Page images
PDF
EPUB

AFTER MANY DAYS.

I.

"HIRD-CLASS, if you please," he said brusquely. "A working-man with a family can afford no kickshaws."

"No," said the young widow, looking up in the rugged face with a tearful smile; "and that is why he can afford to come all these miles without a fee, to visit a sick child!"

"Tut, tut!" he answered shortly. "Will corbies pick oot corbies' een? That wasn't much to do for poor Tom's boy-and yours. Now, don't fret. The child's all right. Keep up his strength, and don't be afraid of fresh air. Good-bye."

[ocr errors]

Good-bye," she said, scarcely lowering her voice as much as he could have wished. "God bless

you! You are the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!”

The train was moving slowly out of the station, and the doctor hastily clapped the pockets of his baggy old ulster in search of his daily paper. Its columns had already received much closer attention than he could, as a rule, afford to the claims of politics; but a newspaper, like most good things, serves many purposes.

What a fuss that girl did make about nothing to be sure! She always was a neurotic, fusionless, anæmic thing. He had told Tom so before the marriage, and he remembered still how indignantly his old chum had replied, "All right, old boy, many thanks; but I leave it to you to choose your wife by the number of her red blood corpuscles!" Tom was a fool, of course. Next to a meek and quiet spirit, what did a woman want more than plenty of red blood corpuscles? Latin and Greek and piano-playing were a poor business in comparison. Ah, well! with all her faults, and with all his ill-luck, poor Tom had at least had a devoted wife. What was it she had said as the train was moving off? "The shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Stuff and nonsense! And yet, perhaps, it was only fair that someone here and there should look at a man through rose

coloured spectacles. That didn't happen too often now that one was growing grumpy and middle-aged, with no gift for making pretty speeches, and no belief in the universal divine mission of women!

The doctor folded his paper with a grunt, and looked almost defiantly at the other occupants of the carriage.

There were only two. An old lady was nodding comfortably in the other corner on his own side; and opposite her sat a young girl gazing intently out of the window.

"Another neurotic specimen!" thought the doctor almost indignantly, "white lips, and muscles all on the strain! What is the race coming to? And no doubt, if one only knew it, some young fool is daft about her, and declines to concern himself with the number of her red corpuscles!"

As if in response to his gaze, the girl turned her head, and an unconscious, shuddering sigh revealed yet more clearly the tension of her nerves.

"Or is she in love with him?" went on the merciless critic. "If so, it looks as if he had been wise in time, and this is the result. Rough on her, poor little goose! Would Ethel have looked like that, I wonder, if Tom had taken my advice? Poor Ethel ! When all is said, she is a plucky little soul,-considering that Nature never meant her to face the

world alone, and least of all with a delicate child on her hands."

The train drew up at a station, and the old lady, awaking with a start, proceeded hastily to collect her chattels.

The young girl rose with automatic courtesy. "If you will get out first," she said, "I will hand you the things."

But the step was a very high one, and the old lady hesitated.

Wait a bit," said the doctor gruffly, "I'll go first."

He helped her out carefully, landed the parcels, and then returned to his corner.

"Well, she can't say we're not polite," he remarked with grim humour, as if half ashamed of the trouble he had taken.

The girl smiled in the same absent, preoccupied way. It seemed as if outward things could not penetrate beyond the extreme surface of her mind.

The doctor began to be interested in his companion from a professional point of view. Hers was a striking face, now that he got a good view of it,not so pretty as Ethel's, but intellectual, cultured; and the pose of the dainty head on its slender neck reminded him irresistibly of one of his own Scotch bluebells.

But surely there was something more amiss even than the want of red corpuscles! Either the girl was on the eve of an illness, or she was in a state of almost unbearable nerve strain. Instinctively the doctor laid his hand on the pocket that contained his clinical thermometer.

For she was not an ordinary hysterical subject by any means. He noted with quiet appreciation how she controlled every muscle when the express whizzed shrieking past; such perfect inhibition was not acquired in a day; and he waited expectantly till he saw the pale face turn a few shades paler when the noise was over.

"Perfectly ridiculous that she should be knocking about the country by herself!" he thought. “I'd like to know what her people are thinking of."

The girl let down the window at this point, and leaned forward to get the full benefit of the sharp air.

"Much better lie down, if you are afraid of fainting," continued the doctor, still to himself. "If I had any voice in the matter, I'd pack you off to do light work on a dairy farm for the next six months. Little goose!-overwrought and underfed to such an extent that she is scarcely responsible for her actions."

He began to wish that she was not so supremely

« PreviousContinue »