Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
”What could you do? You'd maybe slip a five-pound note into my hand, and say, 'Darby my man, settle this little matter for me; you know the ways of the place.'”
”I 'll not risk such an annoyance, at all events; that I 'm determined on.”
Darby began now to perceive that he had misconceived his brief, and must alter his pleadings as quickly as possible; in fact, he saw he was ”stopping an earth” he had meant merely to mask. ”Just leave it all to me, your honor,--leave it all to me, and I 'll have your bill for you every morning on the breakfast-table. And why would n't you? Why would a gentleman like your honor be behouldin' to any one for his meat and drink?” burst he in, with an eager rapidity. ”Why would n't you say, 'Darby, bring me this, get me that, fetch me the other; expinse is no object in life tome'?”
There was a faint twinkle of humor in the eye of Conyers, and Darby stopped short, and with that half-lisping simplicity which a few Irishmen understand to perfection, and can exercise whenever the occasion requires, he said: ”But sure is n't your honor laughing at me, is n't it just making fun of me you are? All because I'm a poor ignorant crayture that knows no better!”
”Nothing of that kind,” said Conyers, frankly. ”I was only smiling at thoughts that went through my head at the moment.”
”Well, faix! there's one coming up the path now won't make you laugh,”
said Darby, as he whispered, ”It's Dr. Dill.”
The doctor was early with his patient; if the case was not one of urgency, the sufferer was in a more elevated rank than usually fell to the chances of Dispensary practice. Then, it promised to be one of the nice chronic cases, in which tact and personal agreeability--the two great strongholds of Dr. Dill in his own estimation--were of far more importance than the materia medica. Now, if Dill's world was not a very big one, he knew it thoroughly. He was a chronicle of all the family incidents of the county, and could recount every disaster of every house for thirty miles round.
When the sprain had, therefore, been duly examined, and all the pangs of the patient sufficiently condoled with to establish the physician as a man of feeling, Dill proceeded to his task as a man of the world.
Conyers, however, abruptly stopped him, by saying, ”Tell me how I'm to get out of this place; some other inn, I mean.”
”You are not comfortable here, then?” asked Dill.
”In one sense, perfectly so. I like the quietness, the delightful tranquillity, the scenery,--everything, in short, but one circ.u.mstance.
I 'm afraid these worthy people--whoever they are--want to regard me as a guest. Now I don't know them,--never saw them,--don't care to see them. My Colonel has a liking for all this sort of thing. It has to his mind a character of adventure that amuses him. It would n't in the least amuse me, and so I want to get away.”
”Yes,” repeated Dill, blandly, after him, ”wants to get away; desires to change the air.”
”Not at all,” broke in Conyers, peevishly; ”no question of air whatever.
I don't want to be on a visit. I want an inn. What is this place they tell me of up the river,--Inis--something?”
”Inistioge. M'Cabe's house; the 'Spotted Duck;' very small, very poor, far from clean, besides.”
”Is there nothing else? Can't you think of some other place? For I can't have my servant here, circ.u.mstanced as I am now.”
The doctor paused to reply. The medical mind is eminently ready-witted, and Dill at a glance took in all the dangers of removing his patient.
Should he transfer him to his own village, the visit which now had to be requited as a journey of three miles and upwards, would then be an affair of next door. Should he send him to Thomastown, it would be worse again, for then he would be within the precincts of a greater than Dill himself,--a pract.i.tioner who had a one-horse phaeton, and whose name was written on bra.s.s. ”Would you dislike a comfortable lodging in a private family,--one of the first respectability, I may make bold to call it?”
”Abhor it!--couldn't endure it! I'm not essentially troublesome or exacting, but I like to be able to be either, whenever the humor takes me.”
”I was thinking of a house where you might freely take these liberties--”
”Liberties! I call them rights, doctor, not liberties! Can't you imagine a man, not very wilful, not very capricious, but who, if the whim took him, would n't stand being thwarted by any habits of a so-called respectable family? There, don't throw up your eyes, and misunderstand me. All I mean is, that my hours of eating and sleeping have no rule.
I smoke everywhere; I make as much noise as I please; and I never brook any impertinent curiosity about what I do, or what I leave undone.”
”Under all the circ.u.mstances, you had, perhaps, better remain where you are,” said Dill, thoughtfully.
”Of course, if these people will permit me to pay for my board and lodging. If they 'll condescend to let me be a stranger, I ask for nothing better than this place.”
”Might I offer myself as a negotiator?” said Dill, insinuatingly; ”for I opine that the case is not of the difficulty you suppose. Will you confide it to my hands?”