The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. "There is a sad draught," said the invalid.
Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the c.h.i.n.ks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window.
The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller"s spleen.
"Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I don"t interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with mine."
"Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly.
"But Miss here did."
"Ah, sir!" said Helen, plaintively, "if you knew how Papa suffers!" And her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window.
"No, my dear; the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and, bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a great deal too much of me."
The pa.s.senger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and strove to screen him from the air.
The pa.s.senger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort, "air is air, and right is right: but here goes--" and he hastily drew up the window.
Helen turned her face full towards the pa.s.senger with a grateful expression, visible even in the dim light.
"You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to--"
his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The pa.s.senger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero.
Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist.
"You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!--one--two. Cott! you should not travel; you are not fit for it!"
Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply.
The pa.s.senger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory, containing a variety of minute phials.
From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. "There," said he, "open your mouth, put those on the tip of your tongue. They will lower the pulse, check the fever. Be better presently, but should not travel, want rest; you should be in bed. Aconite! Henbane! hum! Your papa is of fair complexion,--a timid character, I should say;--a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?"
"Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror?
"A case for phosphor!" cried the pa.s.senger: "that fool Browne would have said a.r.s.enic. Don"t be persuaded to take a.r.s.enic!"
"a.r.s.enic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No: however unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is--tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal."
"Suicide," said the pa.s.senger, tranquilly,--"suicide is my hobby! You have no symptom of that kind, you say?"
"Good heavens! No, sir."
"If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take pulsatilla; but if you feel a preference towards blowing out your brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appet.i.te, dry cough, and bad corns, sulphuret of antimony. Don"t forget."
Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of his mind, yet he tried politely to say "that he was much obliged, and would be sure to remember;" but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence which seemed that of sleep.
The traveller looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father"s head on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more that of a mother than child.
"Moral affections, soft, compa.s.sionate!--a good child and would go well with--pulsatilla."
Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveller, and then to her father again.
"Certainly,--pulsatilla!" muttered the h.o.m.oeopathist, and ensconcing himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly started up, and again extracted his phial-book.
"What the deuce are they to me?" he muttered. "Morbid sensibility of character--coffee? No!--accompanied by vivacity and violence--nux!" He brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a pigmy bottle. "Nux! that"s it," he said,--and he swallowed a globule!
"Now," quoth he, after a pause, "I don"t care a straw for the misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the window."
Helen looked up.
"But I"ll not," he added resolutely; and this time he fell fairly asleep.
CHAPTER XII.
The coach stopped at eleven o"clock to allow the pa.s.sengers to sup. The h.o.m.oeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous lungs with an evident sensation of delight.
He then turned and looked into the coach.
"Let your father get out, my dear," said he, with a tone more gentle than usual. "I should like to see him indoors,--perhaps I can do him good."
But what was Helen"s terror when she found that her father did not stir!
He was in a deep swoon, and still quite insensible when they lifted him from the carriage. When he recovered his senses his cough returned, and the effort brought up blood.
It was impossible for him to proceed farther. The h.o.m.oeopathist a.s.sisted to undress and put him into bed. And having administered another of his mysterious globules, he inquired of the landlady how far it was to the nearest doctor,--for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing that the gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a good seven miles to his house, the h.o.m.oeopathist fetched a deep breath. The coach only stopped a quarter of an hour.
"Cott!" said he, angrily, to himself, "the nux was a failure. My sensibility is chronic. I must go through a long course to get rid of it. Hollo, guard! get out my carpet-bag. I sha"n"t go on to-night."
And the good man after a very slight supper went upstairs again to the sufferer.
"Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir?" asked the landlady, stopping him at the door.
"Hum! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach to London pa.s.s?"
"Not before eight, sir."
"Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That leaves us at least some hours free from allopathy and murder," grunted the disciple of Hahnemann, as he entered the room.
Whether it was the globule that the h.o.m.oeopathist had administered, or the effect of nature, aided by repose, that checked the effusion of blood, and restored some temporary strength to the poor sufferer, is more than it becomes one not of the Faculty to opine. But certainly Mr.
Digby seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, but not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped it with his hand, and asked several questions; after which the h.o.m.oeopathist retired into a corner of the room, and leaning his face on his hand seemed to meditate. From his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen was kneeling at his feet. "Is he very ill, very?" said she; and her fond wistful eyes were fixed on the physician"s with all the earnestness of despair.
"Your father is very ill," replied the doctor, after a short pause. "He cannot move hence for some days at least. I am going to London; shall I call on your relations, and tell some of them to join you?"
"No, thank you, sir," answered Helen, colouring. "But do not fear; I can nurse Papa. I think he has been worse before,--that is, he has complained more."
The homeopathist rose, and took two strides across the room; then he paused by the bed, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man.