CHAPTER XXIV.

The Doctor's Visit.

Sir Jekyl's hour was eight o'clock, and punctually his man, Tomlinson, knocked at his door.

"Hollo! Is that Tomlinson?" answered the voice from within.

"Yes, sir, please."

"See, Tomlinson, I say, it's very ridiculous; but I'm hanged if I can stir, that confounded gout's got hold of my foot again. You'll have to force the door. Send some one down to the town for Doctor Pratt--d'ye see?--and get me some handkerchiefs, and don't be all day."

The faithful Tomlinson listening, with a snowy shirt and a pair of socks on his arm and the tips of his fingers fiddling with the door-handle, listening at the other side of the panel, with forehead inclined forward and mouth open, looked, I am sorry to say, a good deal amused, although he answered in a concerned tone; and departed to execute his orders.

"Guv'nor took in toe again," he murmured, with a solemn leer, as he paused before the butler's broad Ma.r.s.eilles waistcoat.

"As how?" inquired he.

"The gout; can't stir a peg, and he's locked hisself in, as usual, over night."

"Lawk!" exclaimed the butler, and I dare say both would have liked to laugh, but neither cared to compromise himself.

"Chisel and mallet, Mr. Story, we shall want, if you please, and some one to go at once for the doctor to the town."

"I know--yes--hinstantly," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the butler.

So things proceeded. Pratt, M. D., the medical pract.i.tioner of the village, whose yellow hall door and broad bra.s.s plate, and shop window round the corner, with the two time-honoured gla.s.s jars, one of red the other of green fluid, representing physic in its most attractive hues, were not more widely known than his short, solemn, red face, blue chin, white whiskers, and bald pate, was roused by the messenger's summons, at his toilet, and peeped over his muslin blind to discover the hand that was ringing so furiously among his withered hollyhocks; and at the same time Tomlinson and the butler were working with ripping chisel, mallet, and even a poker, to effect an entrance.

"Ha! Dives," said the Baronet, as that divine, who had heard the sad news, presented himself at the now open door. "I sent for you, my dear fellow. A horrid screw in my left toe this time. Such a spoil-sport!

curse it, but it won't be anything. I've sent for Pratt, and you'll tell the people at breakfast, you know, that I'm a prisoner; only a trifle though, I hope--down to dinner maybe. There's the gong--run down, like a dear fellow."

"Not flying--well fixed in the toe, eh?" said Dives, rather anxiously, for he did not like Sir Jekyl's constrained voice and sunken look.

"Quite fixed--blazing away--just the thing Pratt likes--confounded pain though. Now run down, my dear fellow, and make my excuses, but say I hope to be down to dinner, mind."

So, with another look, Dives went down, not quite comfortable, for on the whole he liked Jekyl, who had done a great deal for him; he did not like tragedies, he was very comfortable as he stood, and quite content to await the course of nature.

"Is that d--d doctor _ever_ coming?" asked Sir Jekyl, dismally.

"He'll be here, sir, please, in five minutes--so he said, sir."

"I know, but there's been _ten_ since, curse him."

"Shall I send again, sir?" asked Tomlinson.

"Do; say I'm in pain, and can't think what the devil's keeping him."

Beatrix in a moment more came running up in consternation.

"How do you feel now, papa? Gout, is it not?" she asked, having obtained leave to come in; "not very bad, I hope."

The Baronet smiled with an effort.

"Gout's never very pleasant, a hot thumb-screw on one's toe, my dear, but that's all; it will be nothing. Pratt's coming, and he'll get me right in a day or two--only the great toe. I beg pardon for naming it so often--very waspish though, that's all. Don't stay away, or the people will fancy something serious; and possibly I may be down, in a slipper though, to dinner. So run down, Trixie, darling."

And Trixie, with the same lingering look that Dives had cast on him, only more anxious, betook herself to the parlour as he had desired.

In a little while Doctor Pratt had arrived. As he toddled through the hall he encountered the Rev. Dives on his way to the breakfast-parlour.

Pratt had suffered some rough handling and damage at the hands of Time, and Dives was nothing the better of the sarcastic manipulations of the same ancient G.o.d, since they had last met. Still they instantly recognised, and shook hands cordially, and when the salutation was over--

"Well, and what's wrong with the Baronet?"

"Gout; he drinks two gla.s.ses of port, I've observed, at dinner, and it always disagrees with him. Pray do stop it--the port, I mean."

"Hand or foot?"

"The great toe--the best place, isn't it?"

"No better, sir. There's nothing, nothing of the stomach?--I brought this in _case_," and he held up a phial.

"No, but I don't like his looks; he looks so haggard and exhausted."

"H'm, I'd like to see him at once; I don't know his room though."

So Dives put him in charge of a guide, and they parted.

"Well, Sir Jekyl, how d'ye do, hey? and how's all this? Old enemy, hey--all in the foot--fast in the toe--isn't he?" began the Doctor as he entered the Baronet's room.

"Ay, in the toe. Sit down there, Pratt, beside me."

"Ah, ha! nervous; you think I'll knock him, eh? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, no!

Don't be afraid. Nothing wrong in the stomach--no chill--retching?"

"No."

"_Head_ all right, too; nothing queer there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing in the knuckles--old acquaintance, you know, when you meet, sometimes a squeeze by the hand, eh? Ha, ha, ha!"

"No, nothing in the hand," said the Baronet, a little testily.

"Nor any wandering sensations here, you know, and there, hey?" said the little fellow, sitting down briskly by his patient.

"No; curse it."