“Sick, sore, and sorry we be, sir. Your brother’s not that long buried that there should be no sadness in the Grange, his own house that was, and his widow’s that is—sickness may well be better than sadness, but ’taint turn about wi’ them here, but one and t’other, both together. And that slut upstairs, Miss Dogger, if you please, out of the scullery into the bedchamber, she’s no more use to me than the cock at the top o’ Carwell steeple. I never knew such times in Carwell Grange; I’m wore off my old feet—I can’t stan’ it long, and I wish twenty times in a day I was quiet at last in my grave.”
“A gruntin’ horse and a grumblin’ wife, they say, lasts long. Never you fear, you won’t die this time, old girl, and I wouldn’t know the Grange if you wasn’t here. ’Twill all be right again soon, I warrant—no wind blows long at the highest, ye know, and we’ll hear what the doctor says just now.”
“Hoot! what can the doctor say but just the old thing? The leech to the physic and God to the cure, and death will do as God allows, and sickness shows us what we are, and all fears the grave as the child does the dark. I don’t know much good he’s doin’, or much he did for Master Charles—not but he’s as good as another, and better than many a one, maybe—but he costs a deal o’ money, and only Lady Wyndale came over here yesterday—poorly though she is, and not able to get out o’ her coach—and saw Mrs. Crane, and lent a fifty-pun note to keep all straight till the young lady, please God, may be able to look about her, and see after ’em herself, we’d a bin at a sore pinch before the week was out. Pity’s good, but help’s better. ’Tis well in this miserly world there’s a kind one left here and there, that wouldn’t let kindred want in the midst of plenty. There’s Squire Harry o’ Wyvern and his own little grandson lyin’ up in the cradle there, and look at you, Master Harry. I wonder you hadn’t the thought.”
Harry laughed, perhaps, the least degree awkwardly.
“Why, chick-a-biddy—” began Harry.
“I’m none o’ yer chick-a-biddies. I’m old Mildred Tarnley, o’ the Grange o’ Carwell, that’s in the service o’ the family—her and hers—many a long year, and I speaks my mind, and I shouldn’t like the family to be talked of as it will for meanness. If there’s a want o’ money here in times of sickness, ’tis a shame!”
“Well, ye know there’s no want, but the Governor’s riled just now, and he’ll come round again; and as for me, I’m as poor a dog as is in the parish. Take me and turn me round and round, and what more am I than just a poor devil that lives by horses, and not always the price of a pot o’ stout in my pocket—
‘Four farthings and a thimble
Makes the tailor’s pocket jingle.’
Your tongue’s a bit too hard, Mildred; but ye mean well, and there’s kindness at the bottom o’ the mug, though the brew be bitter.”
“I think I hear the doctor,” said Mildred, placing her palm behind her ear and listening.
“Ay,” said Harry; “I hear him talkin’.”
And forth he strode to meet him.
Before he went up, Harry and the doctor talked together for a little in the panelled sitting-room, with which we are familiar.
“I’m sure to see you here, eh?”
“Before I go? Yes. I shall look in here.”
“All right,” said Harry, and the doctor walked up the stairs on his exploration.
LIV
A Drive to Twyford
In less than ten minutes the doctor came down.
“Well?” said Harry, over his shoulder, turning briskly from the window.
“No material change,” replied the doctor. “It’s not a case in which medicine can do much. The most cheering thing about it is that her strength has not given way, but you know it is an anxious case—a very anxious case.”
“I hope they are taking care of the child. Old Dulcibella Crane would be a deal better for that sort of thing than that dry old cake, Mildred Tarnley. But then Ally would half break her heart if ye took old Dulcibella from her, always used to her, you know. And what’s best to be done? It would be bad enough to lose poor Ally, but it would be worse to lose the boy, for though I’m willing to take my share of work for the family, there’s one thing I won’t do, and that’s to marry. I’m past the time, and d⸺ me if I’d take half England to do it. I’d like to manage and nurse the estate for him, and be paid, of course, like other fellows, and that’s what would fit my knuckle. But, by Jove, if they kill that boy among them there will be no one to maintain the old name of Wyvern; and kill him they will, if they leave him in the hard hands of that wiry old girl, Mildred Tarnley. She’s a cast-iron old maid, with the devil’s temper, and she has a dozen other things to mind beside, and I know the child will die, and I don’t know anything to advise, d⸺ me if I do.”
“The house is in confusion, and very little attention for the child, certainly,” said Doctor Willett.
“And that d⸺d scarlatina, beyond a doubt, is in the glen there.”
The old doctor shrugged and shook his head.
“I talked to the Governor a bit,” said Harry, “thinking he might have the child over to Wyvern, where it would be safe and well looked after, but he hates the whole lot. You know it was a stolen match, and it’s no use trying in that quarter. You’re going now, and I’ll walk a little bit beside you; maybe you’ll think of something, and I
