Part 32 (1/2)
”Don't I, oh, don't I, by Jove! Now tell me. What were you using?”
”Well, sir, I thought I would fire at nothing but duck on the first day. Just to christen the day, sir. So I used five and a half and smokeless diamond. Your cartridges.”
”What gun?”
”Well, I used my old pigeon gun, sir. It's full choke, both barrels and on the meils it's always a case of long shots.”
”Why didn't you have one of my guns? The long-chambered twelve, or the big Greener ten-bore--they're there in the cupboard in the gun room, you've got the key! Did a whole sord of mallard come over, or were those three stragglers?”
”A sord, sir. The two drakes were right and left shots and this duck came down too. As I said to the mistress just now, 'last year,' I said, 'Mr. Gilbert and I were out for two mornings after the first of August and we never brought back nothing but a brace of curlew--and now here's a leash of duck, M'm.'”
”If you'd had a bigger gun, and a sord came over, you'd have got a bag, William! Why the devil didn't you take the ten-bore?”
”Well, sir, I won't say as I didn't go and have a look at 'im in the gun room--knowing how they're flighting just now and that a big gun would be useful. But with you lying in bed I couldn't do it. So I went out and shot just for the honour of the house, as it were.”
”Well, I shall be up in a day or two, William, and I'll see if I can't wipe your eye!”
”I hope you will, sir, I'm sure. There's quite a lot of mallard about, early as it is.”
”I'll get among them soon, Tumpany!”
”Yessir--the Mistress I think, sir, and the doctor.”
Tumpany's ears were keen, like those of most wildfowlers,--he heard voices coming along the pa.s.sage towards the bedroom.
The door opened and Morton Sims came in with Mary.
He shook hands with Gilbert, admired Tumpany's leash of duck, and then, left alone with the poet, sat down upon the bed.
The two men regarded each other with interest. They were both ”personalities” and both of them made their mark in their several ways.
”Good heavens!” the doctor was thinking. ”What a brilliant brain's hidden behind those lint bandages! This is the man who can make the throat swell with sorrow and the heart leap high with hope! With all my learning and success, I can only bring comfort to people's bowels or cure insomnia. This fellow here can heal souls--like a priest! Even for me--now and then--he has unlocked the gates of fairyland.”
”Good Lord!” Gilbert said to himself. ”What wouldn't I give to be a fellow like this fellow. He is great. He can put a drug into one's body and one's soul awakes! He's got a magic wand. He waves it, and sanity returns. He pours out of a bottle and blind eyes once more see G.o.d, dull ears hear music! I go and get drunk at Amberleys' house and cringe before a Toftrees, Mon Dieu! This man can never go away from a house without leaving a sense of loss behind him.”
--”Well, how are you, Mr. Lothian?”
”Much better, thanks, Doctor. I'm feeling quite fit, in fact.”
”Yes, but you're not, you know. I made a complete examination of you yesterday, you remember, and now I've tabulated the results.”
”Tell me then.”
”If you weren't who you are, I wouldn't tell you at all, being who you are, I will.”
Lothian nodded. ”Fire away!” he said with his sweet smile, his great charm of manner--all the greater for the enforced abstinence of the last three days--”I shan't funk anything you tell me.”
”Very well, then. Your liver is beginning--only beginning--to be enlarged. You've got a more or less permanent catarrh of the stomach, and a permanent catarrh of the throat and nasal pa.s.sages from membranes inflamed by alcohol and constant cigarette smoking. And there is a hint of coming heart trouble, too.”
Lothian laughed, frankly enough. ”I know all that,” he said. ”Really, Doctor, there's nothing very dreadful in that. I'm as strong as a horse, really!”