He spoke with a little irresolution whenever he began,but afterwards fluently.He was a tall,thin,large-boned,old gentleman,with an appearance at first sight of being hard-featured;but,at a second glance,the mild expression of his face and some particular touches of sweetness and patience about his mouth,corrected this impression and assigned his long professional rides,by day and night,in the bleak hill-weather,as the true cause of that appearance.He stooped very little,though past seventy and very grey.His dress was more like that of a clergyman than a country doctor,being a plain black suit,and a plain white neck-kerchief tied behind like a band.His black was the worse for wear,and there were darns in his coat,and his linen was a little frayed at the hems and edges.He might have been poor -it was likely enough in that out-of-the-way spot -or he might have been a little self-forgetful and eccentric.Any one could have seen directly,that he had neither wife nor child at home.He had a scholarly air with him,and that kind of considerate humanity towards others which claimed a gentle consideration for himself.
Mr.Goodchild made this study of him while he was examining the limb,and as he laid it down.Mr.Goodchild wishes to add that he considers it a very good likeness.
It came out in the course of a little conversation,that Doctor Speddie was acquainted with some friends of Thomas Idle's,and had,when a young man,passed some years in Thomas Idle's birthplace on the other side of England.Certain idle labours,the fruit of Mr.
Goodchild's apprenticeship,also happened to be well known to him.
The lazy travellers were thus placed on a more intimate footing with the Doctor than the casual circumstances of the meeting would of themselves have established;and when Doctor Speddie rose to go home,remarking that he would send his assistant with the lotion,Francis Goodchild said that was unnecessary,for,by the Doctor's leave,he would accompany him,and bring it back.(Having done nothing to fatigue himself for a full quarter of an hour,Francis began to fear that he was not in a state of idleness.)Doctor Speddie politely assented to the proposition of Francis Goodchild,'as it would give him the pleasure of enjoying a few more minutes of Mr.Goodchild's society than he could otherwise have hoped for,'and they went out together into the village street.The rain had nearly ceased,the clouds had broken before a cool wind from the north-east,and stars were shining from the peaceful heights beyond them.
Doctor Speddie's house was the last house in the place.Beyond it,lay the moor,all dark and lonesome.The wind moaned in a low,dull,shivering manner round the little garden,like a houseless creature that knew the winter was coming.It was exceedingly wild and solitary.'Roses,'said the Doctor,when Goodchild touched some wet leaves overhanging the stone porch;'but they get cut to pieces.'
The Doctor opened the door with a key he carried,and led the way into a low but pretty ample hall with rooms on either side.The door of one of these stood open,and the Doctor entered it,with a word of welcome to his guest.It,too,was a low room,half surgery and half parlour,with shelves of books and bottles against the walls,which were of a very dark hue.There was a fire in the grate,the night being damp and chill.Leaning against the chimney-piece looking down into it,stood the Doctor's Assistant.
A man of a most remarkable appearance.Much older than Mr.
Goodchild had expected,for he was at least two-and-fifty;but,that was nothing.What was startling in him was his remarkable paleness.His large black eyes,his sunken cheeks,his long and heavy iron-grey hair,his wasted hands,and even the attenuation of his figure,were at first forgotten in his extraordinary pallor.
There was no vestige of colour in the man.When he turned his face,Francis Goodchild started as if a stone figure had looked round at him.
'Mr.Lorn,'said the Doctor.'Mr.Goodchild.'
The Assistant,in a distraught way -as if he had forgotten something -as if he had forgotten everything,even to his own name and himself -acknowledged the visitor's presence,and stepped further back into the shadow of the wall behind him.But,he was so pale that his face stood out in relief again the dark wall,and really could not be hidden so.
'Mr.Goodchild's friend has met with accident,Lorn,'said Doctor Speddie.'We want the lotion for a bad sprain.'
A pause.
'My dear fellow,you are more than usually absent to-night.The lotion for a bad sprain.'
'Ah!yes!Directly.'
He was evidently relieved to turn away,and to take his white face and his wild eyes to a table in a recess among the bottles.But,though he stood there,compounding the lotion with his back towards them,Goodchild could not,for many moments,withdraw his gaze from the man.When he at length did so,he found the Doctor observing him,with some trouble in his face.'He is absent,'explained the Doctor,in a low voice.'Always absent.Very absent.'
'Is he ill?'
'No,not ill.'
'Unhappy?'
'I have my suspicions that he was,'assented the Doctor,'once.'
Francis Goodchild could not but observe that the Doctor accompanied these words with a benignant and protecting glance at their subject,in which there was much of the expression with which an attached father might have looked at a heavily afflicted son.Yet,that they were not father and son must have been plain to most eyes.The Assistant,on the other hand,turning presently to ask the Doctor some question,looked at him with a wan smile as if he were his whole reliance and sustainment in life.
It was in vain for the Doctor in his easy-chair,to try to lead the mind of Mr.Goodchild in the opposite easy-chair,away from what was before him.Let Mr.Goodchild do what he would to follow the Doctor,his eyes and thoughts reverted to the Assistant.The Doctor soon perceived it,and,after falling silent,and musing in a little perplexity,said:
'Lorn!'