Dr Thorne

CHAPTER XXV

SIR ROGER DIES

That night the doc­tor stayed at Box­all Hill, and the next night; so that it be­came a cus­tom­ary thing for him to sleep there dur­ing the lat­ter part of Sir Roger’s ill­ness. He re­turned home to Gre­shams­bury; for he had his pa­tients there, to whom he was as nec­es­sary as to Sir Roger, the fore­most of whom was La­dy Ara­bel­la. He had, there­fore, no slight work on his hands, see­ing that his nights were by no means whol­ly de­vot­ed to rest.

Mr Rerechild had not been much wrong as to the re­main­ing space of life which he had al­lot­ted to the dy­ing man. Once or twice Dr Thorne had thought that the great orig­inal strength of his pa­tient would have en­abled him to fight against death for a some­what longer pe­ri­od; but Sir Roger would give him­self no chance. When­ev­er he was strong enough to have a will of his own, he in­sist­ed on hav­ing his very medicine mixed with brandy; and in the hours of the doc­tor’s ab­sence, he was too of­ten suc­cess­ful in his at­tempts.

‘It does not much mat­ter,’ Dr Thorne had said to La­dy Scatcherd. ‘Do what you can to keep down the quan­ti­ty, but do not ir­ri­tate him by re­fus­ing to obey. It does not much sig­ni­fy now.’ So La­dy Scatcherd still ad­min­is­tered the al­co­hol, and he from day to day in­vent­ed lit­tle schemes for in­creas­ing the amount, over which he chuck­led with ghast­ly laugh­ter.

Two or three times these days Sir Roger es­sayed to speak se­ri­ous­ly to his son; but Louis al­ways frus­trat­ed him. He ei­ther got out of the room on some ex­cuse, or made his moth­er in­ter­fere on the score that so much talk­ing would be bad for his fa­ther. He al­ready knew with tol­er­able ac­cu­ra­cy what was the pur­port of his fa­ther’s will, and by no means ap­proved of it; but as he could not now hope to in­duce his fa­ther to al­ter it so as to make it more favourable to him­self, he con­ceived that no con­ver­sa­tion on mat­ters of busi­ness could be of use to him.

‘Louis,’ said Sir Roger, one af­ter­noon to his son; ‘Louis, I have not done by you as I ought to have done–I know that now.’

‘Non­sense, gov­er­nor; nev­er mind about it now; I shall do well enough I dare say. Be­sides, it isn’t too late; you can make it twen­ty-​three years in­stead of twen­ty-​five.’

‘I do not mean as to mon­ey, Louis. There are things be­sides mon­ey which a fa­ther ought to look to.’

‘Now, fa­ther, don’t fret your­self–I’m all right; you may be sure of that.’

‘Louis, it’s that ac­cursed brandy–it’s that that I’m afraid of: you see me here, my boy, I’m ly­ing here now.’

‘Don’t you be an­noy­ing your­self, gov­er­nor; I’m all right–quite right; and as for you, why, you’ll be up and about your­self in an­oth­er month or so.’

‘I shall nev­er be off this bed, my boy, till I’m car­ried in­to my cof­fin, on those chairs there. But I’m not think­ing of my­self, Louis, but you; think what you may have be­fore you if you can’t avoid that ac­cursed bot­tle.’

‘I’m all right, gov­er­nor; right as a triv­et. It’s very lit­tle I take, ex­cept at an odd time or two.’

‘Oh, Louis! Louis!’

‘Come, fa­ther, cheer up; this sort of thing isn’t the thing for you at all. I won­der where moth­er is: she ought to be here with the broth; just let me go, and I’ll see for her.’

The fa­ther un­der­stood it all. He saw that it was now much be­yond his fad­ed pow­ers to touch the heart or con­science of such a youth as his son had be­come. What now could he do for his boy ex­cept die? What else, what oth­er ben­efit, did his son re­quire of him but to die; to die so that his means of dis­si­pa­tion might be un­bound­ed? He let go the un­re­sist­ing hand which he held, and, as the young man crept out of the room, he turned his face to the wall. He turned his face to the wall, and held bit­ter com­mune with his own heart. To what had he brought him­self? To what had he brought his son? Oh, how hap­py would it have been for him could he have re­mained all his days a work­ing stone-​ma­son in Barch­ester! How hap­py could he have died as such, years ago! Such tears as those which wet the pil­low are the bit­ter­est which hu­man eyes can shed.

But while they were drop­ping, the mem­oir of his life was in quick course of prepa­ra­tion. It was, in­deed, near­ly com­plet­ed, with con­sid­er­able de­tail. He had lin­gered on four days longer than might have been ex­pect­ed, and the au­thor had thus had more than usu­al time for the work. In these days a man is no­body un­less his bi­og­ra­phy is kept so far post­ed up that it may be ready for the na­tion­al break­fast-​ta­ble on the morn­ing af­ter his demise. When it chances that the dead hero is one who is tak­en in his prime of life, of whose de­par­ture from among us the most far-​see­ing, bi­ograph­ical scribe can have no prophet­ic inkling, this must be dif­fi­cult. Of great men, full of years, who are ripe of the sick­le, who in the course of Na­ture must soon fall, it is of course com­par­ative­ly easy for an ac­tive com­pil­er to have his com­plete mem­oir ready in his desk. But in or­der that the idea of om­nipresent and om­ni­scient in­for­ma­tion may be kept up, the young must be chron­icled as quick­ly as the old. In some cas­es this task must, one would say, be dif­fi­cult. Nev­er­the­less it is done.

The mem­oir of Sir Roger Scatcherd was pro­gress­ing favourably. In this it was told how for­tu­nate had been his life; now, in his case, in­dus­try and ge­nius com­bined had tri­umphed over the dif­fi­cul­ties which hum­ble birth and de­fi­cient ed­uca­tion had thrown in his way; how he had made a name among Eng­land’s great men; how the Queen had de­light­ed to hon­our him, and no­bles had been proud to have him as a guest at their man­sions. Then fol­lowed a list of all the great works which he had achieved, of the rail­roads, canals, docks, har­bours, jails, and hos­pi­tals which he had con­struct­ed. His name was held up as an ex­am­ple to the labour­ing class­es of his coun­try­men, and he was point­ed at as one who had lived and died hap­py–ev­er hap­py, said the bi­og­ra­pher, be­cause ev­er in­dus­tri­ous. And so a great moral ques­tion was in­cul­cat­ed. A short para­graph was de­vot­ed to his ap­pear­ance in Par­lia­ment; and un­for­tu­nate Mr Romer was again held up for dis­grace, for the thir­ti­eth time, as hav­ing been the means of de­priv­ing our leg­isla­tive coun­cils of the great as­sis­tance of Sir Roger’s ex­pe­ri­ence.

‘Sir Roger,’ said the bi­og­ra­pher in his con­clud­ing pas­sage, ‘was pos­sessed of an iron frame; but even iron will yield to the re­peat­ed blows of the ham­mer. In the lat­ter years of his life he was known to over­task him­self; and at length the body gave way, though the mind re­mained firm to the last. The sub­ject of this mem­oir was on­ly fifty-​nine when he was tak­en from us.’

And thus Sir Roger’s life was writ­ten, while the tears were yet falling on his pil­low at Box­all Hill. It was a pity that a proof-​sheet could not have been sent to him. No man was vain­er of his rep­uta­tion, and it would have great­ly grat­ified him to know that pos­ter­ity was about to speak of him in such terms–to speak of him with a voice that would be au­di­ble for twen­ty-​four hours.

Sir Roger made no fur­ther at­tempt to give coun­sel to his son. It was too ev­ident­ly use­less. The old dy­ing li­on felt that the li­on’s pow­er had al­ready passed from him, and that he was help­less in the hands of the young cub who was so soon to in­her­it the wealth of the for­est. But Dr Thorne was more kind to him. He had some­thing yet to say as to his world­ly hopes and world­ly cares; and his old friend did not turn a deaf ear to him.

It was dur­ing the night that Sir Roger was most anx­ious to talk, and most ca­pa­ble of talk­ing. He would lie through the day in a state half-​co­matose; but to­wards evening would rouse him­self, and by mid­night he would be full of fit­ful en­er­gy. One night, as he lay wake­ful and full of thought, he thus poured forth his whole heart to Dr Thorne.

‘Thorne,’ said he, ‘I told you about my will, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said the oth­er; ‘and I have blamed my­self great­ly that I have not again urged you to al­ter it. Your ill­ness came too sud­den­ly, Scatcherd; and then I was averse to speak of it.’

‘Why should I al­ter it? It is a good will; as good as I can make. Not but that I have al­tered it since I spoke to you. I did it that day af­ter you left me.’

‘Have you def­inite­ly named your heir in de­fault of Louis?’

‘No–that is–yes–I had done that be­fore; I have said Mary’s el­dest child: I have not al­tered that.’

‘But, Scatcherd, you must al­ter it.’

‘Must! well then, I won’t; but I’ll tell you what I have done. I have added a postscript–a cod­icil they call it–say­ing that you, and you on­ly, know who is her el­dest child. Win­ter­bones and Jack Mar­tin have wit­nessed that.’

Dr Thorne was go­ing to ex­plain how very in­ju­di­cious such an ar­range­ment ap­peared to be; but Sir Roger would not lis­ten to him. It was not about that that he wished to speak to him. To him it was a mat­ter of but mi­nor in­ter­est who might in­her­it his mon­ey if his son should die ear­ly; his care was sole­ly for his son’s wel­fare. At twen­ty-​five the heir might make his own will–might be­queath all this wealth ac­cord­ing to his own fan­cy. Sir Roger would not bring him­self to be­lieve that his son could fol­low him to the grave in so short a time.

‘Nev­er mind that, doc­tor, now; but about Louis; you will be his guardian, you know.’

‘Not his guardian. He is more than of age.’

‘Ah! but doc­tor, you will be his guardian. The prop­er­ty will not be his till he be twen­ty-​five. You will not desert him?’

‘I will not desert him; but I doubt whether I can do much for him–what can I do, Scatcherd?’

‘Use the pow­er that a strong man has over a weak one. Use the pow­er that my will will give you. Do for him as you would for a son of your own if you saw him go­ing in bad cours­es. Do as a friend should do for a friend that is dead and gone. I would do so for you, doc­tor, if our places were changed.’

‘What can I do, that I will do,’ said Thorne, solemn­ly, tak­ing as he spoke the con­trac­tor’s own in his own with a tight grasp.

‘I know you will; I know you will. Oh! doc­tor, may you nev­er feel as I do now! May you on your death-​bed have no dread as I have, as to the fate of those you will leave be­hind you!’

Doc­tor Thorne felt that he could not say much in an­swer to this. The fu­ture fate of Louis Scatcherd was, he could not but own to him­self, great­ly to be dread­ed. What good, what hap­pi­ness, could be pre­saged for such a one as he was? What com­fort could he of­fer to the fa­ther? And then he was called on to com­pare, as it were, the prospects of this un­for­tu­nate with those of his own dar­ling; to con­trast all that was murky, foul, and dis­heart­en­ing, with all that was per­fect–for to him she was all but per­fect; to liken Louis Scatcherd to the an­gel who bright­ened his own hearth­stone. How could he an­swer to such an ap­peal?

He said noth­ing; but mere­ly tight­ened his grasp of the oth­er’s hand, to sig­ni­fy that he would do, as best he could, all that was asked of him. Sir Roger looked up sad­ly in­to the doc­tor’s face, as though ex­pect­ing some word of con­so­la­tion. There was no com­fort, no con­so­la­tion.

‘For three or four years, he must great­ly de­pend on you,’ con­tin­ued Sir Roger.

‘I will do what I can,’ said the doc­tor. ‘What I can do I will do. But he is not a child, Scatcherd: at his age he must stand or fall main­ly by his own con­duct. The best thing for him will be to mar­ry.’

‘Ex­act­ly; that’s just it, Thorne: I was com­ing to that. If he would mar­ry, I think he would do well yet, for all that has come and gone. If he mar­ried, of course you would let him have the com­mand of his own in­come.’

‘I will be gov­erned en­tire­ly by your wish­es: un­der any cir­cum­stances his in­come will, as I un­der­stand, be quite suf­fi­cient for him, mar­ried or sin­gle.’

‘Ah!–but, Thorne, I should like to think he should shine with the best of them. For what I have made the mon­ey for if not for that? Now if he mar­ries–de­cent­ly, that is–some wom­an you know that can as­sist him in the world, let him have what he wants. It is not to save the mon­ey that I have put it in­to your hands.’

‘No, Scatcherd; not to save the mon­ey, but to save him. I think that while you are yet with him you should ad­vise him to mar­ry.’

‘He does not care a straw for what I ad­vise, not one straw. Why should he? How can I tell him to be sober when I have been a beast all my life? How can I ad­vise him? That’s where it is! It is that that now kills me. Ad­vise! Why, when I speak to him he treats me like a child.’

‘He fears that you are too weak, you know: he thinks that you should not be al­lowed to talk.’

‘Non­sense! he knows bet­ter; you know bet­ter. Too weak! what sig­ni­fies? Would I not give all that I have of strength at one blow if I could open his eyes to see as I see but for one minute?’ And the sick man raised him­self in his bed as though he were ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to ex­pend all that re­mained to him of vigour in the en­er­gy of the mo­ment.

‘Gen­tly, Scatcherd; gen­tly. He will lis­ten to you yet; but do not be so un­ruly.’

‘Thorne, you see that bot­tle there? Give me half a glass of brandy.’

The doc­tor turned round in his chair; but he hes­itat­ed in do­ing as he was de­sired.

‘Do as I ask you, doc­tor. It can do no harm now; you know that well enough. Why tor­ture me now?’

‘No, I will not tor­ture you; but you will have wa­ter with it?’

‘Wa­ter! No; the brandy by it­self. I tell you I can­not speak with­out it. What’s the use of cant­ing now? You know it can make no dif­fer­ence.’

Sir Roger was right. It could make no dif­fer­ence; and Dr Thorne gave him the half glass of brandy.

‘Ah, well; you’ve a stingy hand, doc­tor; con­found­ed stingy. You don’t mea­sure your medicines out in such light dos­es.’

‘You will be want­ing more be­fore morn­ing, you know.’

‘Be­fore morn­ing! in­deed I shall; a pint or two be­fore that. I re­mem­ber the time, doc­tor, when I have drunk to my own cheek above two quarts be­tween din­ner and break­fast! aye, and worked all day af­ter it!’

‘You have been a won­der­ful man, Scatcherd, very won­der­ful.’

‘Aye, won­der­ful! well, nev­er mind. It’s over now. But what was I say­ing?–about Louis, doc­tor; you’ll not desert him?’

‘Cer­tain­ly not.’

‘He’s not strong; I know that. How should he be strong, liv­ing as he has done? Not that it seemed to hurt me when I was his age.’

‘You had the ad­van­tage of hard work.’

‘That’s it. Some­times I wish that Louis had not a shilling in the world; that he had to trudge about with an apron round his waist as I did. But it’s too late now to think of that. If he would mar­ry, doc­tor.’

Dr Thorne again ex­pressed an opin­ion that no step would be so like­ly to re­form the habits of the young heir as mar­riage; and re­peat­ed his ad­vice to the fa­ther to im­plore his son to take a wife.

‘I’ll tell you what, Thorne,’ said he. And then, af­ter a pause, he went on. ‘I have not half told you as yet what is on my mind; and I’m near­ly afraid to tell it; though, in­deed, I don’t know what I should be.’

‘I nev­er knew you afraid of any­thing yet,’ said the doc­tor, smil­ing gen­tly.

‘Well, then, I’ll not end by turn­ing cow­ard. Now, doc­tor, tell the truth to me; what do you ex­pect me to do for that girl of yours that we were talk­ing of–Mary’s child?’

There was a pause for a mo­ment, for Thorne was slow to an­swer him.

‘You would not let me see her, you know, though she is my niece as tru­ly as yours.’

‘Noth­ing,’ at last said the doc­tor, slow­ly. ‘I ex­pect noth­ing. I would not let you see her, and there­fore, I ex­pect noth­ing.’

‘She will have it all if poor Louis should die,’ said Sir Roger.

‘If you in­tend it so you should put her name in­to the will,’ said the oth­er. ‘Not that I ask you or wish you to do so. Mary, thank God, can do with­out wealth.’

‘Thorne, on one con­di­tion I will put her name in­to it. I will al­ter it on one con­di­tion. Let the two cousins be man and wife–let Louis mar­ry poor Mary’s child.’

The propo­si­tion for a mo­ment took away the doc­tor’s breath, and he was un­able to an­swer. Not for all the wealth of In­dia would he have giv­en up his lamb to that young wolf, even though he had had the pow­er to do so. But that lamb–lamb though she was–had, as he well knew, a will of her own on such a mat­ter. What al­liance could be more im­pos­si­ble, thought he to him­self, than one be­tween Mary Thorne and Louis Scatcherd?

‘I will al­ter it all if you will give me your hand up­on it that you will do your best to bring about this mar­riage. Ev­ery­thing shall be his on the day he mar­ries her; and should he die un­mar­ried, it shall all then be hers by name. Say the word, Thorne, and she shall come here at once. I shall yet have time to see her.’

But Dr Thorne did not say the word; just at the mo­ment he said noth­ing, but he slow­ly shook his head.

‘Why not, Thorne?’

‘My friend, it is im­pos­si­ble.’

‘Why im­pos­si­ble?’

‘Her hand is not mine to dis­pose of, nor is her heart.’

‘Then let her come over her­self.’

‘What! Scatcherd, that the son might make love to her while the fa­ther is so dan­ger­ous­ly ill! Bid her come to look for a rich hus­band! That would not be seem­ly, would it?’

‘No; not for that: let her come mere­ly that I may see her; that we may all know her. I will leave the mat­ter then in your hands if you will promise me to do your best.’

‘But, my friend, in this mat­ter I can­not do my best. I can do noth­ing. And, in­deed, I may say at once, that it is al­to­geth­er out of the ques­tion. I know–’

‘What do you know?’ said the baronet, turn­ing on him al­most an­gri­ly. ‘What can you know to make you say that it is im­pos­si­ble? Is she a pearl of such price that a man may not win her?’

‘She is a pearl of great price.’

‘Be­lieve me, doc­tor, mon­ey goes far in win­ning such pearls.’

‘Per­haps so; I know lit­tle about it. But this I do know, that mon­ey will not win her. Let us talk of some­thing else; be­lieve me, it is use­less for us to think of this.’

‘Yes; if you set your face against it ob­sti­nate­ly. You must think very poor­ly of Louis if you sup­pose that no girl can fan­cy him.’

‘I have not said so, Scatcherd.’

‘To have the spend­ing of ten thou­sand a year, and be a baronet’s la­dy! Why, doc­tor, what is it you ex­pect for this girl?’

‘Not much, in­deed; not much. A qui­et heart and a qui­et home; not much more.’

‘Thorne, if you will be ruled by me in this, she shall be the most top­ping wom­an in this coun­ty.’

‘My friend, my friend, why thus grieve me? Why should you thus ha­rass your­self? I tell you it is im­pos­si­ble. They have nev­er seen each oth­er; they have noth­ing, and can have noth­ing in com­mon; their tastes, and wish­es, and pur­suits are dif­fer­ent. Be­sides, Scatcherd, mar­riages nev­er an­swer that are so made; be­lieve me, it is im­pos­si­ble.’

The con­trac­tor threw him­self back on his bed, and lay for some ten min­utes per­fect­ly qui­et; so much so that the doc­tor be­gan to think that he was sleep­ing. So think­ing, and wea­ried by the watch­ing, Dr Thorne was be­gin­ning to creep qui­et­ly from the room, when his com­pan­ion again roused him­self, al­most with ve­he­mence.

‘You won’t do this thing for me, then?’ said he.

‘Do it! It is not for you or me to do such things as that. Such things must be left to those con­cerned them­selves.’

‘You will not even help me?’

‘Not in this thing, Sir Roger.’

‘Then by –, she shall not un­der any cir­cum­stances ev­er have a shilling of mine. Give me some of that stuff there,’ and he again point­ed to the brandy bot­tle which stood ev­er with­in his sight.’

The doc­tor poured out and hand­ed to him an­oth­er small mod­icum of spir­it.

‘Non­sense, man; fill the glass. I’ll stand no non­sense now. I’ll be mas­ter of my own house to the last. Give it here, I tell you. Ten thou­sand dev­ils are tear­ing me with­in. You–you could have com­fort­ed me; but you would not. Fill the glass I tell you.’

‘I should be killing you were I to do it.’

‘Killing me! killing me! you are al­ways talk­ing of killing me. Do you sup­pose that I am afraid to die? Do not I know how soon it is com­ing? Give me the brandy, I say, or I will be out across the room to fetch it.’

‘No, Scatcherd. I can­not give it to you; not while I am here. Do you re­mem­ber how you were en­gaged this morn­ing?’–he had that morn­ing tak­en the sacra­ment from the parish cler­gy­man–’you would not wish to make me guilty of mur­der, would you?’

‘Non­sense! You are talk­ing non­sense; habit is sec­ond na­ture. I tell you I shall sink with­out it. Why, you know, I al­ways get it di­rect­ly your back it turned. Come, I will not be bul­lied in my own house; give me that bot­tle, I say!’–and Sir Roger es­sayed, vain­ly enough, to raise him­self from the bed.

‘Stop, Scatcherd; I will give it to you–I will help you. It may be that habit is sec­ond na­ture.’ Sir Roger in his de­ter­mined en­er­gy had swal­lowed, with­out think­ing of it, the small quan­ti­ty which the doc­tor had be­fore poured out for him, and still held the emp­ty glass with­in his hand. This the doc­tor now took and filled near­ly to the brim.

‘Come, Thorne, a bumper; a bumper for this once. “What­ev­er the drink, it a bumper must be.” You stingy fel­low! I would not treat you so. Well–well.’

‘It’s about as full as you can hold it, Scatcherd.’

‘Try me; try me! my hand is a rock; at least at hold­ing liquor.’ And then he drained the con­tents of the glass, which were in suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty to have tak­en away the breath of any or­di­nary man.

‘Ah, I’m bet­ter now. But, Thorne, I do love a full glass, ha! ha! ha!’

There was some­thing fright­ful, al­most sick­en­ing, in the pe­cu­liar hoarse gut­tural tone of his voice. The sounds came from him as though steeped in brandy, and told, all too plain­ly, the hav­oc which the al­co­hol had made. There was a fire too about his eyes which con­trast­ed with his sunken cheeks: his hang­ing jaw, un­shorn beard, and hag­gard face were ter­ri­ble to look at. His hands and arms were hot and clam­my, but so thin and wast­ed! Of his low­er limbs the lost use had not re­turned to him, so that in all his ef­forts at ve­he­mence he was con­trolled by his own want of vi­tal­ity. When he sup­port­ed him­self, half-​sit­ting against the pil­lows, he was in a con­tin­ual tremor; and yet, as he boast­ed, he could still lift his glass steadi­ly to his mouth. Such now was the hero of whom that ready com­pil­er of mem­oirs had just fin­ished his cor­rect and suc­cinct ac­count.

Af­ter he had had his brandy, he sat glar­ing a while at va­can­cy, as though he was dead to all around him, and was think­ing–think­ing–think­ing of things in the in­fi­nite dis­tance of the past.

‘Shall I go now,’ said the doc­tor, ‘and send La­dy Scatcherd to you?’

‘Wait a while, doc­tor; just one minute longer. So you will do noth­ing for Louis, then?’

‘I will do ev­ery­thing for him that I can do.’

‘Ah, yes! ev­ery­thing but the one thing that will save him. Well, I will not ask you again. But re­mem­ber, Thorne, I shall al­ter my will to-​mor­row.’

‘Do so, by all means; you may well al­ter it for the bet­ter. If I may ad­vise you, you will have down your own busi­ness at­tor­ney from Lon­don. If you will let me send he will be here be­fore to-​mor­row night.’

‘Thank you for noth­ing, Thorne: I can man­age that mat­ter my­self. Now leave me; but re­mem­ber, you have ru­ined that girl’s for­tune.’

The doc­tor did leave him, and went not al­to­geth­er hap­py to his room. He could not but con­fess to him­self that he had, de­spite him­self as it were, fed him­self with hope that Mary’s fu­ture might be made more se­cure, aye, and brighter too, by some small un­heed­ed frac­tion bro­ken off from the huge mass of her un­cle’s wealth. Such hope, if it had amount­ed to hope, was now all gone. But this was not all, nor was this the worst of it. That he had done right in ut­ter­ly re­pu­di­at­ing all idea of a mar­riage be­tween Mary and her cousin–of that he was cer­tain enough; that no earth­ly con­sid­er­ation would have in­duced Mary to plight her troth to such a man–that, with him, was as cer­tain as doom. But how far had he done right in keep­ing her from the sight of her un­cle? How could he jus­ti­fy it to him­self if he had thus robbed her of her in­her­itance, see­ing that he had done so from a self­ish fear lest she, who was now all his own, should be known to the world as be­long­ing to oth­ers rather than to him? He had tak­en up­on him on her be­half to re­ject wealth as val­ue­less; and yet he had no soon­er done so than he be­gan to con­sume his hours with re­flect­ing how great to her would be the val­ue of wealth. And thus, when Sir Roger told him, as he left the room, that he had ru­ined Mary’s for­tune, he was hard­ly able to bear the taunt with equa­nim­ity.

On the next morn­ing, af­ter pay­ing his pro­fes­sion­al vis­it to his pa­tient, and sat­is­fy­ing him­self that the end was now draw­ing near with steps ter­ri­bly quick­ened, he went down to Gre­shams­bury.

‘How long is this to last, un­cle?’ said his niece, with sad voice, as he again pre­pared to re­turn to Box­all Hill.

‘Not long, Mary; do not be­grudge him a few more hours of life.’

‘No, I do not, un­cle. I will say noth­ing more about it. Is his son with him?’ And then, per­verse­ly enough, she per­sist­ed in ask­ing nu­mer­ous ques­tions about Louis Scatcherd.

‘Is he like­ly to mar­ry, un­cle?’

‘I hope so, my dear.’

‘Will he be so very rich?’

‘Yes; ul­ti­mate­ly he will be very rich.’

‘He will be a baronet, will he not?’

‘Yes, my dear.’

‘What is he like, un­cle?’

‘Like–I nev­er know what a young man is like. He is like a man with red hair.’

‘Un­cle, you are the worst hand in de­scrib­ing I ev­er knew. If I’d seen him for five min­utes, I’d be bound to make a por­trait of him; and you, if you were de­scrib­ing a dog, you’d on­ly say what colour his hair was.’

‘Well, he’s a lit­tle man.’

‘Ex­act­ly, just as I should say that Mrs Um­ble­by had a red-​haired lit­tle dog. I wish I had known these Scatcherds, un­cle. I do ad­mire peo­ple that can push them­selves in the world. I wish I had known Sir Roger.’

‘You will nev­er know him, Mary.’

‘I sup­pose not. I am so sor­ry for him. Is La­dy Scatcherd nice?’

‘She is an ex­cel­lent wom­an.’

‘I hope I may know her some day. You are so much there now, un­cle; I won­der whether you ev­er men­tion me to them. If you do, tell her from me how much I grieve for her.’

That same night, Dr Thorne again found him­self alone with Sir Roger. The sick man was much more tran­quil, and ap­par­ent­ly more at ease than he had been on the pre­ced­ing night. He said noth­ing about his will, and not a word about Mary Thorne; but the doc­tor knew that Win­ter­bones and a no­tary’s clerk from Barch­ester had been in the bed­room a great part of the day; and, as he knew al­so that the great man of busi­ness was ac­cus­tomed to do his most im­por­tant work by the hands of such tools as these, he did not doubt but that the will had been al­tered and re­mod­elled. In­deed, he thought it more than prob­able, that when it was opened it would be found to be whol­ly dif­fer­ent in its pro­vi­sions from that which Sir Roger had al­ready de­scribed.

‘Louis is clever enough,’ he said, ’sharp enough, I mean. He won’t squan­der the prop­er­ty.’

‘He has good nat­ural abil­ities,’ said the doc­tor.

‘Ex­cel­lent, ex­cel­lent,’ said the fa­ther. ‘He may do well, very well, if he can on­ly be kept from this;’ and Sir Roger held up the emp­ty wine-​glass which stood by his bed­side. ‘What a life he may have be­fore him!–and to throw it away for this!’ and as he spoke he took the glass and tossed it across the room. ‘Oh, doc­tor! would that it were all to be­gin again!’

‘We all wish that, I dare say, Scatcherd.’

‘No, you don’t wish it. You ain’t worth a shilling, and yet you re­gret noth­ing. I am worth half a mil­lion in one way or an­oth­er, and I re­gret ev­ery­thing-​ev­ery­thing–ev­ery­thing!’

‘You should not think that way, Scatcherd; you need not think so. Yes­ter­day you told Mr Clarke that you were com­fort­able in your mind.’ Mr Clarke was the cler­gy­man who had vis­it­ed him.

‘Of course I did. What else could I say when he asked me? It wouldn’t have been civ­il to have told him that his time and words were all thrown away. But, Thorne, be­lieve me, when a man’s heart is sad–sad–sad to the core, a few words from a par­son at the last mo­ment will nev­er make it right.’

‘May He have mer­cy on you, my friend!–if you will think of Him, and look to Him, He will have mer­cy on you.’

‘Well–I will try, doc­tor; but would that it were all to do again. You’ll see to the old wom­an for my sake, won’t you?’

‘What, La­dy Scatcherd?’

‘La­dy Dev­il! If any­thing angers me now it is that “la­dy­ship”–her to be my la­dy! Why, when I came out of jail that time, the poor crea­ture had hard­ly a shoe to her foot. But it wasn’t her fault, Thorne; it was none of her do­ing. She nev­er asked for such non­sense.’

‘She has been an ex­cel­lent wife, Scatcherd; and what is more, she is an ex­cel­lent wom­an. She is, and ev­er will be, one of my dear­est friends.’

‘Thank’ee, doc­tor, thank’ee. Yes; she has been a good wife–bet­ter for a poor man than a rich one; but then, that was what she was born to. You won’t let her be knocked about by them, will you, Thorne?’

Dr Thorne again as­sured him, that as long as he lived La­dy Scatcherd should nev­er want one true friend; in mak­ing this promise, how­ev­er, he man­aged to drop all al­lu­sion to the ob­nox­ious ti­tle.

‘You’ll be with him as much as pos­si­ble, won’t you?’ again asked the baronet, af­ter ly­ing quite silent for a quar­ter of an hour.

‘With whom?’ said the doc­tor, who was then all but asleep.

‘With my poor boy, Louis.’

‘If he will let me, I will,’ said the doc­tor.

‘And, doc­tor, when you see a glass at his mouth, dash it down; thrust it down, though you thrust out the teeth with it. When you see that, Thorne, tell him of his fa­ther–tell him what his fa­ther might have been but for that; tell him how his fa­ther died like a beast, be­cause he could not keep him­self from drink.’

These, read­er, were the last words spo­ken by Sir Roger Scatcherd. As he ut­tered them he rose up in bed with the same ve­he­mence which he had shown on the for­mer evening. But in the very act of do­ing so he was again struck by paral­ysis, and be­fore nine on the fol­low­ing morn­ing all was over.

‘Oh, my man–my own, own man!’ ex­claimed the wid­ow, re­mem­ber­ing in the parox­ysm of her grief noth­ing but the loves of their ear­ly days; ‘the best, the bright­est, the clever­est of them all!’

Some weeks af­ter this Sir Roger was buried, with much pomp and cer­emo­ny, with­in the precincts of Barch­ester Cathe­dral; and a mon­ument was put up to him soon af­ter, in which he was por­trayed, as smooth­ing a block of gran­ite with a mal­let and chis­el; while his ea­gle eye, dis­dain­ing such hum­ble work, was fixed up­on some in­tri­cate math­emat­ical in­stru­ment above him. Could Sir Roger have seen it him­self, he would prob­ably have de­clared, that no work­man was ev­er worth his salt who looked one way while he rowed an­oth­er.

Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the fu­ner­al the will was opened, and Dr Thorne dis­cov­ered that the claus­es of it were ex­act­ly iden­ti­cal with those his friend had de­scribed to him some months back. Noth­ing had been al­tered; nor had the doc­ument been un­fold­ed since that strange cod­icil had been added, in which it was de­clared that Dr Thorne knew–and on­ly Dr Thorne–who was the el­dest child of the tes­ta­tor’s on­ly sis­ter. At the same time, how­ev­er, a joint ex­ecu­tor with Dr Thorne had been named–one Mr Stock, a man of rail­way fame–and Dr Thorne him­self was made a lega­tee to the hum­ble ex­tent of a thou­sand pounds. A life in­come of a thou­sand pounds a year was left to La­dy Scatcherd.