At the pace at which rapid people walk alone, when they wish to devour both the way and their own sensations, Ethel May was mounting the hill out of the town in the premature heat a.s.sumed by May in compliment to Whitsun week, when a prolonged shout made her turn. At first she thought it was her father, but her gla.s.s showed her that it was the brother so like him in figure that the London-made coat, and the hair partaking of the sand instead of the salt, were often said to be the chief distinction. Moreover, the dainty steps over the puddles were little like the strides of the Doctor, and left no doubt that it was the one wedding guest who had been despaired of.

'O, Tom, I am glad you are come!'

'What a rate you were running away at! I thought you had done with your hurricane pace.'

'Hurricane because of desperate hurry. I'm afraid I can't turn back with you.'

'Where is all the world?'

'Blanche is helping Mary arrange the Hoxton--I mean her own drawing-room. Hector has brought a dog-cart to drive papa about in; Daisy is gone with Harry and Aubrey to the Grange for some camellias.'

'And Ethel rushing to c.o.c.ksmoor!'

'I can't help it, Tom,' she said, humbly; 'I wish I could.'

'What's this immense pannier you are carrying?'

'It is quite light. It is twelve of the hats for the children tomorrow. Mary was bent on tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them all as usual, and I was deluded enough to believe she would, till last evening I found just one and a half done! I did as many as I could at night, till papa heard me rustling about and thumped. Those went early this morning; and these are the rest, which I have just finished.'

'Was there no one to send?'

'My dear Tom, is your experience of weddings so slight as to suppose there is an available being in the family the day before?'

'I'm sure I don't desire such experience. Why could not they be content without ferreting me down?'

'I am very glad you have come. It would have been a great mortification if you had stayed away. I never quite believed you would.'

'I had much rather see the operation I shall miss to-morrow morning. I shall go back by the two o'clock train.'

'To study their happiness all the way up to town?'

'Then by the mail--'

'I won't torment you to stay; but I think papa will want a talk with you.'

'The very thing I don't want. Why can't he dispose of his property like other people, and give Richard his rights?'

'You know Richard would only be enc.u.mbered.'

'No such thing; Richard is a reasonable being--he will marry some of these days--get the living after Wilmot, and--'

'But you know how papa would be grieved to separate the practice from the house.'

'Because he and his fathers were content to bury themselves in a hole, he expects me to do the same. Why, what should I do? The place is over-doctored already. Every third person is a pet patient sending for him for a gnat-bite, gratis, taking the bread out of Wright's mouth.

No wonder Henry Ward kicked! If I came here, I must practise on the lap-dogs! Here's my father, stronger than any of us, with fifteen good years' work in him at the least! He would be wretched at giving up to me a tenth part of his lambs, and that tenth would keep us always in hot water. His old-world practice would not go down with me, and he would think everything murder that was fresher than the year 1830.'

'I thought he was remarkable for having gone on with the world,' said Ethel, repressing some indignation.

'So he has in a way, but always against the grain. He has a tough lot of prejudices; and you may depend upon it, they would be more obstinate against me than any one else, and I should be looked on as an undutiful dog for questioning them, besides getting the whole credit of every case that went wrong.'

'I think you are unjust,' said Ethel, flushing with displeasure.

'I wish I were not, Ethel; but when there is one son in a family who can do nothing that is not taken amiss, it is hard that he should be the one picked out to be pinned down, and, maybe, goaded into doing something to be really sorry for.'

There was truth enough in this to seal Ethel's lips from replying that it was Tom's own fault, since his whole nature and const.i.tution were far more the cause than his conduct, and she answered, 'You might get some appointment for the present, till he really wants you.'

'To be ordered home just as I am making something of it, and see as many cases in ten years as I could in a month in town. Things are altered since his time, if he could only see it. What was the use of giving me a first-rate education, if he meant to stick me down here?'

'At least I hope you will think long before you inflict the cruel disappointment of knowing that not one of his five sons will succeed to the old practice.'

'The throne, you mean, Ethel. Pish!'

The 'Pish' was as injurious to her hereditary love for 'the old practice,' and for the old town, as to her reverence for her father.

One angry 'Tom!' burst from her lips, and only the experience that scolding made him worse, restrained her from desiring him to turn back if this was the best he had to say. Indeed she wondered to find him still by her side, holding the gate of the plantation open for her. He peered under her hat as she went through--

'How hot you look!' he said, laying hold of the handles of the basket.

'Thank you; but it is more c.u.mbrous than heavy,' she said, not letting go; 'it is not _that_--'

An elision which answered better than words, to show that his speech, rather than hill or load, had made her cheeks flame; but he only drew the great basket more decisively from her hand, put his stick into the handle, and threw it over his shoulder; and no doubt it was a much greater act of good-nature from him than it would have been from Richard or Harry.

'This path always reminds me of this very matter,' he said; 'I talked it over with Meta here, on the way to lay the foundation-stone at c.o.c.ksmoor, till Norman overtook us and monopolized her for good, poor little thing. She was all in the high romantic strain, making a sort of knight hospitaller of my father. I wonder what she is like by this time, and how much of _that_ she has left.'

'Of the high romantic strain? I should think it was as much as ever the salt of life to her. Her last letter described her contrivances to make a knapsack for Norman on his visitation tour. Oh, fancy old June a venerable archdeacon!'

'You don't think a colonial archdeacon is like one of your great portly swells in a shovel hat.'

'It must be something remarkable that made Norman portly. But as for the shovel hat, Mrs. Meta has insisted on having it sent out. I was going to tell you that she says, "I do like such a good tough bit of st.i.tchery, to fit my knight out for the cause."'

'Marriage and distance have not frozen up her effusions.'

'No; when people carry souls in their pens, they are worth a great deal more, if they are to go to a distance.'

Ah! by the bye, I suppose Cheviot has put a fresh lock on Mary's writing-case.'

'I suspect some of Mary's correspondence will devolve on me. Harry has asked me already.'

'I wished you had mentioned more about the letters of late. Leonard wanted to know more than I could tell him.'

'You don't mean that you have seen him? O, Tom, how kind of you! Papa has been trying hard to get a day now that these first six months are up; but there are two or three cases that wanted so much watching that he has not been able to stir.'

'I know how he lets himself be made a prisoner, and that it was a chance whether any one saw the poor fellow at all.'

'I am so glad'--and Ethel turned on him a face still flushed, but now with grat.i.tude. 'How was he looking?'

'The costume is not becoming, and he has lost colour and grown hollow-eyed; but I saw no reason for being uneasy about him; he looked clear and in health, and has not got to slouch yet. It is shocking to see such a grand face and head behind a grating.'