Up The Hill And Over Part 6

"Now," he said gravely, "you are safe, for the present. You are on an island; but be very careful not to slide off for if you do I may never be able to look at your tongue."

The child's hands grasped the island convulsively.

"Don't hold on like that," he warned. "You might tip." He leaned close so that she might see the smile in his eyes, "And if you tipped ..."

The child gave a sudden delighted giggle. "I'd go right in over my head, wouldn't I?"

"Yes. And next time you were rescued you might feel more inclined to tell your aunt what you had been eating before you became ill."

Ann stopped giggling.

"You don't need to tell _me_," went on the doctor, "because I know!"

"How d'ye know?"

"Magic. Be careful--you were nearly off that time! Does your aunt know anything about those things you ate?"

"No."

"Very well. But you must promise not to eat those particular things again. Not even when you get the chance." Then as he saw the woe upon her face, "At least, not in quant.i.ties!"

"Cross my heart!" said Ann, relieved.

"Here's the water," said Mrs. Sykes, returning. "Ann, get right back into bed. Do you want to get your death? Haven't I told you till I'm tired to keep your hands in? Is it measles, Doctor? She's subject to measles. Perhaps it's the beginning of scarlet fever. But if it's smallpox I want to know. No good ever comes of smoothing things over."

The doctor smiled at Ann.

"It isn't smallpox this time, Mrs. Sykes."

"Did you look at them spots on the back of her neck?"

"Yes. A little rash caused by indigestion. I wouldn't worry."

"Don't mind me. I'm used to worrying. I don't dodge my troubles like some I know. Indigestion? It looks more like eczema. Eczema is a terrible trying thing. But if the child's got it I don't want it called indigestion to spare my feelings."

"But it's not eczema! It's indigestion--and p.r.i.c.kly heat. I'm afraid Ann's stomach has been giving trouble. It has been hotter than is usual here, I understand. Heat often upsets children. While I write out a prescription, you might bathe her face and hands."

Mrs. Sykes gazed doubtfully at the water. "She was done once last night and once this morning just before you came in," she remarked in an injured tone. "But if you think she needs it again, this sort of water's no good. Nothing's ever any good for Ann except hot water and soap."

The doctor looked up from his writing in surprise. Then as the meaning of the thing dawned upon him, he laughed heartily.

"Oh, Ann's as clean as the veranda floor!" he explained. "This is just to cool her off. Let me show you--doesn't that feel nice, Ann?"

"Lovely!" blissfully.

Mrs. Sykes sniffed.

"I suppose that's some new-fangled notion? I never heard before of cooling people off when they've got a fever. In my time, the hotter you were, the hotter you were made to be, till you got cool naturally. I suppose," with half-interested sarcasm, "that you'd give her cold water to drink if she asked for it?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I expect she knows better than to ask for it!"

Feeling Ann's imploring gaze, Callandar resorted to diplomacy.

"The fact is, Mrs. Sykes," he said pleasantly, "there really isn't very much wrong with Ann. You have been letting your forethought and your natural anxiety run away with you. There is not the slightest occasion for alarm. If there were, I should not dream of hiding it from one so well-prepared as yourself. As it is, you have taken a lot of needless trouble--this beautiful feather-bed, for example! I feel sure that Ann would do very well in her own bed."

The victim of the feathers gave a relieved gasp which her aunt mistook for a sigh of regret.

"Her own bed's well enough for anything ordinary," she admitted in a mollified tone. "Even if it is a store mattress."

"Quite good enough. Many a little girl would be glad of it." The doctor's tone was virtuous. "If you will allow me, I shall carry her in now. You see, she is cooler already. By to-morrow, if she takes her medicine, she ought to be as well as ever."

Ann's own room turned out to be on the shady side, and though not so grand as the spare-room, it was pleasantly cool. The little bed with the hard mattress and the snowy counterpane was infinitely to be preferred to the ocean of feathers, and the rescued maiden lay back on her smaller pillows with a sigh of grat.i.tude.

"Sure you won't tell?" she whispered as he laid her down.

"Honour bright. Cross my heart! But you must take the medicine. It's nasty, but not too nasty, and you mustn't squeal--or it will be the spare-room again. Red cheeks and p.r.i.c.kly heat are consequences, but feather-beds and medicine are retribution."

"That's right, Doctor," said Mrs. Sykes, who had heard the last words.

"There's nothing like a word about retribution when a person's sick. It helps 'em to realise their state. I don't hold with the light-minded that want to get away from retribution. Depend upon it, they're the very folks that's got it coming to them. Yes. No one needs to go around denying that there's a h.e.l.l, if their feet are planted upon a rock and they know they're never going there. It's years now since I've looked h.e.l.l in the face and turned my feet the other way. But I do say that if I'd decided to go straight ahead in the broad and easy path, I wouldn't try to shut my eyes to the end of it, like some folks! Are you putting up at the Imperial, Doctor?"

"'Putting up' exactly expresses my condition."

"Well, you may as well know at once that a doctor in a hotel will never get any forwarder in Coombe. You'll have to get boarding somewhere. Have you looked around yet?"

"No. I--"

"Then I don't mind telling you that the spare-room is to let and the little room down below that has a door of its own and seems made exactly for a doctor's office. I shouldn't mind letting you have them if you feel sure that the smells wouldn't get loose all through the house and in the cooking. There's a barn where you could keep your horse."

"I haven't got a horse," protested Callandar feebly.

"But of course you'll be getting one. A doctor has to have a horse. If you can't pay for it down, Mark knows some one who'd let you have a good one on time. You can trust Mark, if he _is_ mournful. Of course I don't say that these rooms are the only rooms to let in Coombe, but I do think they're about as good as you can get--being so near to Dr. Coombe's old house. People get used to coming for a doctor down this street."

"But that was, over a year ago."

"It takes more 'an a year for Coombe folks to change their ways. Only this day week I saw Bill Brooks tearing down this way on account of Mrs.

Brooks' being took kind of unexpected, and Bill losing his head and forgetting all about Dr. Coombe being dead and Dr. Parker living on the other side of the town."

"And you think that if I'd been here he would have 'tore' in here?"

"If he hadn't I'd just have called out to him as he went by. He was that wild he'd have taken anybody."

"I see," with humility. "I lost a good chance there!"

"Well, if you live here you'll get others. Why, from the spare-room windows you can see the corner window down at the Coombe place. I could make out to let you have your meals, too. Only I'd expect you to be as reg'lar as Providence permitted. I know a doctor is bound to be more aggravating in that way than other folks, but if you'd be as regular as lay in you, I'd put up with it. 'Tisn't as if I wasn't always prepared.

When will you want to move in?"

"Really, I--I don't know--" The bewildered Callandar glanced for help to Ann, but met only clasped hands and an imploring stare. "I'll--I'll let you know," he faltered.