LITMIR.BIZ

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that you never took out a regular diploma?” said Sir Horace, with another and still blander smile.

      “Sorra one, sir! I ‘m a doctor just as a man is a poet, – by sheer janius! ‘T is the study of nature makes both one and the other; that is, when there’s the raal stuff, – the divinus afflatus, – inside. Without you have that, you ‘re only a rhymester or a quack.”

      “You would, then, trace a parallel between them?” said Upton, graciously.

      “To be sure, sir! Ould Heyric says that the poet and the physician is one: —

      “‘For he who reads the clouded skies,

      And knows the utterings of the deep,

      Can surely see in human eyes

      The sorrows that so heart-locked sleep.’

      The human system is just a kind of universe of its own; and the very same faculties that investigate the laws of nature in one case is good in the other.”

      “I don’t think the author of ‘King Arthur’ supports your theory,” said Upton, gently.

      “Blackmoor was an ass; but maybe he was as great a bosthoon in physic as in poetry,” rejoined Billy, promptly.

      “Well, Doctor,” said Sir Horace, with one of those plaintive sighs in which he habitually opened the narrative of his own suffering, “let us descend to meaner things, and talk of myself. You see before you one who, in some degree, is the reproach of medicine. That file of prescriptions beside you will show that I have consulted almost every celebrity in Europe; and that I have done so unsuccessfully, it is only necessary that you should look on these worn looks – these wasted fingers – this sickly, feeble frame. Vouchsafe me a patient hearing for a few moments, while I give you some insight into one of the most intricate cases, perhaps, that has ever engaged the faculty.”

      It is not our intention to follow Sir Horace through his statement, which in reality comprised a sketch of half the ills that the flesh is heir to. Maladies of heart, brain, liver, lungs, the nerves, the arteries, even the bones, contributed their aid to swell the dreary catalogue, which, indeed, contained the usual contradictions and exaggerations incidental to such histories. We could not assuredly expect from our reader the patient attention with which Billy listened to this narrative. Never by a word did he interrupt the description; not even a syllable escaped him as he sat; and even when Sir Horace had finished speaking, he remained with slightly drooped head and clasped hands in deep meditation.

      “It’s a strange thing,” said he, at last; “but the more I see of the aristocracy, the more I ‘m convinced that they ought to have doctors for themselves alone, just as they have their own tailors and coachmakers, – chaps that could devote themselves to the study of physic for the peerage, and never think of any other disorders but them that befall people of rank. Your mistake, Sir Horace, was in consulting the regular middle-class practitioner, who invariably imagined there must be a disease to treat.”

      “And you set me down as a hypochondriac, then,” said Upton, smiling.

      “Nothing of the kind! You have a malady, sure enough, but nothing organic. ‘Tis the oceans of tinctures, the sieves full of pills, the quarter-casks of bitters you ‘re takin’, has played the divil with you. The human machine is like a clock, and it depends on the proportion the parts bear to each other, whether it keeps time. You may make the spring too strong, or the chain too thick, or the balance too heavy for the rest of the works, and spoil everything just by over security. That’s what your doctors was doing with their tonics and cordials. They didn’t see, here’s a poor washy frame, with a wake circulation and no vigor. If we nourish him, his heart will go quicker, to be sure; but what will his brain be at? There’s the rub! His brain will begin to go fast too, and already it’s going the pace. ‘T is soothin’ and calmin’ you want; allaying the irritability of an irrascible, fretful nature, always on the watch for self-torment. Say-bathin’, early hours, a quiet mopin’ kind of life, that would, maybe, tend to torpor and sleepiness, – them’s the first things you need; and for exercise, a little work in the garden that you ‘d take interest in.”

      “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

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