Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XXI Part 22

PERSONAL APPEARANCE, CHARACTER, AND PECULIARITIES OF THE DOCTOR.

The doctor was a little stout man, not what could be called corpulent, but presenting that sort of plump appearance which gives the idea of a person's being hard-packed, squeezed, crammed into his skin.

Such was the doctor, then--not positively fat, but thick, firm, and stumpy; the latter characteristic being considerably heightened by his always wearing a pair of glossy Hessian boots, which, firmly encasing his little thick legs up nearly to the knees, gave a peculiar air of stamina and solidity to his nether person. The doctor stood like a rock in his Hessians, and stumped along in them--for he was excessively vain of them--as proudly as a field-marshal, planting his little iron heels on the flag-stones with a sharpness and decision that told of a firm and vigorous step.

The doctor was no great hand at his trade; but this, it is but fair to observe, was not his own opinion. It was the opinion only of those who employed him, and of the little public to whom he was known. He himself entertained wholly different sentiments on the subject. The doctor, in truth, was a vain, conceited little gentleman; but, withal, a pleasant sort of person, and very generally liked. He sung a capital song, and had an inexhaustible fund of animal spirits.

One consequence of the latter circ.u.mstance was his being much invited out amongst his friends and acquaintances. He was, in fact, a regular guest at all their festivities and merry-makings, and on these occasions used to get himself fully more strongly malted than became a gentleman of his grave profession.

When returning home of a night in this state, the little doctor's little iron heels might be heard rap-rapping on the flag-stones at a great distance in the quiet street, for he then planted them with still more decision and vigour than when sober; and so well known in his neighbourhood was the sound of his footsteps, so audible were they in the stillness of the night, and so habitually late was he in returning home--his profession forming an excellent excuse for this--that people, even while sitting at their own firesides, or, it might be, in bed, although at the height of three storeys, became aware, the moment they heard his heels, that the doctor was pa.s.sing beneath; and the exclamations, "That's the doctor," or "There goes the doctor," announced the important fact to many a family circle. All unconscious, however, of these recognitions, the doctor stumped on his way, reflecting the while, it might be, on the good cheer he had just been enjoying.

On these occasions, the doctor, while he kept the open street, got on swimmingly; but the dark and somewhat tortuous staircase which he had to ascend to reach his domicile--the said domicile being on the third flat--used to annoy him sadly. When very much overcome, as, we grieve to say it, the doctor very frequently was, the labour it cost him to make out the three stairs was very serious. It was long protracted, too; it took him an immense time; for, conscious of his unsteady condition, he climbed slowly and deliberately, but we cannot add quietly; for his shuffling, kicking, and blowing, to which he frequently added a muttered objurgation or two on missing a step, as he struggled up the dark stair, were distinctly audible to the whole land. By merely listening, they could trace his whole progress with the utmost accuracy, from the moment he entered the close, until the slam of a door announced that the doctor was housed. They could hear him pa.s.s along the close--they could hear him commence his laborious ascent--they could hear him struggling upwards, and, anon, the point of his boot striking against a step, which he had taken more surely than necessary--they could hear him gain the landing-place at his own door, signified by a peculiar shuffle, which almost seemed to express the intelligence that a great work had been accomplished--they could hear the doctor fumbling amongst his keys and loose coin for his check-key, and again fumbling with this check-key about its aperture in the door, the hitting of the latter being a tedious and apparently most difficult achievement--and, lastly, they could hear the door flung to with great violence, announcing the finale of the doctor's progress.

Over and above the more ordinary and obvious difficulties attending the doctor's ascent on such occasions, and under such circ.u.mstances as those of which we speak, there was one of a peculiar and particularly annoying nature. This was the difficulty he found in discriminating his own landing-place from the others,--a difficulty which was greatly increased by the entire similarity of all the landing-places on the stair, the doors in all of which were perfect counterparts of each other, and stood exactly in the same relative positions. This difficulty often nonplussed him sadly; but he at length fell upon a method of overcoming it, and of ensuring his making attempts on no door but his own. He counted the landing-places as he gained them, pausing a second or two on each to draw breath, and impress its number on his memory,--one, two, three, then out with the check-key.

Now this was all very well had the doctor continued to reckon accurately; but, considering the state of obfuscation in which he generally returned home at night, it was very possible that he might miscount on an occasion, and take that for three which, according to c.o.c.ker, was only two, or that for two which, by the same authority, was but one. This was perfectly possible, as the sequel of our tale will sufficiently prove. In the meantime, we proceed to other matters; and, to make our history as complete as possible, we start anew with--

THE DOCTOR'S SHOP.

It had not a very imposing appearance; for, to tell a truth, the doctor's circ.u.mstances were by no means in a palmy state. The shop, therefore, was decidedly a shabby one. It was very small and very dirty, with a little projecting bow window, the lower panes of which were mystified with some sort of light green substance--paint or paper, we don't know which--in order to baffle the curiosity of the prying urchins who used to congregate about it. Not that they were attracted by anything in the window itself, but that it happened to be a favourite station of the boys in the neighbourhood,--a sort of mustering place, or place of call, where they could at any time find each other. The typical display in the doctor's window consisted of a blue bottle, a pound of salts, and a serpent; the second being made up into labelled packages of about an ounce weight each, and built up with nice skill against one of the panes, so as to make as much show as possible. The serpent was a native of the Lammermoor Hills, which a boy, who drove a b.u.t.termilk cart, brought in one morning, and sold to the doctor for a shilling.

The inside of the doctor's shop, which besides being very dirty was very dark, had a strange, mysterious, equivocal sort of character about it.

Everything was dingy, and greasy, and battered, and mutilated. Dirty broken gla.s.ses stood in dark and dirty corners; rows of dirty bottles, some without stoppers, and some with the necks chipped off, and containing drops of black, villanous-looking liquids, stood on dirty shelves; rows of battered, unctuous-looking drawers, rising tier above tier, lined one side of the shop, most of which were handled with bits of greasy cord, the bra.s.s handles with which they had been originally furnished having long since disappeared, and never having been replaced.

What these drawers contained, no human being but the doctor himself could tell. In truth, few of them contained anything at all. Those that did, could be described only as holding mysterious, dirty-looking powders, lumps of incomprehensible substances, or ma.s.ses of desiccated vegetable matter of powerful and most abominable flavour.

For all these, the doctor had, doubtless, very learned names; but such as we have described them was their appearance to the eye of the uninitiated.

To complete the charms of the doctor's medical establishment, it was constantly pervaded by a heavy, unearthly smell, that, we verily believe, no man but himself could have inhaled for an hour and lived.

Notwithstanding the unpretending and homely character of the doctor's establishment, it boasted a sounding name. The doctor himself called it, and so did the signboard over the door, "The ---- Medical Hall,"--a t.i.tle which the envious thought absurd enough for a place whose proudest show was a blue bottle, a pound of salts, and a serpent. But these people did not recollect, or did not choose to recollect, the high pretensions of the doctor himself. They did not advert to the numerous degrees, honorary t.i.tles, fellowships, etc., which he had acquired, otherwise they would have looked to the man, not to the shop. Probably, however, few of them were aware of the number of these which he boasted; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that the doctor could, and did on particular occasions, sign himself thus:--"David Dobbie, M.D.; E.F.; M.N.O.; U.V.; Z.Y.X.; W.V.U.;" nor did he hesitate sometimes to alter the letters according to the inspiration of the happy moment.

Now, had the doctor's right to all these t.i.tles been taken into account, and, so taken, been appreciated as it ought, there would have been fewer sneers at his Medical Hall than there was as matters stood.

THE INVITATION.

In another part of this history we have stated that the doctor, being generally liked, was much invited out to feastings and merry-makings, and convivialities of all sorts, from the aristocratic roast turkey and bottle of port, to the plebeian Findhorn haddock and jug of toddy. But all, in this way, was fish that came in the doctor's net. Provided there was quant.i.ty--particularly in the liquor department--he was not much given to shying at quality. He certainly preferred wine, but by no means turned up his nose at a tumbler. Few men, in fact, could empty more at a sitting.

It was observed of the doctor, by those who knew him intimately, that he was always in bad humour on what he called blank days. These were days on which he had no invitation on hand for any description of guzzle whatever--either dinner, tea, supper, or a "just come up and take a gla.s.s of toddy in the evening." This seldom occurred, but it did sometimes happen; and on these occasions the doctor's short and snappish answers gave sufficient intimation of the provoking fact.

In such temper, then, and for such reason, was the doctor in the forenoon of the particular day in his life which we have made the subject of this paper. He was as cross as an old drill-sergeant; and what made him worse, the affair he had been at on the preceding night had been a very poor one. He had been hinted away after the third tumbler--treatment which had driven the doctor to swear, mentally, that he would never enter the house again. How far he would keep this determination, it remained for another invitation to prove.

In this mood, then, and at the time already alluded to, was the doctor employed, behind his counter, in measuring off some liquid in a graduated gla.s.s, which he held between him and the light, and on which he was looking very intently, as the liquid was precious, the quant.i.ty wanted small, and the gla.s.s but faintly marked, when a little boy entered the shop, and inquired if Dr. Dobbie was within.

"Yes. What do you want?" replied the doctor gruffly, and without taking his eye off the graduated gla.s.s.

"Here's a line for ye, sir," said the boy, laying a card on the counter.

"Who's it from?" roared the doctor.

"Frae Mr. Walkinshaw, sir," replied the boy, meekly; "and he would like to ken whether ye can come or no."

"Come; oh, surely. Let me see," said the doctor. "Come; ay, certainly,"

he added, his tone suddenly dropping down to the mild and affable, and speaking from an intuitive knowledge of the tenor of the card. "Surely; let me see." And the doctor opened the note and read, his eyes gloating, and his countenance dissolving into smiles, as he did so:--

"DEAR DOCTOR,--A few friends at half-past eight. Just a haddock and a jug of toddy. Be as pointed as you can. Won't be kept _very_ late. Dear Doctor, yours truly,

"R. WALKINSHAW."

"My compliments to Mr. Walkinshaw," said the doctor, with a bland smile, and folding up the card with a sort of affectionate air as he spoke, "and tell him I will be pointed. Stop, boy," he added, on the latter's being about to depart with his message; "stop," he said, running towards his till, and thence abstracting threepence, which he put into the boy's hand, with a--"There, my boy, take that to buy marbles." The doctor always rewarded such messengers; but he did so systematically, and by a rule of his own. For an invitation to breakfast he gave a penny, thus estimating that meal at all but the lowest possible rate; for an invitation to dinner he gave sixpence; for one to supper, threepence, as exemplified in the instance above.

In possession of Mr. Walkinshaw's invitation, the doctor continued in excellent spirits throughout the remainder of the day.

THE GUZZLE.

At the height of three stories, in a respectable-looking tenement in a certain quarter of a certain city which shall be nameless, there resided a decent widow woman of the name of Paton, who kept lodgers.

At the particular time, and on the particular occasion at and on which we introduce the reader to Mrs. Paton's lodging-house, there was a certain parlour in the said house in a state of unusual tidiness. Not to say that this parlour was not always in good order: it was; but in the present instance, it displayed an extra degree both of _redding_-up and of comfort.

An unusually large fire blazed in the polished grate, and a couple of candles, in shining candlesticks, stood on the bright mahogany table. On a small old-fashioned sideboard was exhibited a goodly display of bottles and gla.s.ses, flanked by a sugar basin, heaped up with snowy bits of refined sugar; a small plate of cut cheese, another of biscuit, and a third bearing a couple of lemons.

Everything about the room, in short, gave indication of an approaching guzzle. The symptoms were unmistakeable. The only occupant of the room at this time was a gentleman, who sat in an arm-chair opposite the fire, carelessly turning over the leaves of a new magazine. His heart, evidently, was not in the employment; he was merely putting off time, and doing so with some impatience of manner, for he was ever and anon pulling out his watch to see how the night sped on.

This gentleman was Mr. Walkinshaw, the doctor's inviter, head clerk in a respectable mercantile establishment in the city; and, we need hardly say, one of Mrs. Paton's lodgers. Neither need we say, we fancy, that he was just now waiting, and every moment expecting, the arrival of the doctor, and the other friends he had invited, nor that the preparations above described were intended for the special enjoyment of the party alluded to.

"Five-and-twenty minutes to nine," said Mr. Walkinshaw, looking for the twentieth time at the dial of his watch. "I wonder what has become of the doctor! _he_ used to be so pointed."

At this moment a ring of the door bell announced a visitor. Mr.

Walkinshaw, in his impatience for the appearance of his friends, and not doubting that this was one of them, s.n.a.t.c.hed up the candle, and ran to the door himself. He opened it; when a little thick-set figure, in Hessian boots, wrapped up in an ample blue cloth cloak, with an immense cape, and having a red comforter tied round his throat, presented himself. It was the doctor.

"How d'ye do? and how d'ye do? Come away. Glad to see you!" with cordial shaking of hands and joyous smiles, marked the satisfaction with which the inviter and the invited met. The doctor was in high spirits, as he always was on such occasions; that is, when there was a prospect of good eating and drinking, and nothing to pay.

Having a.s.sisted the doctor to divest himself of his cloak, hat, and comforter, Mr. Walkinshaw ushered him into his room; and having kindly seated him in the arm-chair which he had himself occupied a minute or two before, he ran to the sideboard, took therefrom a small bottle, and very small gla.s.s of the shape of a thistle-top, and approaching his guest, said in a coaxing tone, filling up at the same time--

"Thimbleful of brandy, doctor; just to take the chill off." Anything for an excuse in such cases.

"Why, no objection, my dear sir," said the doctor, smiling most graciously, taking the proffered gla.s.s of ruby-coloured liquid, wishing health and a good wife to his host, and tossing off the tiny b.u.mper.

The doctor had scarcely bolted his alcohol, when the door bell again rung violently.

"There _they_ are at last!" exclaimed Walkinshaw, joyously.