Part 14 (1/2)

”Go home, father! Mayn't I go along with Sep Duncan?”

”I said go home, sir,” said the doctor sternly; and Bob turned short upon his heel, and I saw him go along the road cutting viciously at the ferns and knapweeds at every step.

”Come along, Sep,” said my father, and I followed them as they walked slowly back towards our cottage, my father holding on by the pony's mane as he talked quickly to the doctor.

For my father and Doctor Chowne were great friends, having once served for a long time in the same s.h.i.+p together; and so it was that, when my father left the service and settled down to his quiet life at the little bay, Doctor Chowne bought the practice off the last doctor's widow, and settled himself, with his boy, at Ripplemouth.

As I say, the doctor and my father were very great friends, such great friends that when one day my father felt himself to be dangerously ill, and sent over in great haste for Doctor Chowne, that gentleman galloped over and examined him carefully, and then began to bully him and call him names. He told him there was nothing the matter with him but fancy, and made him get up and go out for a walk, and told him afterwards that if they had not been such great friends he--the doctor--would have run him up a twenty-pound bill for attendance instead of nothing at all.

And there before me were those two, one walking and the other riding, with their heads close together, talking in a low eager tone, while I was thinking about how hard it was for Bob Chowne that he should be sent away, and began to wish that I had not found that piece of stone.

We reached home, and our Sam, who kept the garden in order, and cleaned the boots and knives, and washed the boat, was called to take the doctor's pony, after which Doctor Chowne whispered something to my father.

”Oh, no,” my father said. ”He found it, and we can trust him.”

Doctor Chowne whispered something else, and it set me wondering how my father could be such good friends with a man who made himself so very disagreeable and unpleasant to every one he met; but all at once it seemed to strike me that I was always good friends with Bob Chowne, who was the most disagreeable boy in our school, and that though he could be so unpleasant, there was something about him I always liked; for though he bullied and hectored, he was not, like most bullying and hectoring boys, a coward, for he had taken my part many a time against bigger and stronger fellows, and at all times we had found him thoroughly staunch.

As soon as Sam had gone off with the pony, my father called Kicksey, our maid, a great, brawny woman of forty, who was quite mistress at our place, my father being, like Doctor Chowne and Jonas Uggleston, a widower.

Kicksey came in a great hurry, with her muslin mob-cap flopping and her eyes staring, to know what was the matter.

”Light the back kitchen fire,” said my father.

”No,” said Doctor Chowne, ”put some wood and charcoal ready, and fetch a dozen bricks out of the yard.”

”Is Master Sep ill?” cried Kicksey. ”Oh, no: there he is. I was quite--”

”There, be quick,” said my father; ”and if anybody comes, go to the gate and say I'm busy.”

Kicksey stared at us all, with her eyes seeming to stand out of her head like a lobster's, she was so astounded at this curious proceeding, but she said nothing and hurried out.

And here I ought to say that her name was Ellen Levan, only, when I was a tiny little fellow after my mother died, she used to nurse me, and in my childish prattle I somehow got in the habit of calling her Kicksey, and the name became so fixed that my father never spoke of her as Ellen; while our Sam, who was an amphibious being, half fisherman, half gardener, with a mortal hatred of Jonas Uggleston's Bill Binnacle, and the doctor's man, always called her Missers Kicksey and nothing else.

”Now, then, Duncan, are we to do this together, or is--”

He made a sign towards me.

”Let him stop and help,” said my father. ”I can trust Sep when I've told him not to speak. But can you stop? I understood you to say that you were going to see a couple of patients.”

”Only old Mrs Ransom at the Hall, and Farmer Dikeby's wife. The old woman's got nothing the matter but ninety-one, and as for Mistress Dikeby, she has had too much physic as it is, and if I go she won't be happy till I give her some more, which she will be far better without.

No: I am going to stay and see this through.”

”I shall be very glad.”

”And so shall I, Duncan. I said you were an idiot to buy that Gap, and I told you so; but no one will be better pleased than I shall if it turns out well.”

He held out his hand and my father took it without a word.

”Now, then,” said the doctor, ”let's see the stuff.”