Dr Thorne

CHAPTER IX

SIR ROGER SCATCHERD

Enough has been said in this nar­ra­tive to ex­plain to the read­er that Roger Scatcherd, who was whilom a drunk­en stone-​ma­son in Barch­ester, and who had been so prompt to avenge the in­jury done to his sis­ter, had be­come a great man in the world. He had be­come a con­trac­tor, first for lit­tle things, such as half a mile or so of a rail­way em­bank­ment, or three or four canal bridges, and then a con­trac­tor for great things, such as Gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tals, locks, docks, and quays, and had lat­ter­ly had in his hands the mak­ing of whole lines of rail­way.

He had been oc­ca­sion­al­ly in part­ner­ship with one man for one thing, and then with an­oth­er for an­oth­er; but had, on the whole, kept his in­ter­ests to him­self, and now at the time of our sto­ry, he was a very rich man.

And he had ac­quired more than wealth. There had been a time when the Gov­ern­ment want­ed the im­me­di­ate per­for­mance of some ex­traor­di­nary piece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it. There had been some ex­treme­ly nec­es­sary bit of a rail­way to be made in half the time that such work would prop­er­ly de­mand, some spec­ula­tion to be in­curred re­quir­ing great means and courage as well, and Roger Scatcherd had been found to be the man for the time. He was then el­evat­ed for the mo­ment to the dizzy pin­na­cle of a news­pa­per hero, and be­came one of those ‘whom the king de­lighteth to hon­our’. He went up one day to kiss Her Majesty’s hand, and come down to his new grand house at Box­all Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.

‘And now, my la­dy,’ said he, when he ex­plained to his wife the high state to which she had been called by his ex­er­tions and the Queen’s pre­rog­ative, ‘let’s have a bit of din­ner, and a drop of som’at hot.’ Now the drop of som’at hot sig­ni­fied a dose of al­co­hol suf­fi­cient to send three or­di­nary men very drunk to bed.

While con­quer­ing the world Roger Scatcherd had not con­quered his old bad habits. In­deed, he was the same man at all points that he had been when for­mer­ly seen about the streets of Barch­ester with his stone-​ma­son’s apron tucked up round his waist. The apron he had aban­doned, but not the heavy promi­nent thought­ful brow, with the wild­ly flash­ing eye be­neath it. He was still the same good com­pan­ion, and still al­so the same hard-​work­ing hero. In this on­ly had he changed, that now he would work, and some said equal­ly well, whether he were drunk or sober. Those who were most­ly in­clined to make a mir­acle of him–and there was a school of wor­ship­pers ready to adore him as their idea of a di­vine, su­per­hu­man, mir­acle-​mov­ing, in­spired prophet–de­clared that his won­drous work was best done, his cal­cu­la­tions most quick­ly and most tru­ly made, that he saw with most ac­cu­rate eye in­to the far-​dis­tant bal­ance of prof­it and loss, when he was un­der the in­flu­ence of the rosy god. To these wor­ship­pers his break­ings-​out, as his pe­ri­ods of in­tem­per­ance were called in his own set, were his mo­ments of pe­cu­liar in­spi­ra­tion–his di­vine fren­zies, in which he com­mu­ni­cat­ed most close­ly with those deities who pre­side over trade trans­ac­tions; his Eleusini­an mys­ter­ies, to ap­proach him in which was per­mit­ted on­ly a few of the most favoured.

‘Scatcherd has been drunk this week past,’ they would say one to an­oth­er, when the mo­ment came at which it was to be de­cid­ed whose of­fer should be ac­cept­ed for con­struct­ing a har­bour to hold all the com­merce of Lan­cashire, or to make a rail­way from Bom­bay to Can­ton. ‘Scatcherd has been drunk this week past; I am told that he has tak­en over three gal­lons of brandy.’ And then they felt sure that none but Scatcherd would be called up­on to con­struct the dock or make the rail­way.

But be this as it may, be it true or false that Sir Roger was most ef­fi­ca­cious when in his cups, there can be no doubt that he could not wal­low for a week in brandy, six or sev­en times ev­ery year, with­out in a great mea­sure in­jur­ing, and per­ma­nent­ly in­jur­ing, the out­ward man. What­ev­er im­me­di­ate ef­fect such sym­po­siums might have on the in­ner mind- sym­po­siums in­deed they were not; po­siums I will call them, if I may be al­lowed; for in lat­ter life, when he drank heav­ily, he drank alone–how­ev­er lit­tle for evil, or how­ev­er much for good the work­ing of his brain might be af­fect­ed, his body suf­fered great­ly. It was not that he be­came fee­ble or ema­ci­at­ed, old-​look­ing or in­ac­tive, that his hand shook, or that his eye was wa­tery; but that in the mo­ments of his in­tem­per­ance his life was of­ten worth a day’s pur­chase. The frame which God had giv­en to him was pow­er­ful be­yond the pow­er of or­di­nary men; pow­er­ful to act in spite of these vi­olent per­tur­ba­tions; pow­er­ful to re­press and con­quer the qualms and headaches and in­ward sick­ness­es to which the votaries of Bac­chus are or­di­nar­ily sub­ject; but this pow­er was not with­out its lim­it. If en­croached on too far, it would break and fall and come asun­der, and then the strong man would at once be­come a corpse.

Scatcherd had but one friend in the world. And, in­deed, this friend was not friend in the or­di­nary ac­cep­tance of the word. He nei­ther ate with him nor drank with him, nor even fre­quent­ly talked with him. Their pur­suits in life were wide asun­der. Their tastes were all dif­fer­ent. The so­ci­ety in which they moved very sel­dom came to­geth­er. Scatcherd had noth­ing in uni­son with this soli­tary friend; but he trust­ed him, and he trust­ed no oth­er liv­ing crea­ture in God’s earth.

He trust­ed this man; but even him he did not trust thor­ough­ly; not at least as one friend should trust an­oth­er. He be­lieved that this man would not rob him; would prob­ably not lie to him; would not en­deav­our to make mon­ey of him; would not count him up or spec­ulate on him, and make out a bal­ance of prof­it and loss; and, there­fore, he de­ter­mined to use him. But he put no trust what­ev­er in his friend’s coun­sel, in his modes of thought; none in his the­ory, and none in his prac­tice. He dis­liked his friend’s coun­sel, and, in fact, dis­liked his so­ci­ety, for his friend was some­what apt to speak to him in a man­ner ap­proach­ing to sever­ity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many things in the world, and made much mon­ey; where­as his friend had done but few things, and made no mon­ey. It was not to be en­dured that the prac­ti­cal, ef­fi­cient man should be tak­en to task by the man who proved him­self to be nei­ther prac­ti­cal nor ef­fi­cient; not to be en­dured, cer­tain­ly, by Roger Scatcherd, who looked on men of his own class as the men of the day, and on him­self as by no means the least among them.

The friend was our friend Dr Thorne.

The doc­tor’s first ac­quain­tance with Scatcherd has been al­ready ex­plained. He was nec­es­sar­ily thrown in­to com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the man at the time of the tri­al, and Scatcherd then had not on­ly suf­fi­cient sense, but suf­fi­cient feel­ing al­so to know that the doc­tor be­haved very well. This com­mu­ni­ca­tion had in dif­fer­ent ways been kept up be­tween them. Soon af­ter the tri­al Scatcherd had be­gun to rise, and his first sav­ings had been en­trust­ed to the doc­tor’s care. This had been the be­gin­ning of a pe­cu­niary con­nex­ion which had nev­er whol­ly ceased, and which had led to the pur­chase of Box­all Hill, and to the loan of large sums of mon­ey to the squire.

In an­oth­er way al­so there had been a close al­liance be­tween them, and one not al­ways of a very pleas­ant de­scrip­tion. The doc­tor was, and long had been, Sir Roger’s med­ical at­ten­dant, and, in his un­ceas­ing at­tempts to res­cue the drunk­ard from the fate which was so much to be dread­ed, he not un­fre­quent­ly was driv­en to quar­rel with his pa­tient.

One thing fur­ther must be told of Sir Roger. In pol­itics he was as vi­olent a Rad­ical as ev­er, and was very anx­ious to ob­tain a po­si­tion in which he could bring his vi­olence to bear. With this view he was about to con­test his na­tive bor­ough of Barch­ester, in the hope of be­ing re­turned in op­po­si­tion to the De Cour­cy can­di­date; and with this ob­ject he had now come down to Box­all Hill.

Nor were his claims to sit for Barch­ester such as could be de­spised. If mon­ey were to be of no avail, he had plen­ty of it, and was pre­pared to spend it; where­as, ru­mour said that Mr Mof­fat was equal­ly de­ter­mined to do noth­ing so fool­ish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sort of rough elo­quence, and was bold to ad­dress the men of Barch­ester in lan­guage that would come home to their hearts, in words that would en­dear him to one par­ty while they made him of­fen­sive­ly odi­ous to the oth­er; but Mr Mof­fat could make nei­ther friends nor en­emies by his elo­quence. The Barch­ester roughs called him a dumb dog that could not bark, and some­times sar­cas­ti­cal­ly added that nei­ther could he bite. The De Cour­cy in­ter­est, how­ev­er, was at his back, and he had al­so the ad­van­tage of pos­ses­sion. Sir Roger, there­fore, knew that the bat­tle was not to be won with­out a strug­gle.

Dr Thorne got safe­ly back from Sil­ver­bridge that evening, and found Mary wait­ing to give him his tea. He had been called there to a con­sul­ta­tion with Dr Cen­tu­ry, that ami­able old gen­tle­man hav­ing so far fall­en away from the high Fill­grave tenets as to con­sent to the oc­ca­sion­al en­durance of such degra­da­tion.

The next morn­ing he break­fast­ed ear­ly, and, hav­ing mount­ed his strong iron-​grey cob, start­ed for Box­all Hill. Not on­ly had he there to ne­go­ti­ate the squire’s fur­ther loan, but al­so to ex­er­cise his med­ical skill. Sir Roger hav­ing been de­clared con­trac­tor for cut­ting a canal from sea to sea, through the isth­mus of Pana­ma, had been mak­ing a week of it; and the re­sult was that La­dy Scatcherd had writ­ten rather peremp­to­ri­ly to her hus­band’s med­ical friend.

The doc­tor con­se­quent­ly trot­ted off to Box­all Hill on his iron-​grey cob. Among his oth­er mer­its was that of be­ing a good horse­man, and he did much of his work on horse­back. The fact that he oc­ca­sion­al­ly took a day with the East Barset­shires, and that when he did so he thor­ough­ly en­joyed it, had prob­ably not failed to add some­thing to the strength of the squire’s friend­ship.

‘Well, my la­dy, how is he? Not much the mat­ter, I hope?’ said the doc­tor, as he shook hands with the ti­tled mis­tress of Box­all Hill in a small break­fast-​par­lour in the rear of the house. The show­rooms of Box­all Hill were fur­nished most mag­nif­icent­ly, but they were set apart for com­pa­ny; and as the com­pa­ny nev­er came–see­ing that they were nev­er in­vit­ed–the grand rooms and the grand fur­ni­ture were not of much ma­te­ri­al use to La­dy Scatcherd.

‘In­deed then, doc­tor, he’s just bad enough,’ said her la­dy­ship, not in a very hap­py tone of voice; ‘just bad enough. There’s been some’at the back of his head, rap­ping, and rap­ping, and rap­ping; and if you don’t do some­thing, I’m think­ing it will rap him too hard yet.’

‘Is he in bed?’

‘Why, yes, he is in bed; for when he was first took he couldn’t very well help his­self, so we put him to bed. And then, he don’t seem to be quite right yet about the legs, so he hasn’t got up; but he’s got that Win­ter­bones with him to write for him, and when Win­ter­bones is there, Scatcherd might as well be up for any good that bed’ll do him.’

Mr Win­ter­bones was con­fi­den­tial clerk to Sir Roger. That is to say, he was a writ­ing-​ma­chine of which Sir Roger made use to do cer­tain work which could not well be ad­just­ed with­out some con­trivance. He was a lit­tle, with­ered, dis­si­pat­ed, bro­ken-​down man, whom gin and pover­ty had near­ly burnt to a cin­der, and dried to an ash. Mind he had none left, nor care for earth­ly things, ex­cept the small­est mod­icum of sub­stan­tial food, and the largest al­lowance of liq­uid sus­te­nance. All that he had ev­er known he had for­got­ten, ex­cept how to count up fig­ures and to write: the re­sults of his count­ing and his writ­ing nev­er stayed with him from one hour to an­oth­er; nay, not from one fo­lio to an­oth­er. Let him, how­ev­er, be ad­equate­ly screwed up with gin, and ad­equate­ly screwed down by the pres­ence of his mas­ter, and then no amount of count­ing and writ­ing would be too much for him. This was Mr Win­ter­bones, con­fi­den­tial clerk to the great Sir Roger Scatcherd.

‘We must send Win­ter­bones away, I take it,’ said the doc­tor.

‘In­deed, doc­tor, I wish you would. I wish you’d send him to Bath, or any­where else out of the way. There is Scatcherd, he takes brandy; and there is Win­ter­bones, he takes gin; and it’d puz­zle a wom­an to say which is worst, mas­ter or man.’

It will seem from this, that La­dy Scatcherd and the doc­tor were on very fa­mil­iar terms as re­gard­ed her lit­tle do­mes­tic in­con­ve­niences.

‘Tell Sir Roger I am here, will you?’ said the doc­tor.

‘You’ll take a drop of sher­ry be­fore you go up?’ said the la­dy.

‘Not a drop, thank you,’ said the doc­tor.

‘Or, per­haps a lit­tle cor­dial?’

‘Not of drop of any­thing, thank you; I nev­er do, you know.’

‘Just a thim­ble­ful of this?’ said the la­dy, pro­duc­ing from some re­cess un­der a side­board a bot­tle of brandy; ‘just a thim­ble­ful? It’s what he takes him­self.’

When La­dy Scatcherd found that even this ar­gu­ment failed, she led the way to the great man’s bed­room.

‘Well doc­tor! well doc­tor!, well, doc­tor!’ was the greet­ing with which our son of Galen was salut­ed some time be­fore he en­tered the sick-​room. His ap­proach­ing step was heard, and thus the ci-​de­vant Barch­ester stone-​ma­son salut­ed his com­ing friend. The voice was loud and pow­er­ful, but not clear and sonorous. What voice that is nur­tured on brandy can ev­er be clear? It had about it a pe­cu­liar husk­iness, a dis­si­pat­ed gut­tural tone, which Thorne im­me­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized, and rec­og­nized as be­ing more marked, more gut­tural, and more husky than hereto­fore.

‘So you’ve smelt me out, have you, and come for your fee? Ha! ha! ha! Well, I have had a sharpish bout of it, as her la­dy­ship there no doubt has told you. Let her alone to make the worst of it. But, you see, you’re too late, man. I’ve bilked the old gen­tle­man again with­out trou­bling you.’

‘Any­way, I’m glad you’re some­thing bet­ter, Scatcherd.’

‘Some­thing! I don’t know what you call some­thing. I nev­er was bet­ter in my life. Ask Win­ter­bones here.’

‘In­deed, now, Scatcherd, you ain’t; you’re bad enough if you on­ly knew it. And as for Win­ter­bones, he has no busi­ness here up in your bed­room, which stinks of gin so, it does. Don’t you be­lieve him, doc­tor; he ain’t well, nor yet nigh well.’

Win­ter­bones, when the above ill-​na­tured al­lu­sion was made to the aro­ma com­ing from his li­ba­tions, might be seen to de­posit sur­rep­ti­tious­ly be­neath the lit­tle ta­ble at which he sat, the cup with which he had per­formed them.

The doc­tor, in the mean­time, had tak­en Sir Roger’s hand on the pre­text of feel­ing his pulse, but was draw­ing quite as much in­for­ma­tion from the touch of the sick man’s skin, and the look of the sick man’s eye.

‘I think Mr Win­ter­bones had bet­ter go back to the Lon­don of­fice,’ said he. ‘La­dy Scatcherd will be your best clerk for some time, Sir Roger.’

‘Then I’ll be d— if Mr Win­ter­bones does any­thing of the kind,’ said he; ’so there’s an end of that.’

‘Very well,’ said the doc­tor. ‘A man can die but once. It is my du­ty to sug­gest mea­sures for putting off the cer­emo­ny as long as pos­si­ble. Per­haps, how­ev­er, you may wish to has­ten it.’

‘Well, I am not anx­ious about it, one way or the oth­er,’ said Scatcherd. And as he spoke there came a fierce gleam from his eye, which seemed to say–’If that’s the bug­bear with which you wish to fright­en me, you will be mis­tak­en.’

‘Now, doc­tor, don’t let him talk that way, don’t,’ said La­dy Scatcherd, with her hand­ker­chief to her eyes.

‘Now, my la­dy, do you cut it; cut at once,’ said Sir Roger, turn­ing hasti­ly round to his bet­ter-​half; and his bet­ter-​half, know­ing that the province of a wom­an is to obey, did cut it. But as she went she gave the doc­tor a pull by the coat’s sleeve, so that there­by his heal­ing fac­ul­ties might be sharp­ened to the very ut­most.

‘The best wom­an in the world, doc­tor; the very best,’ said he, as the door closed be­hind the wife of his bo­som.

‘I’m sure of it,’ said the doc­tor.

‘Yes, till you find a bet­ter one,’ said Scatcherd. ‘Ha! ha! ha! but for good or bad, there are some things which a wom­an can’t un­der­stand, and some things which she ought not to be let to un­der­stand.’

‘It’s nat­ural she should be anx­ious about your health, you know.’

‘I don’t know that,’ said the con­trac­tor. ‘She’ll be very well off. All that whin­ing won’t keep a man alive, at any rate.’

There was a pause, dur­ing which the doc­tor con­tin­ued his med­ical ex­am­ina­tion. To this the pa­tient sub­mit­ted with a bad grace; but still he did sub­mit.

‘We must turn over a new leaf, Sir Roger; in­deed we must.’

‘Both­er,’ said Sir Roger.

‘Well, Scatcherd; I must do my du­ty to you, whether you like it or not.’

‘That is to say, I am to pay you for try­ing to fright­en me.’

‘No hu­man na­ture can stand such shocks as those much longer.’

‘Win­ter­bones,’ said the con­trac­tor, turn­ing to his clerk, ‘go down, go down, I say; but don’t be out of the way. If you go to the pub­lic-​house, by G– you may stay there for me. When I take a drop,–that is if I ev­er do, it does not stand in the way of work.’ So Mr Win­ter­bones, pick­ing up his cup again, and con­ceal­ing it in some way be­neath his coat flap, re­treat­ed out of the room, and the two friends were alone.

‘Scatcherd,’ said the doc­tor, ‘you have been as near your God, as any man ev­er was who af­ter­wards ate and drank in this world.’

‘Have I, now?’ said the rail­way here, ap­par­ent­ly some­what star­tled.

‘In­deed you have; in­deed you have.’

‘And now I’m all right again?’

‘All right! How can you be all right, when you know that your limbs refuse to car­ry you? All right! why the blood is still beat­ing round you brain with a vi­olence that would de­stroy any oth­er brain but yours.’

‘Ha! ha! ha!,’ laughed Scatcherd. He was very proud of think­ing him­self to be dif­fer­ent­ly or­ga­nized from oth­er men. ‘Ha! ha! ha! Well and what am I to do now?’

The whole of the doc­tor’s pre­scrip­tion we will not give at length. To some of his or­di­nances Sir Roger promised obe­di­ence; to oth­ers he ob­ject­ed vi­olent­ly, and to one or two he flat­ly re­fused to lis­ten. The great stum­bling-​block was this, that to­tal ab­sti­nence from busi­ness for two weeks was en­joined; and that it was im­pos­si­ble, so Sir Roger said, that he should ab­stain for two days.

‘If you work,’ said the doc­tor, ‘in your present state, you will cer­tain­ly have re­course to the stim­ulus of drink; and if you drink, most as­sured­ly will die.’

‘Stim­ulus! Why do you think I can’t work with­out Dutch courage?’

‘Scatcherd, I know that there is brandy in this room at the mo­ment, and that you have been tak­ing it with­in these two hours.’

‘You smell that fel­low’s gin,’ said Scatcherd.

‘I feel the al­co­hol work­ing with­in your veins,’ said the doc­tor, who still had his hand on his pa­tient’s arm.

Sir Roger turned him­self rough­ly in the bed so as to get away from his Men­tor, and then he be­gan to threat­en in his turn.

‘I’ll tell you what it is, doc­tor; I’ve made up my mind, and I’ll do it. I’ll send for Fill­grave.’

‘Very well,’ said he of Gre­shams­bury, ’send for Fill­grave. Your case is one in which even he can hard­ly go wrong.’

‘You think you can hec­tor me, and do as you like be­cause you had me un­der your thumb in oth­er days. You’re a very good fel­low, Thorne, but I ain’t sure that you are the best doc­tor in all Eng­land.’

‘You may be sure I am not; you may take me for the worst if you will. But while I am here as your med­ical ad­vis­er, I can on­ly tell you the truth to the best of my think­ing. Now the truth is, that an­oth­er bout of drink­ing will in all prob­abil­ity kill you; and any re­course to stim­ulus in your present con­di­tion may do so.’

‘I’ll send for Fill­grave–’

‘Well, send for Fill­grave, on­ly do it at once. Be­lieve me at any rate in this, that what­ev­er you do, you should do at once. Oblige me in this; let La­dy Scatcherd take away that brandy bot­tle till Dr Fill­grave comes.’

‘I’m d— if I do. Do you think I can’t have a bot­tle of brandy in my room with­out swig­ging?’

‘I think you’ll be less like­ly to swig if you can’t get at it.’

Sir Roger made an­oth­er an­gry turn in his bed as well as his half-​paral­ysed limbs would let him; and then, af­ter a few mo­ments’ peace, re­newed his threats with in­creased vi­olence.

‘Yes; I’ll have Fill­grave over here. If a man be ill, re­al­ly ill, he should have the best ad­vice he can get. I’ll have Fill­grave, and I’ll have that oth­er fel­low from Sil­ver­bridge to meet him. What’s his name?–Cen­tu­ry.’

The doc­tor turned his head away; for though the oc­ca­sion was se­ri­ous, he could not help smil­ing at the ma­li­cious vengeance with which his friend pro­posed to grat­ify him­self.

‘I will; and Rerechild too. What’s the ex­pense? I sup­pose five or six pounds apiece will do it; eh, Thorne?’

‘Oh, yes; that will be lib­er­al I should say. But, Sir Roger, will you al­low me to sug­gest what you ought to do? I don’t know how far you may be jok­ing–’

‘Jok­ing!’ shout­ed the baronet; ‘you tell a man he’s dy­ing and jok­ing in the same breath. You’ll find I’m not jok­ing.’

‘Well I dare say not. But if you have not full con­fi­dence in me–’

‘I have no con­fi­dence in you at all.’

‘Then why not send to Lon­don? Ex­pense is no ob­ject to you.’

‘It is an ob­ject; a great ob­ject.’

‘Non­sense! Send to Lon­don for Sir Omi­cron Pie: send for some man whom you will re­al­ly trust when you see him.

‘There’s not one of the lot I’d trust as soon as Fill­grave. I’ve known Fill­grave all my life and I trust him. I’ll send for Fill­grave and put my case in his hands. If any one can do any­thing for me, Fill­grave is the man.’

‘Then in God’s name send for Fill­grave,’ said the doc­tor. ‘And now, good-​bye, Scatcherd; and as you do send for him, give him a fair chance. Do not de­stroy your­self by more brandy be­fore he comes.’

‘That’s my af­fair, and his; not yours,’ said the pa­tient.

‘So be it; give me your hand, at any rate, be­fore I go. I wish you well through it, and when you are well, I’ll come and see you.’

‘Good-​bye–good-​bye; and look here, Thorne, you’ll be talk­ing to La­dy Scatcherd down­stairs I know; now, no non­sense. You un­der­stand me, eh? no non­sense.’