University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Conducted by the old woman, an heir-loom dependant
in the Captain's family, whom Miss Loring
had designated by the familiar and somewhat endearing
title of Aunt Rachel, the grim-faced stranger
bore the young painter to a chamber, where
he was laid upon a couch, breathing forth occasional
groans, but still insensible. His bearer, having
thus finished what might have been considered
his peculiar charge, lifted up his eyes, and looked
around him, not however with any intention of
departing. On the contrary, his rude indifference
seemed gradually to have melted away, and been
succeeded by an anxious wish to render further
services to the youth, or at least to be assured they
should be rendered by others as capable as himself.
He fixed his eyes upon the physician, as if
to determine the amount of his professional ability
by such outward manifestations of wisdom as
might be traced in his visage and person; and the
result was so little to his satisfaction that he resolved

to remain in the apartment, to give the
physician the benefit of his own counsels.

The man of science, who bore the undignified
name of Merribody, was a youth of twenty-five
or six, though the gravity of his countenance was
worthy a practitioner of fifty. His frame was
short, and roundest in the middle, and his limbs
and neck of conformable brevity and dumpiness.
His face corresponded with his body, being round
as a melon, with features all highly insignificant,
except his nose, which had a short and delicate
pug that gave it some importance. His complexion
had been originally fair, and his locks flaxen; but
a few years' exposure to sun and sleet had communicated
a certain foxy swarthiness to both, so
that his eyes, which were of a light gray, were
now entirely visible. His eye-brows had maintained
their original creamy hue; and being the
only part of the countenance possessing any great
mobility, their motions up and down, and to and
fro, were always distinguishable; and indeed they
flitted about under the shadow of his hat, like two
snowy moths entangled in a cobweb. Though no
figure in the world could have been worse adapted
to purposes of dignity, Dr. Merribody had
thought proper to assume an important air, which
he always preserved, except when irritated out of
his decorum; a circumstance that not unfrequently
happened, owing to a temper naturally testy and
inflammable. His countenance he kept in a perpetual
frown; and he cultivated an attitude he
thought expressive of professional dignity, in
which his feet were planted as far from one another
as the length of his legs permitted, his head
thrown back, or rather his chin turned up, for his
neck was too short to allow much liberty to the
temple of the soul, and his hands thrust into his
breeches pockets; in which attitude he presented

a miniature representation of the Rhodian Colossus.
He had even bestowed much cultivation upon
his voice, which being of a childish treble, and
therefore highly incompatible with all pretensions
to gravity, he forced it into artificial profundity,
and spoke with a husky, catarrhal tone, a sort of
falsetto bass, exceedingly pompous, and indeed
sometimes majestic. However, the same testy
temper which so often robbed him of his dignity
of carriage, as frequently threw his voice into its
hautboy alto; and on those occasions, he did not
appear to advantage. At the present moment, the
doctor certainly might be said to be in his glory;
for the sight of a patient threw him into the best
humour in the world;—and by the presence of his
two friends, without counting the stranger and
Aunt Rachel, he was assured of witnesses to his
skill in a case, which he declared, while trudging
up stairs, to be `exceedingly critical and interesting.'
Notwithstanding this favourable condition
of things, however, the man of the red hat conceived
but a mean opinion of Dr. Merribody's
professional skill; and having eyed him a second
time, without finding any reason to alter his
opinion, he demanded, in no very respectful
terms,

“Well now, doctor, here's the man lying half
dead and groaning,—what's to be done with
him?”

“What's to be done?” echoed the doctor, turning
up the cuffs of his coat, throwing out his legs,
and looking important and complaisant together;
“Why, sir, we are to—but, hark'e, sir, who are
you? Don't know you—thought you was Dan
Potts, the raftsman, but see you a'n't. Who are
you? and what are you doing here? Can't suffer a
crowd in the room; it smothers the air. Must beg

you to decamp, sir. Have plenty assistance,
sir,”—

“Be content, doctor,” said the man, drily, but
not roughly. “My name is Green, John Green,
the trader; every body knows Green, the York
trader, as they call me. I fished up the young
gentleman;—that is, I helped the lady; and I must
see him through his troubles.”

“Never heard of you, Mr. Green,” said the
doctor; “but you may stay. You have something
the matter with your eye! Now I don't boast; but
I believe I am good at the eyes—I will look at it
directly.”

“I don't doubt it, doctor,” said Mr. Green;
“but suppose, instead of talking of my eyes, you
make the best use of your own. Here's the young
man in great suffering.”

“Oh, ay,” said doctor Merribody. “The first
thing to be done is to strip the patient, and see
what's the matter with him. Method is the soul
of business. Hurrah, Jingleum; come, off with
his coat,—strip it off.”

“Rip it off, you mean,” said the trader, touching
the fractured arm significantly, and indeed
somewhat angrily. “Of all fools I ever heard of,
those are the greatest who break their arms, when
necks are so much less valuable. Here's his right
arm smashed like a sassafras-bough; and, I reckon,
slipped at the shoulder, too!”

“Ay! the deuce! you don't say so! a luxation!”
cried the physician. “Set the old woman to work
with her scissors. Aunt Rachel, my good woman,
rip up this sleeve; and rip it as gingerly as if
every stitch was the nerve of a man's elbow. A
comminuted fracture, I can tell by the feel!—
Here, Pepperel, pour some warm water into the
basin, chill it a thought from the ewer, and soak
this rag in it. A very genteel-looking dog, I protest!—Jingleum,

lay out my pocket-case, tear an
old shirt into bandages two and a half inches wide,
and roll 'em up; and you, Mr. York,—that is, Mr.
Green, hand me the crooked scissors there, till I
shave some of the hair from the wound. A devil
of a job, if it turns out a trephine case! We must
send off to town for Dr. Muller and his case of
round saws—I don't object to consult with Dr.
Muller; and if it comes to trephining, why the
sooner we are ready for it the better. Method is
the soul of business!”

“The cut on the head is but a scratch,” said the
trader: “I v'e looked at it myself. Goody, rip up
the shirt-sleeve here, or let me do it—there's
blacker work to look at.”

“Method is the soul of business,” cried the doctor,
whose spirits were beginning to rise to a rapture,
as business thickened on his hand, and who
now raised himself a tip-toe among his temporary
assistants, like a generalissimo surveying the manœuvres
of his subordinates on a field of battle,
which is perhaps to determine the destinies of a
nation; “there's nothing like method!” he ejaculated.
“Aunt Rachel, scrape me a little lint—
there are more scratches to be filled.—Hah! what!
what the devil's the matter?” he cried, as the trader,
groaning with sympathy at the sight, tore
away the damp shirt from the shoulder, and displayed
it deformed and shapeless from luxation.
“Bless my soul, what! a dislocation, really, under
the pectoralis major, anteriorly luxed! Oh, here's
the devil to pay! Method is the soul of business:
but what method is there in having at once an
arm broke, a shoulder disjointed, a head cracked,
and to be half drowned into the bargain? Murdering
work, sir! murdering work, sir! murdering work! Where the
deuce can I clap my pulley? and where the deuce,
now I think of it, am I to get one?”

“A pulley!” exclaimed the trader, with scorn
and indignation; “a pulley to drag a man's arm
off! Why, where's your fingers? Come, doctor,
now's the time.”

“Method is the soul of business!” exclaimed the
physician, waxing wroth. “Are you a doctor, a
surgeon, a gentleman of the profession, Mr. Whatd'-ye-call-'em,
that you take it upon you to instruct
me what to do? I tell you, sir, a physician
is not to be prescribed his duty, sir; and I allow
no man to interfere with me in my practice, sir!”

The strength of this declaration was increased
by its being delivered in the doctor's natural voice,
high and shrill; but it produced little effect on the
obdurate trader.

“Come, doctor,” said he, “I know all about
these matters of broken and disjointed bones, from
the toe up to the top-knot, having had a hand in
making many of them, as a man who has been an
Indian trader, in war-times, may well say. So
take the benefit of my advice; for I intend to give
it.”

“Then, sir,” said Dr. Merribody, with becoming
indignation, “you may take the matter into
your own hands; I wash mine clear of it. I'm not
to be ruled by any ignoramus Indian trader, who,
I believe, is no better than an Indian himself, and
blind of an eye into the bargain; if you are to dictate,
you Mr. What-d'-ye-call-'em, I'll have nothing
to do with the case,—if I do I'll be hanged.
No, sir! work away yourself, and kill the patient
as soon as you like: he is at death's door already.”

“Not at all,” said Mr. Green, with a bitter
sneer; “if he had been in any danger, I should
have taken the matter up myself. Come, doctor,”
he added, more civilly; “don't be in a passion,
and don't play the fool. I tell you, if it will be any
satisfaction to you to know, that I, John Green,

simple as I stand here, have seen more wounds
and broken bones than you, and a dozen other
such younkers, will ever have the mending of;
and, for the matter of that, I have seen more mended
than ever you will see hurt, ay, and helped in
the mending, too,—as any man must, who has
traded among Indians. So, come; look to your
duty; the young gentleman will pay you for your
services; and, as he seems to be forlorn-like, with
no better friend at hand, I shall stand by him, to
see he gets the worth of his money.”

The amazement with which the insulted leech
listened to these contumelious expressions, was
prodigious, and would have been expressed otherwise
than by a simple, common-place “whew!”
had it not been for the dark scowl that clouded the
trader's visage, at the first sign of explosion. It
was a look of more than ordinary resentment or
menace; and, indeed, expressed equal malignance
with the grin of a wild-cat, preparing for the
spring. The terror it struck to the bosom of the
doctor, was communicated to his friends, who betrayed
at first some inclination to enter into the
controversy, but ended the heroic impulse in sundry
grumbling murmurs.

“A devilish strange fellow as ever I saw!”
growled the doctor in the ear of one. “A case of
monomania, sir; he is mad, sir: yes! I see mania
in his eye; he has been hurt on the head, you can
tell by the knocks there, the scars on his phys'nomy;
and his eye shows the infirmity. So we
must humour him, sirs, we must humour him.—
'Tis the method; and method is the soul of business.”

Thus apologizing for the surrender of his wrath
and dignity, the surgeon betook himself again to
his patient.

“Hum! hah!” he cried, laying his fingers on

Herman's wrist,—“pulse irregular, intermittent.—
The struggle between life and death—very low,
sir, very low!—Aunt Rachel, make me half a
dozen mustard-plasters, roast me a dozen bricks,
and get me a coal of fire, to try if there's any feeling
in him. One dare not bleed with such a pulse
as this.”

Green listened with visible impatience to the
physician; and then, with as little consideration as
before, exclaimed,

“What needs all these knick-knackeries? Clap
this shoulder into place, and then think of them.”

“My friend,” said the doctor, his indignation
supplying the place of courage, “I don't like to
offend the feelings of any man; but you talk like
an ass. Method is the soul of business; and there
is no method in reducing a luxation for a man hovering
upon the brink of the grave, unless you may
consider the act a method of helping him into it.
No, sir; the violence of the operation would do his
business as expeditiously as a thump over the head
with a tomahawk, which I think, as you are an
Indian trader and fighter, you know something
about. Yes, sir; I'll allow you to be a complete
master of the science of tomahawking, skinning,
and scalping; but when you come to talk of bones
and dislocations, then, sir, I say, in the words of
the Latin poet, Ne sudor ultra crepidam—I don't
know whether it is sudor or sutor; but it means,
`Mind your own business.' ”

“I speak of nothing but what I know,” replied
Green, impatiently; “and I say, now is the time to
fix the bone with the least trouble. Feel the lad's
muscles; they are as loose and limber as a girl's
in a swoon; wait till he opens his eyes, and you
will find them as tough as ash-boughs. So go to
work, doctor; for if you don't, I will—I have
clapped a bone in place before now. So, doctor,

you or John Green, the York trader; and much
good may it do you, when I tell the folks up the
river how I out-doctored you!”

The argument was conclusive, and luckily it
was given more in the spirit of persuasion than
command; Dr. Merribody condescended to adopt
the advice of the rude philosopher. As he had
intimated, the muscles of the sufferer were in a
condition so relaxed, that it required but little effort
to restore the bone to its place.

“There! it is done!” cried the surgeon, triumphantly;
“but it hurt him like the mischief! He
groaned as if I had been cutting his throat. Now
for the mustard-plasters”—

“Now, if you please,” said the trader, “for your
lancet; and leave such things for the old women.”

The doctor was again offended; but the interference
of his adviser had effected one desirable
object, and he now thought him worthy of remonstrance:

“This, my friend,” said he, striking his attitude,
sinking his voice to its most majestic depth, and
stretching forth his hand, to give emphasis to the
oration,—“this is a case of concussion of the brain,
—that is, while considered without reference to
other minor injuries, such as the wound, the fracture,
and the luxation. In concussion, sir, I would
have you to understand, sir, the practitioner has
to contend, or rather to provide beforehand, sir,
against two insidious and dangerous consequences,
videlicet depression and inflammation. Ehem, sir!
do you understand that? If you don't, sir, you are
no better than a—I won't say numskull, sir,—but
something of that sort. Bleeding may undoubtedly
prevent the latter, but it may as certainly aggravate
the former,—it may sink the patient into the
grave,—it may send him to the devil,—it may”—

“Open his eyes, and so rob the doctor of a patient,”

said the trader, gruffly. “Do you see how
the blood begins to flush over his face? do you
hear how hard he draws his breath? Bleed him,
and he opens his eyes; warm him with bricks, and
plasters, and such stuff, and he will have a brain-fever.
Come, doctor, I'll take the blame. If it
should hurt him, why a vein is easier stopped than
a fool's mouth.”

“Probatum est,” muttered the physician; “for
nothing but a gag could do that for one that shall
be nameless.—The fellow has some gumption,
though,” he muttered to himself. “Well, I'll bleed
him—but I should like to put Dan Potts, the raftsman,
on him, or some such two-fisted fellow, and
have him drubbed for his insolence! yes, I should
like it!”

And grinning with the agreeableness of the
fancy, the doctor phlebotomized the patient.

The wisdom of the trader's suggestion was again
shown in the event. The blood, at first merely
oozing in drops from the vein, at last gathered
strength and volume, and the poor painter opened
his eyes, and rolled them wildly from person to
person. The trader surveyed him for a moment
with a much gentler visage than he had hitherto
displayed; then turning to the doctor, he said,
softly, as if to avoid disturbing the patient,

“Now you can bind up the broken bone at leisure.
Only keep him quiet, and the hurt is nothing.
I did not mean to offend you, doctor—I
have a rough way with me. Treat the young man
well, and he will soon recover.”

With these words, he took up his hat, left the
apartment, and was soon heard stepping from the
porch down to the avenue through the lawn.

“An impudent, ignoramus, unconscionable, rascal,
with no manners, and half mad!” growled the
doctor, giving his indignation full swing.

“A wasp-mouthed, sharp-tongued, malicious savage!”
exclaimed his friends; and even the matron,
who had all the time bustled about, seemingly regardless
of all conversation that was not specially
directed towards herself, concluded the chorus, by
muttering,

“And a man that never goes to meeting, I warrant
me!”

“Let's have candles here, Aunt Rachel!” cried
the doctor, indulging his importance, in all the joy
of liberation from restraint. “It is as dark as—
oh! here they come, eh? Hark! there's horses'
feet in the park! They're coming back from the
Rest.—Bless my soul! I forgot all about the murder
and the assassin! Hope they don't bring him
here, slashed all to pieces by the soldiers; work
enough on hand for one surgeon.—Only a simple
fracture, after all! Hold the splints here, Jingleum.
Don't be distressed, sir; won't hurt you more than
I can possibly help.”

With these words, the surgeon proceeded to tie
up the fractured limb, the painter having recovered
so far as to be able to wince and groan to the
heart's content of the practitioner. Before the
operation was concluded, Captain Loring came
puffing and blowing into the room, and being instantly
assailed by the doctor's friends with anxious
questions concerning the result of the late assault
upon the Traveller's Rest, answered in his usual
hurried and broken manner,—

“Bird flown, adzooks—beat retreat in time,—
struck colours, crossed the river; young Brooks
and a posse after him; will have him before morning,—we
will, by the lord! But, adzooks, here's
my young painter that's to paint me that picture.
Hark ye, Harman What-d'-ye-call-it, my boy,” he
exclaimed, taking a seat on the bed-side, and speaking
with rough hospitality; “glad to see your eyes

open. Mean to treat you as well as if you were
my son Tom. How do you feel now, hark ye, my
lad? What the plague sent you tumbling down the
rocks, hah? A mighty stupid trick, that, adzooks!
How d'e do?”

The young man's wits were not yet clear
enough to comprehend the question, or to digest
a reply. He merely turned his eyes, with a wild
and ghastly stare, upon the interrogator, and then
rolled them vacantly from one individual of the
company to another. He sighed heavily, and
mumbled a little, as the doctor proceeded to secure
the splints, but made no resistance.

“I don't like that stare,” cried the Captain;
“he looks as wild out of the eyes as a squeezed
frog; and that's no good sign. I remember me,
Tom Loring stared the same way, when the doctor
was fishing for the bullet among his ribs. He'll
never live to paint me that picture! He'll die, doctor,
won't he?”

“Can't venture to say, Captain,” replied Merribody;
“a very critical situation, sir, a very critical
situation. But I never despair, sir; for while
there's life there's hope. My preceptor, the late
celebrated Dr. Bones, of Bucks county, used to tell
his patients, `he never despaired till he heard the
joiners screwing up the coffin.' A very good rule,
that, sir! We'll hope, sir, we'll hope. Pulse very
full and vigorous—will take a little more blood,
and remain a few hours to watch him.”

“Stay all night,” said the Captain; “won't let
you go, sir.”

“As to staying all night, Captain,” said the
physician, with an air, “I can't say. Must look
to my patients in the village—but will stay to
tea with great pleasure. Jingleum, hold the
basin!”

The practitioner removed the bandage from the

vein he had before opened, and (the Captain, in
the meanwhile, hobbling out to inquire into the
condition of Catherine,) had soon the pleasure of
seeing his patient recover his wits so far as to be
able to answer questions, though he displayed a
much greater inclination to ask them.

His first demand was, “What's the matter?
what ails my head, and my arm? and who are
you all here about me?—Oh! ay!” he continued,
“I remember—that confounded brook! I vow to
Heaven, I thought I saw a ghost, though 'twas
broad daylight! Heavens! how my shoulder aches,
and my arm, how it twinges! Are you a doctor?
Where's Elsie?”

“Well, now, I warrant me, doctor,” whispered
Aunt Rachel, “he begins to wander.”

“My dear sir,” said the physician, “I must beg
you to hold your tongue. Take this cooling
draught, and go to sleep; and, for your comfort,
know that you are now in much better quarters
than you could have had at old witch Elsie's.
You are now in Captain Loring's house.”

“In Captain Loring's! What, Avondale? Gilbert's
Folly,” cried the painter, starting up.

“Be quiet, sir,” cried Merribody. “Lie down,
and keep yourself quiet; or I won't insure your
life two hours.”

“Nonsense, sir,” cried the patient, petulantly.
“I will dress, and get me to the Rest forthwith;
and I warn you to take your hand from my shoulder;
for, besides that, you hurt me insufferably, I
don't choose to be treated like a prisoner of war,
nor to be quartered on strangers.”

“I warn you,” cried the physician.—“There!
was there ever such a dolt?—Hartshorn, Jingleum!”

The painter's resolution was greater than his
ability. His struggle to arise upset the little

strength he had remaining, and he fell back almost
immediately in a swoon. When recovered again
from this, he seemed sufficiently sensible of his impotent
and helpless condition; but was still reluctant
to remain where he was. He conjured the
doctor to have him carried in a coach, an arm-chair,
a cart,—in any thing,—but certainly to have
him carried to the widow's hovel. Then, discovering
the physician to be inflexible, he lowered his
tone, consented to remain in the Captain's house,
but implored so earnestly that he should send immediately
for old Elsie to nurse him, that the doctor's
heart was moved, and he condescended to
argue the matter:

“Sir,” said he, “I never saw a man with such
ridiculous notions. Mrs. Rachel Jones here is the
best nurse in the world. Old Elsie Bell is a witch
and an ignoramus, and knows no more about
nursing than she does about Greek; and she would
poison you with some quack weed or another. I
never trust these old women, that ramble about
among the woods. And then, sir, what makes you
think she will come to you? Why, sir, it is notorious,
she never comes nigh the Folly; they say
she swore an oath, when the Hawks were driven
out, never to cross the threshold again, until they
returned to it. Sir, a lady in this house has as
much as admitted, that the old hag refused to come
to it point-blank, a dozen times over. She won't
come.”

“Try her,” murmured the patient, eagerly.
“Say, I conjure her to come to me; tell her I am
sick, dying, and will trust nobody's nursing but
her's. And, hark'e, doctor, where's my waistcoat?
There's a key there—it opens my saddle-bags—
that's it! Send it to her; bid her fetch me some
linen, and such things as she thinks I may want.
My life upon it, the good old soul will come. Send

it, doctor, and I'll take all your vile stuff without
grumbling,—yes, all you have the conscience to
give me. It is an awful thing to take physic!”

Having prevailed thus upon the physician to
send his message and summons to the Rest, though
no one perhaps save himself, expected to see it
followed by the widow in person, he swallowed,
with divers wry faces, the draught repeatedly
offered to him before, groaned heavily once or
twice, and then turning his face towards the wall,
endeavoured to compose himself to sleep, while
the physician and all his attendants, save the matron,
Mrs. Jones, stole from the chamber.