Barrington Volume I Part 4

"Of course, we couldn't expect she'd appear. I remarked she was nervous when we came in. I saw an expression in her eye--"

"So did I, faith," muttered M'Cormick, "and I'm not a doctor."

"And here's our whist-table," said Barrington, bustling about; "and there 's a bit of supper ready there for us in that room, and we 'll help ourselves, for I 've sent Darby to bed. And now give me a hand with these cards, for they 've all got mixed together."

Barrington's task was the very wearisome one of trying to sort out an available pack from some half-dozen of various sizes and colors.

"Is n't this for all the world like raising a regiment out of twenty volunteer corps?" said M'Cormick.

"Dill would call it an hospital of incurables," said Barrington. "Have you got a knave of spades and a seven? Oh dear, dear! the knave, with the head off him! I begin to suspect we must look up a new pack."

There was a tone of misgiving in the way he said this; for it implied a reference to his sister, and all its consequences. Affecting to search for new cards in his own room, therefore, he arose and went out.

"I wouldn't live in a slavery like that," muttered the Major, "to be King of France."

"Something has occurred here. There is some latent source of irritation," said Dill, cautiously. "Barrington's own manner is fidgety and uneasy. I have my suspicion matters are going on but poorly with them."

While this sage diagnosis was being uttered, M'Cormick had taken a short excursion into the adjoining room, from which he returned, eating a pickled onion. "It's the old story; the cold roast loin and the dish of salad. Listen! Did you hear that shout?"

"I thought I heard one awhile back; but I fancied afterwards it was only the noise of the river over the stones."

"It is some fellows drawing the river; they poach under his very windows, and he never sees them."

"I 'm afraid we 're not to have our rubber this evening," said Dill, mournfully.

"There's a thing, now, I don't understand!" said M'Cormick, in a low but bitter voice. "No man is obliged to see company, but when he does do it, he oughtn't to be running about for a tumbler here and a mustard-pot there. There's the noise again; it's fellows robbing the salmon-weir!"

"No rubber to-night, I perceive that," reiterated the doctor, still intent upon the one theme.

"A thousand pardons I ask from each of you," cried Barrington, coming hurriedly in, with a somewhat flushed face; "but I 've had such a hunt for these cards. When I put a thing away nowadays, it's as good as gone to me, for I remember nothing. But here we are, now, all right."

The party, like men eager to retrieve lost time, were soon deep in their game, very little being uttered, save such remarks as the contest called for. The Major was of that order of players who firmly believe fortune will desert them if they don't whine and complain of their luck, and so everything from him was a lamentation. The doctor, who regarded whist pathologically, no more gave up a game than he would a patient. He had witnessed marvellous recoveries in the most hopeless cases, and he had been rescued by a "revoke" in the last hour. Unlike each, Barrington was one who liked to chat over his game, as he would over his wine. Not that he took little interest in it, but it had no power to absorb and engross him. If a man derive very great pleasure from a pastime in which, after years and years of practice, he can attain no eminence nor any mastery, you may be almost certain he is one of an amiable temperament Nothing short of real goodness of nature could go on deriving enjoyment from a pursuit a.s.sociated with continual defeats. Such a one must be hopeful, he must be submissive, he must have no touch of ungenerous jealousy in his nature, and, withal, a zealous wish to do better. Now he who can be all these, in anything, is no bad fellow.

If Barrington, therefore, was beaten, he bore it well. Cards were often enough against him, his play was always so; and though the doctor had words of bland consolation for disaster, such as the habits of his craft taught him, the Major was a pitiless adversary, who never omitted the opportunity of disinterring all his opponents' blunders, and singing a song of triumph over them. But so it is,--_tot genera hominum_,--so many kinds of whist-players are there!

Hour after hour went over, and it was late in the night. None felt disposed to sup; at least, none proposed it. The stakes were small, it is true, but small things are great to little men, and Barrington's guests were always the winners.

"I believe if I was to be a good player,--which I know in my heart I never shall," said Barrington,--"that my luck would swamp me, after all.

Look at that hand now, and say is there a trick in it?" As he said this, he spread out the cards of his "dummy" on the table, with the dis-consolation of one thoroughly beaten.

"Well, it might be worse," said Dill, consolingly. "There's a queen of diamonds; and I would n't say, if you could get an opportunity to trump the club--"

"Let him try it," broke in the merciless Major; "let him just try it! My name isn't Dan M'Cormick if he'll win one card in that hand. There, now, I lead the ace of clubs. Play!"

"Patience, Major, patience; let me look over my hand. I 'm bad enough at the best, but I 'll be worse if you hurry me. Is that a king or a knave I see there?"

"It's neither; it 's the queen!" barked out the Major.

"Doctor, you 'll have to look after my eyes as well as my ears. Indeed, I scarcely know which is the worst. Was not that a voice outside?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 052]

"I should think it was; there have been fellows shouting there the whole evening. I suspect they don't leave you many fish in this part of the river."

"I beg your pardon," interposed Dill, blandly, "but you 've taken up my card by mistake."

While Barrington was excusing himself, and trying to recover his lost clew to the game, there came a violent knocking at the door, and a loud voice called out, "Holloa! Will some of ye open the door, or must I put my foot through it?"

"There _is_ somebody there," said Barrington, quietly, for he had now caught the words correctly; and taking a candle, he hastened out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 052]

"At last," cried a stranger, as the door opened,--"at last! Do you know that we've been full twenty minutes here, listening to your animated discussion over the odd trick?--I fainting with hunger, and my friend with pain." And so saying, he a.s.sisted another to limp forward, who leaned on his arm and moved with the greatest difficulty.

The mere sight of one in suffering repressed any notion of a rejoinder to his somewhat rude speech, and Barrington led the way into the room.

"Have you met with an accident?" asked he, as he placed the sufferer on a sofa.

"Yes," interposed the first speaker; "he slipped down one of those rocks into the river, and has sprained, if he has not broken, something."

"It is our good fortune to have advice here; this gentleman is a doctor."

"Of the Royal College, and an M.D. of Aberdeen, besides," said Dill, with a professional smile, while, turning back his cuffs, he proceeded to remove the shoe and stocking of his patient.

"Don't be afraid of hurting, but just tell me at once what's the matter," said the young fellow, down whose cheeks great drops were rolling in his agony.

"There is no p.r.o.nouncing at once; there is great tumefaction here. It may be a mere sprain, or it may be a fracture of the fibula simple, or a fracture with luxation."

"Well, if you can't tell the injury, tell us what's to be done for it.

Get him to bed, I suppose, first?" said the friend.

"By all means, to bed, and cold applications on the affected part."

"Here's a room all ready, and at hand," said Barrington, opening the door into a little chamber replete with comfort and propriety.

"Come," said the first speaker, "Fred, all this is very snug; one might have fallen upon worse quarters." And so saying, he a.s.sisted his friend forward, and deposited him upon the bed.

While the doctor busied himself with the medical cares for his patient, and arranged with due skill the appliances to relieve his present suffering, the other stranger related how they had lost their way, having first of all taken the wrong bank of the river, and been obliged to retrace their steps upwards of three miles to retrieve their mistake.

"Where were you going to?" asked Barringtou.

"We were in search of a little inn they had told us of, called the 'Fisherman's Home.' I conclude we have reached it at last, and you are the host, I take it?"

Barrington bowed a.s.sent.

"And these gentlemen are visitors here?" But without waiting for any reply,--difficult at all times, for he spoke with great rapidity and continual change of topic,--he now stooped down to whisper something to the sick man. "My friend thinks he'll do capitally now, and, if we leave him, that he'll soon drop asleep; so I vote we give him the chance."

Thus saying, he made a gesture for the others to leave, following them up as they went, almost like one enforcing an order.

"If I am correct in my reading, you are a soldier, sir," said Barrington, when they reached the outer room, "and this gentleman here is a brother officer,--Major M'Cor-mick."