Chapter V: Preface (4)

DRUMTOCHTY was accustomed to break every law of health, except wholesome food and fresh air, and yet had reduced the Psalmist’s farthest limit to an average life-rate. Our men made no difference in their clothes for summer or winter, Drumsheugh and one or two of the larger farmers condescending to a topcoat on Sabbath, as a penalty of their position, and without regard to temperature. They wore their blacks at a funeral, refusing to cover them with anything, out of respect to the deceased, and standing longest in the kirkyard when the north wind was blowing across a hundred miles of snow. If the rain was pouring at the Junction, then Drumtochty stood two minutes longer through sheer native dourness till each man had a cascade from the tail of his coat, and hazarded the suggestion, hal-fway to Kildrummie, that it had been “a bit scrowie;” a “scrowie” being as far short of a “shoor” as a “shoor” fell below “weet.”

This sustained defiance of the elements provoked occasional judgments in the shape of a “hoast” (cough), and the head of the house was then exhorted by his women folk to “change his feet” if he happened to walk through a burn on his way home, and was pestered generally with sanitary precautions. It is right to add that the gudeman treated such advice with contempt, regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy of towns, but not seriously intended for Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart “napped” stones on the road in his shirt sleeves, wet or fair, summer and winter, till he was persuaded to retire from active duty at eighty-five, and he spent ten years more in regretting his hastiness and criticising his successor. The ordinary course of life, with fine air and contented minds, was to do a full share of work till seventy, and then to look after “orra” (odd) jobs well into the eighties, and to “slip awa” within sight of ninety. Persons above ninety were understood to be acquitting themselves with credit, and assumed airs of authority, brushing aside the opinions of seventy as immature, and confirming their conclusions with illustrations drawn from the end of last century.

When Hillocks’ brother so far forgot himself as to “slip awa” at sixty, that worthy man was scandalized, and offered laboured explanations at the “beerial.”

“It’s an awfu’ business ony wy ye look at it, an’ a sair trial tae us a’. A’ never heard tell o’ sic a thing in oor family afore, an’ it’s no easy accoontin’ for’t.

“The gudewife was sayin’ he wes never the same sin’ a weet nicht he lost himsel on the muir and slept below a bush; but that’s neither here nor there. A’m thinkin’ he sappit his constitution thae twa years he wes grieve (steward) aboot England. That wes thirty years syne, but ye’re never the same aifter thae foreign climates.”

Drumtochty listened patiently to Hillocks’ apologia, but was not satisfied.

“It’s clean havers aboot the muir. Losh keep’s (Lord, keep us), we’ve a’ sleepit oot and never been a hair the waur.

“A’ admit that England micht hae dune the job; it’s no cannie stravagin’ (strolling) yon wy frae place tae place, but Drums never complained tae me as if he hed been nippit in the Sooth.”

The parish had, in fact, lost confidence in Drums after his wayward experiment with a potato-digging machine, which turned out a lamentable failure, and his premature departure confirmed our vague impression of his character.

“He’s awa noo,” Drumsheugh summed up, after opinion had time to form; “an’ there were waur fouk than Drums, but there’s nae doot he wes a wee flichty.”

When illness had the audacity to attack a Drumtochty man, it was described as a “whup,” and was treated by the men with a fine negligence. Hillocks was sitting in the post office one afternoon when I looked in for my letters, and the right side of his face was blazing red. His subject of discourse was the prospects of the turnip “breer,” but he casually explained that he was waiting for medical advice.

“The gudewife is keepin’ up a ding-dong frae mornin’ till nicht aboot ma face, and a’m fair deaved (deafened), so a’m watchin’ for MacLure tae get a bottle as he comes wast (west); yon’s him noo.”

The doctor made his diagnosis from horseback on sight, and stated the result with that admirable clearness which endeared him to Drumtochty.

“Confoond ye, Hillocks, what are ye ploiterin’ aboot here for in the weet wi’ a face like a boiled beet? Div ye no ken that ye’ve a titch o’ the rose (erysipelas), and ocht tae be in the hoose? Gae hame wi’ ye afore a’ leave the bit, and send a haflin (half-grown; a child) for some medicine. Ye donnerd idiot, are ye ettlin (intending) tae follow Drums afore yir time?” And the medical attendant of Drumtochty continued his invective till Hillocks started, and still pursued his retreating figure with medical directions of a simple and practical character.

“A’m watchin’, an’ peety ye if ye pit aff time. Keep yir bed the mornin’, and dinna show yir face in the fields till a’ see ye. A’ll gie ye a cry on Monday--sic an auld fule--but there’s no ane o’ them tae mind anither in the hale pairish.”

Hillocks’ wife informed the kirkyaird that the doctor “gied the gudeman an awfu’ clearin’,” and that Hillocks “wes keepin’ the hoose,” which meant that the patient had tea breakfast, and at that time was wandering about the farm buildings in an easy undress with his head in a plaid.

It was impossible for a doctor to earn even the most modest competence from a people of such scandalous health, and so MacLure had annexed neighbouring parishes. His house--little more than a cottage--stood on the roadside among the pines towards the head of our Glen, and from this base of operations he dominated the wild glen that broke the wall of the Grampians above Drumtochty--where the snowdrifts were twelve feet deep in winter, and the only way of passage at times was the channel of the river--and the moorland district westwards till he came to the Dunleith sphere of influence, where there were four doctors and a hydropathic. Drumtochty in its length, which was eight miles, and its breadth, which was four, lay in his hand; besides a glen behind, unknown to the world, which in the night time he visited at the risk of life, for the way thereto was across the big moor with its peat holes and treacherous bogs. And he held the land eastwards towards Muirtown so far as Geordie. The Drumtochty post travelled every day, and could carry word that the doctor was wanted. He did his best for the need of every man, woman, and child in this wild, straggling district, year in, year out, in the snow and in the heat, in the dark and in the light, without rest, and without holiday for forty years.

One horse could not do the work of this man, but we liked best to see him on his old white mare, who died the week after her master, and the passing of the two did our hearts good. It was not that he rode beautifully, for he broke every canon of art, flying with his arms, stooping till he seemed to be speaking into Jess’s ears, and rising in the saddle beyond all necessity. But he could ride faster, stay longer in the saddle, and had a firmer grip with his knees, than any one I ever met, and it was all for mercy’s sake. When the reapers in harvest time saw a figure whirling past in a cloud of dust, or the family at the foot of Glen Urtach, gathered round the fire on a winter’s night, heard the rattle of a horse’s hoofs on the road, or the shepherds, out after the sheep, traced a black speck moving across the snow to the upper glen, they knew it was the doctor, and, without being conscious of it, wished him God speed.

Before and behind his saddle were strapped the instruments and medicines the doctor might want, for he never knew what was before him. There were no specialists in Drumtochty, so this man had to do everything as best he could, and as quickly. He was chest doctor and doctor for every other organ as well; he was accoucheur and surgeon; he was oculist and aurist; he was dentist and chloroformist, besides being chemist and druggist. It was often told how he was far up Glen Urtach when the feeders of the threshing mill caught young Burnbrae, and how he only stopped to change horses at his house, and galloped all the way to Burnbrae, and flung himself off his horse and amputated the arm, and saved the lad’s life.

“You wud hae thocht that every meenut was an hour,” said Jamie Soutar, who had been at the threshing, “an’ a’ll never forget the puir lad lying as white as deith on the floor o’ the loft, wi’ his head on a sheaf, an’ Burnbrae haudin’ the bandage ticht an’ prayin’ a’ the while, and the wither greetin’ in the corner.

“’Will he never come?’ she cries, ‘an’ a’ heard the soond o’ the horse’s feet on the road a mile awa in the frosty air.

“’The Lord be praised!’ said Burnbrae, and a’ slippit doon the ladder as the doctor came skelpin’ intae the close, the foam fleein’ frae his horse’s mooth.

“’Whar is he?’ wes a’ that passed his lips, an’ in five meenuts he hed him on the feedin’ board, and wes at his wark--sic wark, neeburs--but he did it weel. An’ ae thing a’ thocht rael thoctfu’ o’ him: he first sent aff the laddie’s mither tae get a bed ready.

“’Noo that’s feenished, and his constitution ’ll dae the rest,’ and he carried the lad doon the ladder in his airms like a bairn, and laid him in his bed, and waits aside him till he wes sleepin’, and then says he: Burnbrae, yir a gey lad never tae say ‘Collie, will ye lick?’ for a’ hevna tasted meat for saxteen hoors.”

“It was michty tae see him come intae the yaird that day, neeburs; the verra look o’ him wes victory.”

Jamie’s cynicism slipped off in the enthusiasm of this reminiscence, and he expressed the feeling of Drumtochty. No one sent for MacLure save in great straits, and the sight of him put courage in sinking hearts. But this was not by the grace of his appearance, or the advantage of a good bedside manner. A tall, gaunt, loosely made man, without an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body, his face burned a dark brick colour by constant exposure to the weather, red hair and beard turning grey, honest blue eyes that looked you ever in the face, huge hands with wrist bones like the shank of a ham, and a voice that hurled his salutations across two fields, he suggested the moor rather than the drawing-room. But what a clever hand it was in an operation, as delicate as a woman’s; and what a kindly voice it was in the humble room where the shepherd’s wife was weeping by her man’s bedside. He was “ill pitten thegither” to begin with, but many of his physical defects were the penalties of his work, and endeared him to the Glen. That ugly scar that cut into his right eyebrow and gave him such a sinister expression, was got one night Jess slipped on the ice and laid him insensible eight miles from home. His limp marked the big snowstorm in the fifties, when his horse missed the road in Glen Urtach, and they rolled together in a drift. MacLure escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he never walked like other men again. He could not swing himself into the saddle without making two attempts and holding Jess’s mane. Neither can you “warstle” through the peat bogs and snow drifts for forty winters without a touch of rheumatism. But they were honorable scars, and for such risks of life men get the Victoria Cross in other fields. MacLure got nothing but the secret affection of the Glen, which knew that none had ever done one-tenth as much for it as this ungainly, twisted, battered figure, and I have seen a Drumtochty face soften at the sight of MacLure limping to his horse.

Mr. Hopps earned the ill-will of the Glen forever by criticising the doctor’s dress, but indeed it would have filled any townsman with amazement. Black he wore once a year, on Sacrament Sunday, and, if possible, at a funeral; topcoat or waterproof never. His jacket and waistcoat were rough homespun of Glen Urtach wool, which threw off the wet like a duck’s back, and below he was clad in shepherd’s tartan trousers, which disappeared into unpolished riding boots. His shirt was grey flannel, and he was uncertain about a collar, but certain as to a tie, which he never had, his beard doing instead, and his hat was soft felt of four colors and seven different shapes. His point of distinction in dress was the trousers, and they were the subject of unending speculation.

“Some threep (declare) that he’s worn thae eedentical pair the last twenty year, an’ a’ mind masel (myself) his gettin’ a tear ahint, when he was crossin’ oor palin’, and the mend’s still veesible.

“Ithers declare ‘at he’s got a wab o’claith, and hes a new pair made in Muirtown aince in the twa year maybe, and keeps them in the garden till the new look wears aff.

“For ma ain pairt,” Soutar used to declare, “a’ canna mak up my mind, but there’s ae thing sure, the Glen wud not like tae see him withoot them: it wud be a shock tae confidence. There’s no muckle o’ the check left, but ye can aye tell it, and when ye see thae breeks comin’ in ye ken that if human pooer can save yir bairn’s life it ‘ill be dune.”

The confidence of the Glen--and tributary states--was unbounded, and rested partly on long experience of the doctor’s resources, and partly on his hereditary connection.

“His father was here afore him,” Mrs. Macfadyen used to explain; “atween them they’ve hed the countyside for weel on tae a century; if MacLure disna understand oor constitution, wha dis, a’ wud like tae ask?”

For Drumtochty had its own constitution and a special throat disease, as became a parish which was quite self-contained between the woods and the hills, and not dependent on the lowlands either for its diseases or its doctors.

“He’s a skilly man, Doctor MacLure,” continued my friend Mrs. Macfadyen, whose judgment on sermons or anything else was seldom at fault; “an’ a kindhearted, though o’ coorse he hes his faults like us a’, an’ he disna tribble the Kirk often.

“He aye can tell what’s wrang wi’ a body, an’ maistly he can put ye richt, an’ there’s nae new-fangled wys wi’ him: a blister for the ootside an’ Epsom salts for the inside dis his wark, an’ they say there’s no an herb on the hills he disna ken.

“If we’re tae dee, we’re tae dee; an’ if we’re tae live, we’re tae live,” concluded Elspeth, with sound Calvinistic logic; “but a’ll say this for the doctor, that whether yir tae live or dee, he can aye keep up a shairp meisture on the skin.

“But he’s no verra ceevil gin ye bring him when there’s naethin’ wrang,” and Mrs. Macfadyen’s face reflected another of Mr. Hopps’ misadventures of which Hillocks held the copyright.

“Hopps’ laddie ate grosarts (gooseberries) till they hed to sit up a’ nicht wi’ him, and naethin’ wud do but they maun hae the doctor, an’ he writes ‘immediately’ on a slip o’ paper.

“Weel, MacLure had been awa a’ nicht wi’ a shepherd’s wife Dunleith wy, and he comes here withoot drawin’ bridle, mud up tae the een.

“’What’s a dae here, Hillocks?’ he cries; ‘it’s no an accident, is’t?’ and when he got aff his horse he cud hardly stand wi’ stiffness and tire.

“’It’s nane o’ us, doctor; it’s Hopps’ laddie; he’s been eatin’ ower mony berries.’

“’If he didna turn on me like a tiger.

“’Div ye mean tae say--’

“’Weesht, weesht,’ an’ I tried tae quiet him, for Hopps wes comin’ oot.

“’Well, doctor,’ begins he, as brisk as a magpie, ‘you’re here at last; there’s no hurry with you Scotch-men. My boy has been sick all night, and I’ve never had one wink of sleep. You might have come a little quicker, that’s all I’ve got to say.’

“’We’ve mair tae dae in Drumtochty than attend tae every bairn that hes a sair stomach,’ and a’ saw MacLure was roosed.

“’I’m astonished to hear you speak. Our doctor at home always says to Mrs. ‘Opps, ‘Look on me as a family friend, Mrs. ‘Opps, and send for me though it be only a headache.’”

“’He’d be mair sparin’ o’ his offers if he hed four an’ twenty mile tae look aifter. There’s naething wrang wi’ yir laddie but greed. Gie him a gude dose o’ castor oil and stop his meat for a day, an’ he ‘ill be a’ richt the morn.’

“’He’ll not take castor oil, doctor. We have given up those barbarous medicines.’

“’Whatna kind o’ medicines hae ye noo in the Sooth?’

“’Well, you see, Dr. MacLure, we’re homœopathists, and I’ve my little chest here,’ and oot Hopps comes wi’ his boxy.

“’Let’s see ‘t,’ an’ MacLure sits doon and taks oot the bit bottles, and he reads the names wi’ a lauch every time.

“’Belladonna; did ye ever hear the like? Aconite; it cowes a’. Nux Vomica. What next? Weel, ma mannie,’ he says tae Hopps, ‘it’s a fine ploy, and ye ‘ill better gang on wi’ the Nux till it’s dune, and gie him ony ither o’ the sweeties he fancies.

“’Noo, Hillocks, a’ maun be aff tae see Drumsheugh’s grieve (steward), for he’s doon wi’ the fever, an’ it’s tae be a teuch fecht (hard fight). A’ hinna time tae wait for dinner; gie me some cheese an’ cake in ma haund, and Jess ‘ill tak a pail o’ meal an’ water.

“’Fee; a’m no wantin’ yir fees, man; wi’ a’ that boxy ye dinna need a doctor; na, na, gie yir siller tae some puir body, Maister Hopps,’ an’ he was doon the road as hard as he cud lick.”

His fees were pretty much what the folk chose to give him, and he collected them once a year at Kildrummie fair.

“Weel, doctor, what am a’ awin’ ye for the wife and bairn? Ye ‘ill need three notes for that nicht ye stayed in the hoose an’ a’ the veesits.”

“Havers,” MacLure would answer, “prices are low, a’m hearing; gie’s thirty shillings.”

“No, a’ll no, or the wife ‘ill tak ma ears off,” and it was settled for two pounds.

Lord Kilspindie gave him a free house and fields, and one way or other, Drumsheugh told me, the doctor might get in about one hundred and fifty pounds a year, out of which he had to pay his old housekeeper’s wages and a boy’s, and keep two horses, besides the cost of instruments and books, which he bought through a friend in Edinburgh with much judgment.

There was only one man who ever complained of the doctor’s charges, and that was the new farmer of Milton, who was so good that he was above both churches, and held a meeting in his barn. (It was Milton the Glen supposed at first to be a Mormon, but I can’t go into that now.) He offered MacLure a pound less than he asked, and two tracts, whereupon MacLure expressed his opinion of Milton, both from a theological and social standpoint, with such vigour and frankness that an attentive audience of Drumtochty men could hardly contain themselves.

Jamie Soutar was selling his pig at the time, and missed the meeting, but he hastened to condole with Milton, who was complaining everywhere of the doctor’s language.

“Ye did richt tae resist him; it ‘ill maybe roose the Glen tae mak a stand; he fair hauds them in bondage.

“Thirty shillings for twal veesits, and him no mair then seeven mile awa, an’ a’m telt there werena mair than four at nicht.

“Ye ‘ill hae the sympathy o’ the Glen, for a’ body kens yir as free wi’ yir siller as yir tracts.

“Wes’t ‘Beware o’ gude warks’ ye offered him? Man, ye chose it weel, for he’s been colleckin’ sae mony thae forty years, a’m feared for him.

“A’ve often thocht oor doctor’s little better than the Gude Samaritan, an’ the Pharisees didna think muckle o’ his chance aither in this warld or that which is tae come.”

IAN MACLAREN.

VIII

THE VARIOUS TEMPERS OF GRANDMOTHER GREGG.

WHEN the doctor drove by the Gregg farm about dusk, and saw old Deacon Gregg perched cross-legged upon his own gate-post, he knew that something was wrong within, and he could not resist the temptation to drive up and speak to the old man.

It was common talk in the neighborhood that when Grandmother Gregg made things too warm for him in-doors, the good man, her spouse, was wont to stroll out to the front gate and to take this exalted seat.

Indeed, it was said by a certain Mrs. Frequent, a neighbor of prying proclivities and ungentle speech, that the deacon’s wife sent him there as a punishment for misdemeanors. Furthermore, this same Mrs. Frequent did even go so far as to watch for the deacon, and when she would see him laboriously rise and resignedly poise himself upon the narrow area, she would remark:

“Well, I see Grandma Gregg has got the old man punished again. Wonder what he’s been up to now?”

Her constant repetition of the unkind charge finally gained for it such credence that the diminutive figure upon the gate-post became an object of mingled sympathy and mirth in the popular regard.

The old doctor was the friend of a lifetime, and he was sincerely attached to the deacon, and when he turned his horse’s head toward the gate this evening, he felt his heart go out in sympathy to the old man in durance vile upon his lonely perch.

But he had barely started to the gate when he heard a voice which he recognized as the deacon’s, whereupon he would have hurried away had not his horse committed him to his first impulse by unequivocally facing the gate.

“I know three’s a crowd,” he called out cheerily as he presently drew rein, “but I ain’t a-goin’ to stay; I jest--Why, where’s grandma?” be added abruptly, seeing the old man alone. “I’m shore I heard--”

“You jest heerd me a-talkin’ to myself, doctor--or not to myself, exactly, neither--that is to say, when you come up I was addressin’ my remarks to this here pill.”

“Bill? I don’t see no bill.” The doctor drew his buggy nearer. He was a little deaf.

“No, I said this pill, doctor. I’m a-holdin’ of it here in the pa’m o’ my hand, a-studyin’ over it.”

“What’s she a-dosin’ you for now, Enoch?”

The doctor always called the deacon by his first name when he approached him in sympathy. He did not know it. Neither did the deacon, but he felt the sympathy, and it unlocked the portals of his heart.

“Well”--the old man’s voice softened--”she thinks I stand in need of ‘em, of co’se. The fact is, that yaller-spotted steer run agin her clo’es-line twice-t to-day, drug the whole week’s washin’ onto the ground, an’ then tromped on it. She’s inside a-renchin’ an’ a-starchin’ of ‘em over now. An’ right on top o’ that, I come in lookin’ sort o’ puny an’ peaked, an’ I happened to choke on a muskitty jest ez I come in, an’ she declared she wasn’t a-goin’ to have a consumpted man sick on her hands an’ a clo’es-destroyin’ steer at the same time. An’ with that she up an’ wiped her hands on her apron, an’ went an’ selected this here pill out of a bottle of assorted sizes, an’ instructed me to take it. They never was a thing done mo’ delib’rate an’ kind--never on earth. But of co’se you an’ she know how it plegs me to take physic. You could mould out ice-cream in little pill shapes an’ it would gag me, even ef ‘twas vanilly-flavored. An’ so, when I received it, why, I jest come out here to meditate. You can see it from where you set, doctor. It’s a purty sizeable one, and I’m mighty suspicious of it.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Yas, I can see it, Enoch--of co’se.”

“Could you jedge of it, doctor? That is, of its capabilities, I mean?”

“Why, no, of co’se not--not less’n I’d taste it, an’ you can do that ez well ez I can. If it’s quinine, it’ll be bitter; an’ ef it’s soggy an’--”

“Don’t explain no mo’, doctor. I can’t stand it. I s’pose it’s jest ez foolish to investigate the inwardness of a pill a person is bound to take ez it would be to try to lif’ the veil of the future in any other way. When I’m obligated to swaller one of ‘em, I jest take a swig o’ good spring water and repeat a po’tion of Scripture and commit myself unto the Lord. I always seem foreordained to choke to death, but I notice thet ef I recover from the first spell o’ suffocation, I always come through. But I ain’t never took one yet thet I didn’t in a manner prepare to die.”

“Then I wouldn’t take it, Enoch. Don’t do it.” The doctor cleared his throat again, but this time he had no trouble to keep the corners of his mouth down. His sympathy robbed him for the time of the humor in the situation. “No, I wouldn’t do it; d--doggone ef I would.”

The deacon looked into the palm of his hand and sighed. “Oh, yas, I reckon I better take it,” he said, mildly. “Ef I don’t stand in need of it now, maybe the good Lord ‘ll sto’e it up in my system, some way, ‘g’inst a future attackt.”

“Well”--the doctor reached for his whip--”well, I wouldn’t do it--_steer or no steer_!”

“Oh, yas, I reckon you would, doctor, ef you had a wife ez worrited over a wash-tub ez what mine is. An’ I had a extry shirt in wash this week too. One little pill ain’t much when you take in how she’s been tantalized.”

The doctor laughed outright.

“Tell you what to do, Enoch. Fling it away and don’t let on. She don’t question you, does she?”

“No, she ain’t never to say questioned me, but--Well, I tried that once-t. Sampled a bitter white capsule she give me, put it down for quinine, an’ flung it away. Then I chirped up an’ said I felt a heap better--and that wasn’t no lie--which I suppose was on account o’ the relief to my mind, which it always did seem to me capsules was jest constructed to lodge in a person’s air-passages. Well, I taken notice that she’d look at me keen now an’ agin, an’ then glance at the clock, an’ treckly I see her fill the gou’d dipper an’ go to her medicine-cabinet, an’ then she come to me an’ she says, says she, ‘Open yore mouth!’ An’ of co’se I opened it. You see that first capsule, ez well ez the one she had jest adminstered, was mostly morphine, which she had give me to ward off a ‘tackt o’ the neuraligy she see approachin’, and here I had been tryin’ to live up to the requi’ements of quinine, an’ wrastlin’ severe with a sleepy spell, which, ef I’d only knew it, would o’ saved me. Of co’se, after the second dose-t, I jest let nature take its co’se, an’ treckly I commenced to doze off, an’ seemed like I was a feather bed an’ wife had hung me on the fence to sun, an’ I remember how she seemed to be a-whuppin’ of me, but it didn’t hurt. That was on account of it bein’ goose-pickin’ time, an’ she was werrited with windy weather, an’ she tryin’ to fill the feather beds. No, I won’t never try to deceive her again. It never has seemed to me that she could have the same respect for me after ketchin’ me at it, though she ‘ain’t never referred to it but once-t, an’ that was the time I was elected deacon, an’ even then she didn’t do it outspoke. She seemed mighty tender over it, an’ didn’t no mo’n remind me thet a officer in a Christian church ought to examine hisself mighty conscientious an’ be sure he was free of deceit, which, seemed to me, showed a heap o’ consideration. She ‘ain’t got a deceitful bone in her body, doctor.”

“Why, bless her old soul, Enoch, you know thet I think the world an’ all o’ Grandma Gregg! She’s the salt o’ the earth--an’ rock salt at that. She’s saved too many o’ my patients by her good nursin’, in spite o’ my poor doctorin’, for me not to appreciate her. But that don’t reconcile me to the way she doses you for her worries.”

“It took me a long time to see that myself, doctor. But I’ve reasoned it out this a-way: I s’pose when she feels her temper a-risin’ she’s ‘feered thet she might be so took with her troubles thet she’d neglect my health, an’ so she wards off any attackt thet might be comin’ on. I taken notice that time her strawberry preserves all soured on her hands, an’ she painted my face with iodine, a man did die o’ the erysipelas down here at Battle Creek, an’ likely as not she’d heerd of it. Sir? No, I didn’t mention it at the time for fear she’d think best to lay on another coat, an’ I felt sort o’ disfiggured with it. Wife ain’t a scoldin’ woman, I’m thankful for that. An’ some o’ the peppermints an’ things she keeps to dole out to me when she’s fretted with little things--maybe her yeast’ll refuse to rise, or a thunder-storm’ll kill a settin’ of eggs--why, they’re so disguised thet _’cep’n thet I know they’re medicine--_”

“Well, Kitty, I reckon we better be a-goin’.” The doctor tapped his horse. “Be shore to give my love to Grandma, Enoch. An’ ef you’re bound to take that pill--of co’se I can’t no mo’n speculate about it at this distance, but I’d advise you to keep clear o’ sours an’ acids for a day or so. Don’t think, because your teeth are all adjustable, thet none o’ yore other functions ain’t open to salvation. _Good_-night, Enoch.”

“Oh, she always looks after that, doctor. She’s mighty attentive, come to withholdin’ harmful temptations. Good-by, doctor. It’s did me good to open my mind to you a little.

“Yas,” he added, looking steadily into his palm as the buggy rolled away--”yas, it’s did me good to talk to him; but I ain’t no more reconciled to you, you barefaced, high-foreheaded, little rolly-poly, you. Funny how a pill thet ain’t got a feature on earth can look me out o’ countenance the way it can, and frustrate my speech. Talk about whited sepulchures, an’ ravenin’ wolves! I don’t know how come I to let on thet I was feeling’ puny to-night, nohow. I might’ve knew--with all them clo’es cedaubled over; though I can’t, ez the doctor says, see how me a-takin’ a pill is goin’ to help matters; but of co’se I wouldn’t let on to him, an’ he a bachelor.”

He stopped talking and felt his wrist.

“Maybe my pulse is obstropulous, an’ ought to be sedated down. Reckon I’ll haf to kill that steer--or sell him--one, though I swo’e I wouldn’t. But of co’se I swo’e that in a temper, an’ temp’rate vows ain’t never made ‘cep’in’ to be repented of.”

Several times during the last few minutes, while the deacon spoke, there had come to him across the garden from the kitchen the unmistakable odor of fried chicken.

He had foreseen that there would be a good supper to-night, and that the tiny globule within his palm would constitute for him a prohibition concerning it.

Grandmother Gregg was one of those worthy if difficult women who never let anything interfere with her duty as she saw it magnified by the lenses of pain or temper. It usually pleased her injured mood to make waffles on wash-day, and the hen-house owed many renovations, with a reckless upsetting of nests and roosts, to one of her “splittin’ headaches.” She would always wash her hair in view of impending company, although she averred that to wet her scalp never failed to bring on the “neuraligy.” And her “neuraligy” in turn meant medicine for the deacon.

It was probably the doctor’s timely advice, augmented, possibly, by the potencies of the frying-pan, with a strong underlying sympathy with the worrying woman within--it was, no doubt, all these powers combined that suddenly surprised the hitherto complying husband into such unprecedented conduct that any one knowing him in his old character, and seeing him now, would have thought that he had lost his mind.

With a swift and brave fling he threw the pill far into the night. Then, in an access of energy born of internal panic, he slid nimbly from his perch and started in a steady jog-trot into the road, wiping away the tears as he went, and stammering between sobs as he stumbled over the ruts:

“No, I won’t--yas, I will, too--doggone shame, and she frettin’ her life out--of co’se I sell ‘im for anything he’ll fetch--an’ I’ll be a better man, yas, yas I will--but I won’t swaller another one o’ them blame--not ef I die for it.”

This report, taken in long-hand by an amused listener by the roadside, is no doubt incomplete in its ejaculatory form, but it has at least the value of accuracy, so far as it goes, which may be had only from a verbatim transcript.

It was perhaps three-quarters of an hour later when Enoch entered the kitchen, wiping his face, nervous, weary, embarrassed. Supper was on the table. The blue-bordered dish, heaped with side-bones and second joints done to a turn, was moved to a side station, while in its accustomed place before Enoch’s plate there sat an ominous bowl of gruel. The old man did not look at the table, but he saw it all. He would have realized it with his eyes shut. Domestic history, as well as that of greater principalities and powers, often repeats itself.

Enoch’s fingers trembled as he came near his wife, and standing with his back to the table, he began to untie a broad flat parcel that he had brought in under his arm. She paused in one of her trips between the table and stove, and regarded him askance.

“Reckon I’ll haf to light the lantern befo’ I set down to eat, wife,” he said, by way of introduction. “Isrul ‘ll be along d’rec’ly to rope that steer. I’ve done sold him.” The good woman laid her dish upon the table and returned to the stove.

“Wish you’d ‘a’ sold ‘im day befo’ yesterday. I’d ‘a’ had a heap less pain in my shoulder-blade.” She sniffed as she said it; and then she added, “That gruel ought to be e’t warm.”

By this time the parcel was open. There was a brief display of colored zephyrs and gleaming cardboard. Then Enoch began rewrapping them.

“Reckon you can look these over in the mornin’, wife. They’re jest a few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an’ I knowed you liked Scripture motters. Where’ll I lay ‘em, wife, while I go out an’ tend to lightin’ that lantern? I told Isrul I’d set it in the stable door so’s as he could git that steer out o’ the way immejate.”

The proposal to lay the mottoes aside was a master-stroke.

The aggrieved wife had already begun to wipe her hands on her apron. Still, she would not seem too easily appeased.

“I do hope you ain’t gone an’ turned that whole steer into perforated paper, Enoch, even ef ’tis Bible-texted over.”

Thus she guarded her dignity. But even as she spoke she took the parcel from his hands. This was encouragement enough. It presaged a thawing out. And after Enoch had gone out to light the lantern, it would have amused a sympathetic observer to watch her gradual melting as she looked over the mottoes:

“A VIRTUOUS WIFE IS FAR ABOVE RUBIES.”

“A PRUDENT WIFE IS FROM THE LORD.”

“BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS WHERE LOVE IS--”

She read them over and over. Then she laid them aside and looked at Enoch’s plate. Then she looked at the chicken-dish, and then at the bowl of gruel which she had carefully set on the back of the stove to keep warm.

“Don’t know ez it would hurt ‘im any ef I’d thicken that gruel up into mush. He’s took sech a distaste to soft foods sense he’s got that new set.”

She rose as she spoke, poured the gruel back into the pot, sifted and mixed a spoonful of meal and stirred it in. This done, she hesitated, glanced at the pile of mottoes, and reflected. Then with a sudden resolve she seized the milk-pitcher, filled a cup from it, poured the milk into the little pot of mush, hastily whipped up two eggs with some sugar, added the mixture to the pot, returned the whole to the yellow bowl, and set it in the oven to brown.

And just then Enoch came in, and approached the water-shelf.

“Don’t keer how you polish it, a brass lantern an’ coal ile is like murder on a man’s hands. It will out.”

He was thinking of the gruel, and putting off the evil hour. It had been his intention to boldly announce that he hadn’t taken his medicine, that he never would again unless he needed it, and, moreover, that he was going to eat his supper to-night, and always, as long as God should spare him, etc., etc., etc.

But he had no sooner found himself in the presence of long-confessed superior powers than he knew he would never do any of these things.

His wife was thinking of the gruel too when she encouraged delay by remarking that he would better rest up a bit before eating.

“And I reckon you better soak yo’ hands good. Take a pinch o’ that bran out o’ the safe to ‘em,” she said, “and ef that don’t do, the Floridy water is in on my bureau.”

When finally Enoch presented himself, ready for his fate, she was able to set the mush pudding, done to a fine brown, before him, and her tone was really tender as she said:

“This ain’t very hearty ef you’re hungry; but you can eat it all. There ain’t no interference in it with anything you’ve took.”

The pudding was one of Enoch’s favorite dishes, but as he broke its brown surface with his spoon he felt like a hypocrite. He took one long breath, and then he said:

“By-the-way, wife, this reminds me, I reckon you’ll haf to fetch me another o’ them pills. I dropped that one out in the grass--that is, ef you think I still stand in need of it. I feel consider’ble better’n I did when I come in this evenin’.”

The good woman eyed him suspiciously a minute. Then her eyes fell upon the words “ABOVE RUBIES” lying upon the table. Reaching over, she lifted the pudding-bowl aside, took the dish of fried chicken from its sub-station, and set it before her lord.

“Better save that pudd’n’ for dessert, honey, an’ help yo’self to some o’ that chicken, an’ take a potater an’ a roll, and eat a couple o’ them spring onions--they’re the first we’ve had. Sense you’re a-feelin’ better, maybe it’s jest ez well thet you mislaid that pill.”

The wind blows sometimes from the east in Simkinsville, as elsewhere, and there are still occasional days when the deacon betakes himself to the front gate and sits like a nineteenth-century Simon Stilites on his pillar, contemplating the open palm of his own hand, while he enriches Mrs. Frequent’s _répertoire_ of gossip by a picturesque item.

But the reverse of the picture has much of joy in it; for, in spite of her various tempers, Grandmother Gregg is a warm-hearted soul--and she loves her man. And he loves her.

Listen to him to-night, for instance, as, having finished his supper, he remarks:

“An’ I’m a-goin’ to see to it, from this on, thet you ain’t fretted with things ez you’ve been, ef I can help it, wife. Sometimes, the way I act, I seem like ez ef I forgit you’re all I’ve got--on earth.”

“Of co’se I realize that, Enoch,” she replies. “We’re each one all the other’s got--an’ that’s why I don’t spare no pains to keep you in health.”

--RUTH MCENERY STUART.

IX

DR. BARRÈRE.