her hammock. Geoffrey considered her. She was dressed in clear white; her hair, of a tawny reddish yellow, hung in one heavy braid over her shoulder.

"Oh, yes, she is handsome," said Geoffrey, addressing the syringa-bush.

"I never said she wasn't handsome. The question is, would she like me to hang that hammock for her, or would she consider it none of my business?"

At this moment the girl dropped the book; then the pillow slipped from her hands. She threw down the hammock with a petulant gesture and stood looking at the syringa-bush as if it were her mortal enemy. Geoffrey Strong laid down his pen.

A few minutes later he came sauntering leisurely around the corner. One would have said he had been spending an hour in the garden, and was now going in.