The Doctor's Wife
CHAPTER I.
A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY
There were two in the little town of Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne, in Midlandshire,—Mr. Pawlkatt, who in a big, new, brazen-faced house in the middle of the old High Street; and John Gilbert, the doctor, who in his own house on the of Graybridge, and very hard for a smaller than that which the Mr. Pawlkatt from his patients.
John Gilbert was an man, with a son. He had married late in life, and his wife had died very soon after the birth of this son. It was for this reason, most likely, that the loved his child as children are loved by their fathers—with an earnest, over-anxious devotion, which from the very had been something in its character, and which with the child's growth. Mr. Gilbert's mind was by the circle in which he lived. He had his own and the from his father, who had been a him, and who had in the same house, with the same red lamp over the little old-fashioned surgery-door, for eight-and-forty years, and had died, the house, the practice, and the red lamp to his son.
If John Gilbert's only child had the of a Newton or the of a Napoleon, the would have him up in the to and of roses, of and of peppermint. Luckily for the boy, he was only a common-place lad, with a good-looking, face; clear eyes, which at you frankly; and a thick of hair, in the middle and from the roots. He was tall, straight, and muscular; a good runner, a first-rate cricketer, with a pair of boxing-gloves or single-sticks, and a shot. He a business-like hand, was an excellent arithmetician, a of Latin, a line here and there from those Roman and had been his at a and at Wareham. He spoke and English, had read Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, and the latter, though he a point of the of the great novelist's in order to at once to the action of the story. He was a very good man, to church two or three times on a Sunday, and would on no account have any one of the Ten Commandments on the painted above the by so much as a thought. He was very good; and, above all, he was very good-looking. No one had this fact: George Gilbert was good-looking. No one had gone so as to call him handsome; no one had to him plain. He had those homely, healthy good looks which the or in search of a hero would from with horror, and which the practical mind with tenant-farming in a small way, or the sale of butcher's meat.
I will not say that George was ungentlemanly, he had kind, manners, and a Christianity, which had yet itself in any very form, but which a to every word upon his lips, to every in his heart. He was a very man, and well of all mankind; he was a Tory, and soul, as his father and had been him; and well of all the magnates about Wareham and Graybridge, the names that had been familiar to him from his in reverence, that was without a of meanness. He was a candid, honest, country-bred man, who did his well, and a small place in a very narrow circle with to himself and the father who loved him. The of two years' student-life at St. Bartholomew's had left the almost as as a girl; for John Gilbert had planted his son those two years in the of a Wesleyan family in the Seven-Sisters Road, and the boy had very little for himself with the of St. Bartholomew's. George Gilbert was two-and-twenty, and in all the of those two-and-twenty years which the of the man's life, his father had had to him by so much as a look. The doctor was to be a model in the town of Graybridge; and it was that if he should to his to Miss Sophronia Burdock, the second of the rich maltster, he need not in vain. But George was by no means a coxcomb, and didn't particularly Miss Burdock, were a good than her hair, and were only visible in a light. The was young, and the world was all him; but he was not ambitious; he no of in the narrow High Street at Graybridge. He in the little next the reading Byron's poems, in his own way with Giaours and Corsairs; but with no up in his breast, with no of against the of his life.
George Gilbert took his life as he it, and had no wish to make it better. To him Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne was all the world. He had been in London, and had a provincial's of in the streets, the clamour, and the bustle; but he had very soon that the great was a dirty and place as to Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne, where you might have taken your dinner off any as as the of is concerned. The man was more than satisfied with his life; he was pleased with it. He was pleased to think that he was to be his father's partner, and was to live and marry, and have children, and die at last in the familiar rooms in which he had been born. His nature was very adhesive, and he loved the that he had long known, they were old and familiar to him; than for any or in the themselves.
The 20th of July, 1852, was a very great day for George Gilbert, and for the town of Graybridge generally; for on that day an train left Wareham for London, such as to pay a week's visit to the great upon very terms. George had a week's holiday, which he was to with an old who had author, and had in the Temple, but who and with a family at Camberwell. The left Graybridge in the maltster's at eight o'clock upon that morning, in company with Miss Burdock and her sister Sophronia, who were going up to London on a visit to an aunt in Baker Street, and who had been to George's the journey.
The ladies and their were in very high spirits. London, when your time is St. Bartholomew's Hospital and the Seven-Sisters Road, is not the most city in the world; but London, when you are a man from the country, with a week's holiday, and a five-pound note and some odd in your pocket, another aspect. George was not enthusiastic; but he looked to his with a of pleasure, and with good to the of the maltster's daughters, who gave him a good of about their aunt in Baker Street, and the parties by that lady and her acquaintance. But, as the ladies were, George was when the Midlandshire train into the Euston Terminus, and his was ended. He the Misses Burdock to a and lady, who had a clarence-and-pair waiting for her, and who thanked him with for his of her nieces. She so as to ask him to call in Baker Street his in London, at which Sophronia blushed. But, unhappily, Sophronia did not prettily; a red out all over her face, where her ought to have been, and was a long time dispersing. If the had been Beauty's bright, glow, as as in a sky, George Gilbert have been to its import; but he looked at the lady's from a professional point of view, and it for indigestion.
"You're very kind, ma'am," he said. "But I'm going to at Camberwell; I don't think I shall have time to call in Baker Street."
The away, and George took his and to a cab. He a hansom, and he as he into it that he was doing a thing, which would tell against him in Graybridge, if by any it should that he had in that vehicle. He the had a rakish, look about the and mane, like an animal who was to night-work, and as to his personal in the day. George was not used to in hansoms; so, of himself upon the step for a moment while he gave his orders to the charioteer, he settled himself inside, and was a little when a voice at the of his "Where to, sir?" and the idea that he was out into ventriloquism.
"The Temple, driver; the Temple, in Fleet Street," Mr. Gilbert said, politely.
The man a little trap-door and off eastwards.
I am to say how much George Gilbert gave the when he was set at last at the of Chancery Lane; but I think he paid for five miles at a mile, and a in on account of a in Holborn; and then the driver did not thank him.
George was a long time about the and of the Temple he the place he wanted, though he took a out of his waistcoat-pocket, and to it every now and then when he came to a standstill.
Wareham is only a hundred and twenty miles from London; and the train, after stopping at every station on the line, had at the at half-past two o'clock. It was three and four now, and the sun was upon the river, and the in the Temple were under Mr. Gilbert's feet.
He was very warm himself, and almost out, when he at last the name he was looking for, painted very high up, in white letters, upon a black door-post,—"4th Floor: Mr. Andrew Morgan and Mr. Sigismund Smith."
It was in the most of the in the Temple that George Gilbert this name. He a very dirty staircase, the end of his upon every step as he up, until he came to a landing, the third and fourth stories; here he was to stop for want of breath, for he had been the about with him his in the Temple, and a good many people had been by the of a well-dressed man his own luggage, and at the names of the different of houses, the and in the sanctuary.
George Gilbert stopped to take breath; and he had done so, when he was by the of a very dirty boy, who the the above and the landing, and to with the surgeon. The boy's was very black, and he was a child of years, something eleven and twelve, perhaps; but he was in by the of Mr. Gilbert; he ran up-stairs again, and himself upon the with a view to another descent, when a door above was opened, and a voice said, "You know where Mr. Manders, the artist, lives?"
"Yes, sir;—Waterloo Road, sir, Montague Terrace, No. 2."
"Then to him, and tell him the for the next in the 'Smuggler's Bride.' A man with his upon the of another man, and a knife in his hand. You can that?"
"Yes, sir."
"And me a proof of chapter fifty-seven."
"Yes, sir."
The door was shut, and the boy ran down-stairs, past George Gilbert, as fast as he go. But the door above was opened again, and the same voice called aloud,—
"Tell Mr. Manders the man with the knife in his hand must have on top-boots."
"All right, sir," the boy called from the of the staircase.
George Gilbert up, and at the door above. It was a black door, and the names of Mr. Andrew Morgan and Mr. Sigismund Smith were painted upon it in white as upon the door-post below.
A pale-faced man, with a of upon the end of his nose, and very dirty wrist-bands, opened the door.
"Sam!"
"George!" the two men simultaneously, and then to shake hands with effusion, as the French say.
"My dear old George!"
"My dear old Sam! But you call Sigismund now?"
"Yes; Sigismund Smith. It well; doesn't it? If a man's makes him a Smith, the least he can do is to take it out in his Christian name. No Smith with a of would to be a Samuel. But come in, dear old boy, and put your down; those papers off that chair—there, by the window. Don't be of making 'em in a muddle; they can't be in a than they are now. If you don't mind just with the 'Times' for an hour or so, while I this chapter of the 'Smuggler's Bride,' I shall be able to work, and do you like; but the printer's boy is in an hour for the end of the chapter."
"I won't speak a word," George said, respectfully. The man with the nose was an author, and George Gilbert had an of the of his friend's vocation. "Write away, my dear Sam; I won't you."
He his chair close to the open window, and looked into the below, where the paint was slowly in the July sun.
