His sisters were standing ready to go and make a call, and his brow wrinkled a little as he noted a peculiar fidgety expression about the mare’s ears.

“Why, Hartley, how foolish you are!” cried Leo. “You stop indoors reading till you are as nervous as Mrs Berens.”

“Eh? Yes. Well, I suppose I am,” said the curate good-humouredly. “But be careful; I’m always a little uncomfortable about strange mares. Will you have an extra rein?”

“Absurd!” said Leo. “There, you shall be humoured. Tell him to buckle it lower down.”

The girl looked very handsome and animated, and, since the scene in the wood with Tom Candlish, had been so penitent and patient that her brother had shrunk from checking her in any way.

The mare had duly arrived, and, apparently bending to her brother’s will, Leo had patiently seen it put in harness – degraded, as she called it – and as it went very well they were going on the present morning drive.

Hartley Salis tried to hide his anxiety, and turned to chat with Mary, who looked rather pale – the consequence of a headache, as she said; and as he talked he felt more and more between the horns of a dilemma.

Mary did not want to go, he knew. He did not want her to go, but, paradoxical as it may sound, he did want her to go. For choice he would have gone himself; but he knew that if he did Leo would look upon it as distrust – not of her power to manage the new mare, but of her word. For she had as good as promised him that she would see Tom Candlish no more, and he felt that he was bound to show in every way possible that he enjoyed a confidence that he really did not feel. With Mary to bear Leo company he knew that she was safe, and even that would bear the aspect of espionage; but the girl had accepted the position, and they were ready to start.

The trio were on their way to the gate when the new mare uttered a loud whinnying noise which was answered from a distance. There was the sound of hoofs, and directly after North trotted up.

Mary drew a deep breath, and her nervousness in connection with her ride was killed by one greater, which forced her to rouse all, her energies, so as to be calm during the coming encounter.

“Morning,” cried the doctor merrily, as he shook hands with all in turn. “Going to try the new mare?”

“Yes,” said the curate eagerly, while Leo was quiet and distant, and Mary her own calm self. “What do you think of her?”

The doctor, who, like most country gentlemen who keep a nag, considered himself a bit of a judge, looked the mare over, and grew critical.

“Well bred,” he said, at the end of a few moments.

“Oh! I am glad,” said Mary, eager to break the chilly silence that prevailed.

“I meant by descent,” said the doctor merrily. “I don’t know how she behaves.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Mary, in a disappointed tone, while Leo looked on scornfully.

“But she seems quiet?” said the curate anxiously.

“Ye-es,” replied the doctor dubiously, as he continued his examination. “Rather a wicked look about one eye.”

“Don’t, pray, Dr North,” said Leo petulantly. “My brother is quite fidgety enough about the mare. She is of course a little more mettlesome than our poor old plodding horse; but a child might drive her.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said the doctor, in a tone which seemed to say, “But I would not answer for the consequences.” Then aloud: “Bit swollen about that hock. May mean nothing. Nice-looking little thing, Salis.”

“I’m glad you like her,” said the curate eagerly.

“I did not say I liked her, old fellow,” replied North. “I said she was well bred.”

“But you don’t think she is dangerous for ladies?”

“Oh, Hartley! How absurd!” cried Leo.

“Dangerous? surely not,” said the doctor. “Have tried her yourself, of course?”

“Well, no,” replied the curate. “I have been so busy: but the man has driven her several times.”

“And says she goes very quietly,” said Leo pettishly. “Hartley never has any confidence in my driving.”

“Indeed, yes,” said the curate, smiling at his sister affectionately. “I know that you drive well, and are a clever horsewoman. I am only anxious about your driving a strange horse.”

“But Leo will be very careful,” said Mary, interposing to end a scene which was agony to her. “I am quite ready, Leo.”

“Yes, let’s go,” said the latter. “Hartley wants to sell you the horse at a profit, Dr North,” she added banteringly. “Good morning all.”

The curate said no more, but handed his sisters into the light low phaeton, Leo taking the reins in the most business-like manner before mounting, and then sitting upright on the raised seat in a way that would have satisfied the most exacting whip.

The mare started off at a touch, with her neck arched and her head well down, the wheels spinning merrily in unison with the sharp trot of the well-shaped hoofs.

“An uncommonly pretty little turn-out, old fellow,” said the doctor, as he sat in the saddle watching critically till the chaise turned the corner; “and your sister drives admirably.”

“Yes,” said the curate rather dolefully; “she drives like she rides.”

“And that’s better than any lady who follows our pack of hounds,” cried the doctor. “Now, if I had been anything of a fellow, I should have cantered along by their side, and shown myself off.”

“You would,” assented the curate; and his countenance seemed to say, “I wish you had.”

“But, there, I am not anything of a fellow, and I have patients waiting, so here goes.”

He pressed his horse’s flanks, and went off in the other direction at a trot, while the curate, with his troubled look increasing, walked into the house.

“I suppose the mare’s quite safe,” he said; “and it pleases her. May take her attention off him. Poor Leo! It is very sad.”

Meanwhile the doctor continued his way till he reached the stocks – a dilapidated set, as ancient-looking as the whipping-post which kept them company, and both dying their worm-eaten death, as the custom of using them had died generations before.

But they had their use still, the doctor’s horse stopping short by them, as if he knew his goal, and his master dismounting, and throwing his rein over the post before entering a low cottage, with red tile sides and thick thatch roof. The door was so low that he had to stoop his head to enter a scrupulously clean cottage room, with uneven red brick floor, brightly-polished stove, with a home-made shred hearthrug in front, and for furniture a well-scrubbed deal table, a high Windsor chair, a beautifully – carved old oaken chest or coffer, and a great, old-fashioned, eight-day clock, whose heavy pendulum, visible through a glazed hole in its door, swung ponderously to right and said chick! and then to left and said chack!

Empty as the old room was in one respect it was full in another, and that was of a faint ancient smell of an indescribable nature. It was not very unpleasant; it was not the reverse; but it had one great peculiarity – to wit, that of exciting a desire on the part of a visitor to know what it was, till his or her eye rested upon the occupant of the tall armed Windsor chair, in which sat Jonadab Moredock, clerk and sexton of Duke’s Hampton, when the idea came that the strange ancient odour must be that of decay.

“Well, old chap, how are we this morning?” said the doctor cheerily.

The red-eyed, yellow-skinned, withered old man placed his hands on the arms of his chair, raised himself an inch or two, gave his head a bob, and subsided again, as he shook his head.

“Bad, doctor – mortal bad; and if you goes away again like that you’ll find me dead and buried when back you comes.”

“Nonsense, Moredock; there are years upon years of good life in you yet.”

“Nay, doctor, nay,” moaned the old fellow.

“But I say yes. Why, you’re only ninety.”

“Ninety-three, doctor – ninety-three, and ’most worn out.”

“Nonsense; there’s a deal of work to be got out of you yet. Had your pipe?”

“Pipe? No. How can a man have a pipe who has no tobacco?”

“Ah well, never mind,” said the doctor, “I’ve brought you some physic.”

“Then I won’t take it,” cried the old man angrily. “I won’t take it, and I won’t pay for it, not a penny.”

“Wait till you’re asked,” said the doctor drily, as he threw a packet of tobacco in the old fellow’s lap. “There’s your medicine. Now say you will not take it if you dare.”

The old man’s red-rimmed eyes twinkled at the sight of the shredded-up weed, around which his hand closed like the claws of a hawk. Then rising slowly, he took down from the chimneypiece a curious-looking old tobacco-box, which seemed as if it had been hammered out of a piece of sheet lead, and began to stuff the tobacco in.

“Where did you get that leaden box? Moredock?” said the visitor.

“I – I made it,” said the old man, with a furtive look.

“Made it! I thought as much. Coffin lead, eh?”

“Never you mind about that, doctor. I found the lead when I was digging.”

“And did you find that oak chest when you were digging, you old rascal?”

“Nay, nay, nay, that’s nowt to do wi’ you, doctor. Physic’s your business, and not bits o’ furnitur’ in people’s houses.”

“Ah, well, we won’t quarrel about that, Moredock; only I’ve taken a fancy to that old chest. I’ll buy it of you.”

“Nay, you won’t, doctor; it isn’t for sale.”

“Then leave it to me in your will.”

“Nay, and I shan’t do that. It’s for my grandchild, Dalily, who’s up yonder at the Rectory, you know – her as had the measles when she was seventeen.”

“Ah, yes, I know – the dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked hussy. Lucky girl to inherit that chest.”

“Ay, but I don’t know as she’ll get it, doctor. Hussy! Yes, that’s it. That’s what she is, and if I see her talking to young Squire Luke Candlish’s brother, Tom Candlish, again, she shan’t have the chest.”

“Then I’ll set Tom Candlish to talk to her again, and then you’ll leave it to me.”

“Nay, you won’t, doctor. I know you better than that. But he’s a bad ’un. So’s the squire. They’re both bad ’uns. I know more about ’em than they think, and if Squire Luke warn’t churchwarden, I could say a deal.”

“And you will not?” said the doctor. “Well, I must be going. I say, though, did you get me that skull?”

“Nay, nay, nay,” said the old man, shaking his head, as he lit his pipe, and began smoking very contentedly, with his eyes half closed. “I couldn’t get no skulls, doctor. It would be sackerlidge and dessercation, and as long; as I’m saxton there shall be nothing of that kind at Duke’s Hampton. Bowdles doos it at King’s Hampton: but no such doings here.”

“But I want it for anatomical purposes, my good man.”

“Can’t help it, sir. I couldn’t do it.”

“Now what nonsense; it’s only lending me a bone.”

“You said sell it to you,” said the old man sharply.

“Well, sell it. I’ll buy it of you.”

“Nay, nay, nay. What would Parson Salis say if I did such a thing? He’d turn me out of being saxton, neck and crop.”

“Ah, well, I won’t worry you, old fellow; and I must go now.”

“Nay, don’t go yet, doctor,” cried the old man querulously. “You haven’t sounded me, nor feeled me, nor nothing.”

“Haven’t I given you some comforting medicine?”

“Yes, doctor; bit o’ ’bacco does me good; but do feel my pulse and look at my tongue.”

“Ah, well, let’s look,” said the doctor, and he patiently examined according to rote. “It’s Anno Domini, Moredock – Anno Domini.”

“Is it, now, doctor? Ah, you always did understand my complaint. If it hadn’t been for you, doctor – ”

“We should have had a new sexton at Duke’s Hampton before now, eh?”

“Yes, doctor,” said the old man, with a shudder.

“Well, without boasting, old chap, I think I did pull you through that last illness.”

“Yes, doctor, you did, you did; and don’t go away again. You were away seven days – seven mortal days of misery to me.”

“Oh, but you’re all right,” said the doctor, looking curiously at the old man.

“Nay, nay, nay. I thought I should have died before you come back, doctor; that I did.”

“But you’re better now.”

“Yes, I’m better now, doctor. I feel safer-like, and I’ve got so much to do that I can’t afford to be ill.”

“And die?”

“Nay, nay, nay; not yet, not yet, not yet, doctor!”

“Ah, well, I’m glad I do you good, Moredock; but I think you might have lent me that skull.”

“You said sell, doctor,” cried the old man.

“Of course I should have paid you. But I suppose I must respect your scruples.”

“Ay, do, doctor, and come oftener. Anno Domini, is it?”

“Yes.”

“’Tain’t a killing disease, is it, doctor?”

“Indeed but it is, old fellow. But, there, I’ll come in now and then and oil your works, and keep you going as long as I can.”

“Do, doctor, do, please. I shall feel so much safer when you’ve been.”

“All right. Good-day, Moredock.”

“Good-day, doctor,” said the old man, gripping his visitor’s arm tightly with a hook-like claw.

“Good-day; and if you do overcome your scruples, I should like that skull. It would be useful to me now.”

The old man kept tightly hold of his visitor’s arm, and hobbled to the door to look out, and then, still gripping hard at the arm, he said in a strange, cachinnatory way, as he laid down his pipe:

“He-he-he! hi-hi-hi! I’ve got it for you, doctor.”

“What? The skull?”

“Hush! Of course I have; only one must make a bit o’ fuss over it. Sackerlidge and dessercation, you know.”

“Oh! I see.”

“I wouldn’t do such a thing for any one but a doctor, you know. Anno Domical purposes, eh?”

“You’re getting the purpose mixed up with your disease, Moredock,” said the doctor, as the old man took out a key from the pocket of his coat, and, after blowing in it and tapping it on the table, prior to drawing a pin from the edge of his waistcoat and treating the key as if it were a periwinkle, he crossed to the old oak coffer.

“Just shut that door, doctor,” he said. “That’s right. Now shove the bolt. Nobody aren’t likely to come unless Dally Watlock does, for she always runs over when she aren’t wanted, and stops away when she is. Thankye, doctor.”

He stooped down, looking like some curious old half-bald bird, to unlock the chest, and then, after raising the lid a short distance, in a cunningly secretive way, he thrust in one arm, and brought out a dark-looking human skull.

“Ha! yes,” cried the doctor, taking the grisly relic of mortality in his hands. “Yes, that’s a very perfect specimen; but it’s a woman’s, evidently. I wanted a man’s.”

“You said sell you a skull,” said the old man angrily. “You never said nowt about man or woman.”

“No. It was an oversight. There, never mind.”

“Ay, but I do mind,” grumbled the old man. “I like to sadersfy my customers. Give it me back.”

“But this will do.”

“Nay, nay, nay; it won’t do,” cried the old man peevishly. “Give it to me.”

The doctor handed back the skull, and the old man hastily replaced it in the coffer, hesitated a few moments, and then brought out another skull.

“Ah! that’s right,” cried the doctor eagerly; “the very thing. How much?”

“Nay, nay, nay; I’m not going to commit sackerlidge and dessercation. I can’t sell it.”

“But you are not going to give it to me?”

“Nay; I only thought as you might put anything you like on the chimbley-piece.”

“I see,” said the doctor, smiling, and placing a small gold coin there, the old man watching eagerly the while. “But I say, Moredock, how many more have you got in that chest?”

“Got? – there?” said the old man suspiciously. “Oh! only them two. Nothing more – nothing more.” But the next instant, as if won over to confidence in his visitor, or feeling bound to trust him, he screwed up his face in a strange leering way and opened the coffer wide.

“You may look in,” he said. “You’re a doctor, and won’t tell. They’re for the doctors.”

“Your customers, eh?”

“Customers?” said the old man sharply; “who said a word about customers?”

“You did. So you deal in those things?”

“No, no; not deal in ’em. I find one sometimes – very old – very old. Been in the earth a mort o’ years.”

As he spoke he watched the doctor curiously while he inspected the specimens of osteology in the oak chest. Then, taking up a tin canister from the bottom, he gave it a shake, the contents rattling loudly, and upon opening it he displayed it half full of white, sound teeth.

“Dentists,” he said, with a grin, which showed his own two or three blackened fangs. “They uses ’em. False teeth. People thinks they’re ivory. So they are.”

“Why, Moredock, what a wicked old wretch you are,” said the doctor. “I don’t wonder you feel afraid to die.”

“Wicked? No more wicked than my neighbours, doctor. Every one’s afraid to die, and wants to live longer. Wicked! How could I save a few pounds together, to keep me out o’ the workus when I grow’s old, if I didn’t do something like this?”

“Ah, how indeed?” said the doctor, looking half-wonderingly at the strange old being.

“And my grandchild, Dalily, up at the Rectory. Man must save – must save. Besides, it’s doing good.”

“Good, eh?”

“Yes,” said the old fellow, with a hideous grin. “Lots o’ them never did no good in their lives, and maybe they’re thankful now they’re dead to find that, after all, they’re some use to their fellow-creatures.”

“Ah! Moredock, people are always ready to find an excuse for their wrong-doing. Seems to me that I ought to expose you up at the Rectory.”

“Nay, you won’t tell the parson, doctor?” said the old man, with a chuckle.

“No, I shall say nothing, Moredock.”

“No, doctor, you can’t. You’re in it. You set me to get that for you.”

“There, stop that confounded laugh of yours, and take this quietly to the Manor House to-night. Shall you be well enough?”

“Have – have you got any more o’ that Hollands gin, doctor?” whispered the old man, with a leer.

“About another glassful, I dare say.”

“Then I shall be well enough to come, doctor. Nobody shall see what it is. And look here: you keep me alive and well, and you shall have anything you want, doctor. Parson’s master in the church, but I’m master outside, and in the tombs, and in the old Candlish morslem. Like to see in it, doctor?”

“Pah! not I. See enough of the miserable breed alive without seeing them dead. Good morning.”

He remounted his horse, and rode out of the village by the main road, to draw rein at a pretty ivy-covered villa, whose well-kept garden and general aspect betokened wealth and some refinement.

“Mrs Berens at home?” he asked, as the drag at a bell sent a silvery tinkle through the house.

The neat maid-servant drew back with a smile, and the doctor entered, and was shown into a pretty drawing-room, where he stood beating his boot with his riding-whip, and looking scornfully at the ornaments, lace, and gimcracks around.

Chapter Seven.
A Fresh Patient

“I always feel like a fly,” the doctor muttered – “a fly alighted upon a spider’s web. The widow wants a husband. I wish some one would snap her up.”

“Ah! doctor – at last,” said a pleasant voice, which sounded as if it had passed through swan’s-down, while a strong odour of violets helped the illusion.

“Yes, at last, Mrs Berens,” said the doctor, taking the extended, soft, white hand of the pleasant, plump lady of eight-and-thirty or forty, whose whole aspect was suggestive of a very pretty, delicate-skinned baby grown large. “Why, how well you look.”

“Oh, doctor!”

“Indeed you do. Why, from your note I was afraid that you were seriously ill.”

“And I have been, doctor. In such a low, nervous state. At one time I felt as if I should sink. But” – with a sigh – “I am better now.”

The lady waved her kerchief towards a chair, and seated herself upon an ottoman, where, in obedience to the suggestion, she once more laid her hand in the doctor’s firm white palm, wherein Jonadab Moredock’s gnarled, yellow, horny paw had so lately lain: and as the strong fingers closed over the delicate white flesh, and a couple glided to the soft round wrist, the patient sighed.

“Oh, doctor, I do feel so safe when you are here. It would be too hard to die so young.”

The doctor looked up quickly. “Now that’s wicked,” said the lady reproachfully, “because I said ‘so young.’ Well, I’m not quite forty, and that is young. Is my pulse very rapid?”

“No, no. A little accelerated, perhaps. You seem to have been fretting.”

“Yes, that’s it, doctor. I have,” said the lady.

“What a fool I am!” he said to himself, as he released the hand. Then aloud: “I see, I see. Little mental anxiety. You want tone, Mrs Berens.”

“Yes, doctor, I do,” she sighed.

“Now what should you say if I prescribed a complete change?”

“A complete change, doctor?” said the lady, whose pulse was now certainly accelerated.

“Yes. That will be better than any of my drugs. A pleasant little two months’ trip to Baden or Homburg, where you can take the waters and enjoy the fresh air.”

“Oh, doctor, I could not go alone.”

“Humph! No. It would be dull. Well, take a companion. Why not one of the parson’s sisters? Mary Salis – or, no,” he added, quickly, as he recalled certain family troubles that had been rumoured. “Why not Leo Salis?”

“Oh, no, doctor,” said the lady, with a decisive shake of the head. “I don’t think Miss Leo Salis and I would get on together long.”

“The other, then,” said the doctor.

“No, no. Prescribe some medicine for me.”

“But you don’t want medicine.”

“Indeed, doctor, but I do. I’ll take anything you like to prescribe.”

“But – ”

“Now, doctor, I am low and nervous, and you must humour me a little. I could not bear to be sent away. I should feel as if I had gone over there to die.”

“When I guarantee that you would come back strong and well?”

“No, doctor, no. You must not send me away. Deal gently with me, and let me stop in my own nest. Ah, if you only knew my sufferings.”

Dr Horace North felt as if he fully knew, and was content to stand off at a distance, for though everything was extremely ladylike and refined, and there was a touch of delicacy mingled with her words, he could not help interpreting the meaning of the widow’s sighs and the satisfied look of pleasure which came over her countenance when he was at hand to feel her pulse.

“I do know your sufferings,” he said gravely, “and you may rely upon me to bring any little skill I can command to bear upon your complaint. Think again over the idea of change.”

“Oh, no, doctor,” said the lady quickly. “I could not go.”

“Ah, well, I will not press you,” he said, rising. “I’ll try and prescribe something that will give you tone.”

“You are not going, doctor,” said the lady, in alarm. “Why, you have only this moment come.”

“Patients to see, my dear madam.”

“No, it is not that. I worry you with my complaints. I am very, very tiresome, I own.”

“Nonsense, nonsense,” said the doctor; “but really I must hurry away.”

“Without seeing my drawings, and the books I have had down from town! Ah! I am sure I bore you with my murmuring. A sick woman is a burden to her friends.”

“If some one would only fetch me away in a hurry, I’d bless him,” thought the doctor.

“There are times, doctor, when a few words of sympathy would make me bear my lot more easily, and – ”

“Wheels, by George!” exclaimed the doctor.

“If you only knew – ”

“There’s something bolted.”

“The dead vacancy in my poor heart.”

“A regular smash if they don’t look out. Woa, Tom! Steady, my lad!” cried the doctor, opening the French window and stepping out on to the lawn.

“Doctor, for pity’s sake,” sobbed Mrs Berens, in anguished tones.

The patient’s voice was so pitiful that the doctor could not resist the appeal, and though called as it were on both sides, he stepped rapidly back into the little drawing-room in time to catch the fainting widow in his arms.

Unfortunately for poor Mrs Berens, who had for long felt touched by the young doctor, a lady in distress, mental or bodily, or both, was always a patient to Dr North, and he only retained her in his arms just long enough to lower her down in a corner of a soft couch, before rushing out of the window and through the gate, where his tied-up horse was snorting and kicking.

The poor brute had cause, for the rapid running of wheels and beat of hoofs were produced by Hartley Salis’s phaeton and the new mare, which came down the road at a frantic gallop, with Mary clinging to the side of the vehicle, pale with dread, and Leo, apparently quite retaining her nerve, seated perfectly upright in her place, but unable to control the mare, one rein having given way at the buckle hole, and a pull at the other being so much madness.

They had come along for quite a mile at a headlong pace, till nearing Mrs Berens’ house, Leo caught sight of the doctor’s cob, which pricked up its ears and began to rear and plunge.

To have kept on as they were meant a collision, and there was nothing left now for the driver to do but draw gently upon the sound rein.

The pull given was vain, and a sharp one followed, just in time to make the half-bred mare swerve and avoid the doctor’s cob; but the consequence was that the fore wheel of the phaeton caught a post on the other side of the road. There was a crashing sound, a wild scream, and the cause of the accident went off at a more furious pace than ever, with the shafts dangling and flying about her legs.

“Hurt? No, not much,” cried the doctor, half lifting Leo from the grass at the side of the road; and hurrying to where Mary lay staring wildly, entangled among the fragments of the chaise.

“My poor child!” he cried. “Oh, this is bad work. Try and – Here! Miss Leo – Mrs Berens. Water – brandy – for Heaven’s sake, quick!”