Doctor Thorne

by Anthony Trollope

  CHAPTER IX

  Sir Roger Scatcherd

  Enough has been said in this narrative to explain to the reader thatRoger Scatcherd, who was whilom a drunken stone-mason in Barchester,and who had been so prompt to avenge the injury done to his sister,had become a great man in the world. He had become a contractor,first for little things, such as half a mile or so of a railwayembankment, or three or four canal bridges, and then a contractor forgreat things, such as Government hospitals, locks, docks, and quays,and had latterly had in his hands the making of whole lines ofrailway.

  He had been occasionally in partnership with one man for one thing,and then with another for another; but had, on the whole, kept hisinterests to himself, and now at the time of our story, he was a veryrich man.

  And he had acquired more than wealth. There had been a time when theGovernment wanted the immediate performance of some extraordinarypiece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it. Therehad been some extremely necessary bit of a railway to be made in halfthe time that such work would properly demand, some speculation tobe incurred requiring great means and courage as well, and RogerScatcherd had been found to be the man for the time. He was thenelevated for the moment to the dizzy pinnacle of a newspaper hero,and became one of those "whom the king delighteth to honour." He wentup one day to kiss Her Majesty's hand, and come down to his new grandhouse at Boxall Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.

  "And now, my lady," said he, when he explained to his wife the highstate to which she had been called by his exertions and the Queen'sprerogative, "let's have a bit of dinner, and a drop of som'at hot."Now the drop of som'at hot signified a dose of alcohol sufficient tosend three ordinary men very drunk to bed.

  While conquering the world Roger Scatcherd had not conquered his oldbad habits. Indeed, he was the same man at all points that he hadbeen when formerly seen about the streets of Barchester with hisstone-mason's apron tucked up round his waist. The apron he hadabandoned, but not the heavy prominent thoughtful brow, with thewildly flashing eye beneath it. He was still the same good companion,and still also the same hard-working hero. In this only had hechanged, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whetherhe were drunk or sober. Those who were mostly inclined to make amiracle of him--and there was a school of worshippers ready to adorehim as their idea of a divine, superhuman, miracle-moving, inspiredprophet--declared that his wondrous work was best done, hiscalculations most quickly and most truly made, that he saw with mostaccurate eye into the far-distant balance of profit and loss, whenhe was under the influence of the rosy god. To these worshippers hisbreakings-out, as his periods of intemperance were called in his ownset, were his moments of peculiar inspiration--his divine frenzies,in which he communicated most closely with those deities who presideover trade transactions; his Eleusinian mysteries, to approach him inwhich was permitted only to a few of the most favoured.

  "Scatcherd has been drunk this week past," they would say one toanother, when the moment came at which it was to be decided whoseoffer should be accepted for constructing a harbour to hold all thecommerce of Lancashire, or to make a railway from Bombay to Canton."Scatcherd has been drunk this week past; I am told that he has takenover three gallons of brandy." And then they felt sure that none butScatcherd would be called upon to construct the dock or make therailway.

  But be this as it may, be it true or false that Sir Roger was mostefficacious when in his cups, there can be no doubt that he could notwallow for a week in brandy, six or seven times every year, withoutin a great measure injuring, and permanently injuring, the outwardman. Whatever immediate effect such symposiums might have on theinner mind--symposiums indeed they were not; posiums I will callthem, if I may be allowed; for in latter life, when he drank heavily,he drank alone--however little for evil, or however much for good theworking of his brain might be affected, his body suffered greatly. Itwas not that he became feeble or emaciated, old-looking or inactive,that his hand shook, or that his eye was watery; but that in themoments of his intemperance his life was often not worth a day'spurchase. The frame which God had given to him was powerful beyondthe power of ordinary men; powerful to act in spite of these violentperturbations; powerful to repress and conquer the qualms andheadaches and inward sicknesses to which the votaries of Bacchus areordinarily subject; but this power was not without its limit. Ifencroached on too far, it would break and fall and come asunder, andthen the strong man would at once become a corpse.

  Scatcherd had but one friend in the world. And, indeed, this friendwas no friend in the ordinary acceptance of the word. He neither atewith him nor drank with him, nor even frequently talked with him.Their pursuits in life were wide asunder. Their tastes were alldifferent. The society in which each moved very seldom came together.Scatcherd had nothing in unison with this solitary friend; but hetrusted him, and he trusted no other living creature on God's earth.

  He trusted this man; but even him he did not trust thoroughly; not atleast as one friend should trust another. He believed that this manwould not rob him; would probably not lie to him; would not endeavourto make money of him; would not count him up or speculate on him, andmake out a balance of profit and loss; and, therefore, he determinedto use him. But he put no trust whatever in his friend's counsel, inhis modes of thought; none in his theory, and none in his practice.He disliked his friend's counsel, and, in fact, disliked hissociety, for his friend was somewhat apt to speak to him in a mannerapproaching to severity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many thingsin the world, and made much money; whereas his friend had done butfew things, and made no money. It was not to be endured that thepractical, efficient man should be taken to task by the man whoproved himself to be neither practical nor efficient; not to beendured, certainly, by Roger Scatcherd, who looked on men of his ownclass as the men of the day, and on himself as by no means the leastamong them.

  The friend was our friend Dr Thorne.

  The doctor's first acquaintance with Scatcherd has been alreadyexplained. He was necessarily thrown into communication with the manat the time of the trial, and Scatcherd then had not only sufficientsense, but sufficient feeling also to know that the doctor behavedvery well. This communication had in different ways been kept upbetween them. Soon after the trial Scatcherd had begun to rise, andhis first savings had been entrusted to the doctor's care. This hadbeen the beginning of a pecuniary connexion which had never whollyceased, and which had led to the purchase of Boxall Hill, and to theloan of large sums of money to the squire.

  In another way also there had been a close alliance between them, andone not always of a very pleasant description. The doctor was, andlong had been, Sir Roger's medical attendant, and, in his unceasingattempts to rescue the drunkard from the fate which was so much tobe dreaded, he not unfrequently was driven into a quarrel with hispatient.

  One thing further must be told of Sir Roger. In politics he was asviolent a Radical as ever, and was very anxious to obtain a positionin which he could bring his violence to bear. With this view he wasabout to contest his native borough of Barchester, in the hope ofbeing returned in opposition to the de Courcy candidate; and withthis object he had now come down to Boxall Hill.

  Nor were his claims to sit for Barchester such as could be despised.If money were to be of avail, he had plenty of it, and was preparedto spend it; whereas, rumour said that Mr Moffat was equallydetermined to do nothing so foolish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sortof rough eloquence, and was able to address the men of Barchester inlanguage that would come home to their hearts, in words that wouldendear him to one party while they made him offensively odious to theother; but Mr Moffat could make neither friends nor enemies by hiseloquence. The Barchester roughs called him a dumb dog that could notbark, and sometimes sarcastically added that neither could he bite.The de Courcy interest, however, was at his back, and he had also theadvantage of possession. Sir Roger, therefore, knew that the battlewas not to be won without a struggle.

  Dr Thorne got safely back from Silverbridge that eveni
ng, and foundMary waiting to give him his tea. He had been called there to aconsultation with Dr Century, that amiable old gentleman having sofar fallen away from the high Fillgrave tenets as to consent to theoccasional endurance of such degradation.

  The next morning he breakfasted early, and, having mounted his strongiron-grey cob, started for Boxall Hill. Not only had he there tonegotiate the squire's further loan, but also to exercise his medicalskill. Sir Roger having been declared contractor for cutting a canalfrom sea to sea, through the Isthmus of Panama, had been making aweek of it; and the result was that Lady Scatcherd had written ratherperemptorily to her husband's medical friend.

  The doctor consequently trotted off to Boxall Hill on his iron-greycob. Among his other merits was that of being a good horseman, andhe did much of his work on horseback. The fact that he occasionallytook a day with the East Barsetshires, and that when he did so hethoroughly enjoyed it, had probably not failed to add something tothe strength of the squire's friendship.

  "Well, my lady, how is he? Not much the matter, I hope?" said thedoctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill ina small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The show-roomsof Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were setapart for company; and as the company never came--seeing that theywere never invited--the grand rooms and the grand furniture were notof much material use to Lady Scatcherd.

  "Indeed then, doctor, he's just bad enough," said her ladyship, notin a very happy tone of voice; "just bad enough. There's been some'atat the back of his head, rapping, and rapping, and rapping; and ifyou don't do something, I'm thinking it will rap him too hard yet."

  "Is he in bed?"

  "Why, yes, he is in bed; for when he was first took he couldn't verywell help hisself, so we put him to bed. And then, he don't seem tobe quite right yet about the legs, so he hasn't got up; but he's gotthat Winterbones with him to write for him, and when Winterbones isthere, Scatcherd might as well be up for any good that bed'll dohim."

  Mr Winterbones was confidential clerk to Sir Roger. That is to say,he was a writing-machine of which Sir Roger made use to do certainwork which could not well be adjusted without some contrivance. Hewas a little, withered, dissipated, broken-down man, whom gin andpoverty had nearly burnt to a cinder, and dried to an ash. Mind hehad none left, nor care for earthly things, except the smallestmodicum of substantial food, and the largest allowance of liquidsustenance. All that he had ever known he had forgotten, except howto count up figures and to write: the results of his counting and hiswriting never stayed with him from one hour to another; nay, not fromone folio to another. Let him, however, be adequately screwed up withgin, and adequately screwed down by the presence of his master, andthen no amount of counting and writing would be too much for him.This was Mr Winterbones, confidential clerk to the great Sir RogerScatcherd.

  "We must send Winterbones away, I take it," said the doctor.

  "Indeed, doctor, I wish you would. I wish you'd send him to Bath, oranywhere else out of the way. There is Scatcherd, he takes brandy;and there is Winterbones, he takes gin; and it'd puzzle a woman tosay which is worst, master or man."

  It will seem from this, that Lady Scatcherd and the doctor were onvery familiar terms as regarded her little domestic inconveniences.

  "Tell Sir Roger I am here, will you?" said the doctor.

  "You'll take a drop of sherry before you go up?" said the lady.

  "Not a drop, thank you," said the doctor.

  "Or, perhaps, a little cordial?"

  "Not a drop of anything, thank you; I never do, you know."

  "Just a thimbleful of this?" said the lady, producing from somerecess under a sideboard a bottle of brandy; "just a thimbleful? It'swhat he takes himself."

  When Lady Scatcherd found that even this argument failed, she led theway to the great man's bedroom.

  "Well, doctor! well, doctor! well, doctor!" was the greeting withwhich our son of Galen was saluted some time before he entered thesick-room. His approaching step was heard, and thus the ci-devantBarchester stone-mason saluted his coming friend. The voice was loudand powerful, but not clear and sonorous. What voice that is nurturedon brandy can ever be clear? It had about it a peculiar huskiness, adissipated guttural tone, which Thorne immediately recognised, andrecognised as being more marked, more guttural, and more husky thanheretofore.

  "So you've smelt me out, have you, and come for your fee? Ha! ha!ha! Well, I have had a sharpish bout of it, as her ladyship thereno doubt has told you. Let her alone to make the worst of it. But,you see, you're too late, man. I've bilked the old gentleman againwithout troubling you."

  "Anyway, I'm glad you're something better, Scatcherd."

  "Something! I don't know what you call something. I never was betterin my life. Ask Winterbones there."

  "Indeed, now, Scatcherd, you ain't; you're bad enough if you onlyknew it. And as for Winterbones, he has no business here up in yourbedroom, which stinks of gin so, it does. Don't you believe him,doctor; he ain't well, nor yet nigh well."

  Winterbones, when the above ill-natured allusion was made tothe aroma coming from his libations, might be seen to depositsurreptitiously beneath the little table at which he sat, the cupwith which he had performed them.

  The doctor, in the meantime, had taken Sir Roger's hand on thepretext of feeling his pulse, but was drawing quite as muchinformation from the touch of the sick man's skin, and the look ofthe sick man's eye.

  "I think Mr Winterbones had better go back to the London office,"said he. "Lady Scatcherd will be your best clerk for some time, SirRoger."

  "Then I'll be d---- if Mr Winterbones does anything of the kind,"said he; "so there's an end of that."

  "Very well," said the doctor. "A man can die but once. It is my dutyto suggest measures for putting off the ceremony as long as possible.Perhaps, however, you may wish to hasten it."

  "Well, I am not very anxious about it, one way or the other," saidScatcherd. And as he spoke there came a fierce gleam from his eye,which seemed to say--"If that's the bugbear with which you wish tofrighten me, you will find that you are mistaken."

  "Now, doctor, don't let him talk that way, don't," said LadyScatcherd, with her handkerchief to her eyes.

  "Now, my lady, do you cut it; cut at once," said Sir Roger, turninghastily round to his better-half; and his better-half, knowing thatthe province of a woman is to obey, did cut it. But as she went shegave the doctor a pull by the coat's sleeve, so that thereby hishealing faculties might be sharpened to the very utmost.

  "The best woman in the world, doctor; the very best," said he, as thedoor closed behind the wife of his bosom.

  "I'm sure of it," said the doctor.

  "Yes, till you find a better one," said Scatcherd. "Ha! ha! ha! butgood or bad, there are some things which a woman can't understand,and some things which she ought not to be let to understand."

  "It's natural she should be anxious about your health, you know."

  "I don't know that," said the contractor. "She'll be very well off.All that whining won't keep a man alive, at any rate."

  There was a pause, during which the doctor continued his medicalexamination. To this the patient submitted with a bad grace; butstill he did submit.

  "We must turn over a new leaf, Sir Roger; indeed we must."

  "Bother," said Sir Roger.

  "Well, Scatcherd; I must do my duty to you, whether you like it ornot."

  "That is to say, I am to pay you for trying to frighten me."

  "No human nature can stand such shocks as these much longer."

  "Winterbones," said the contractor, turning to his clerk, "go down,go down, I say; but don't be out of the way. If you go to thepublic-house, by G----, you may stay there for me. When I take adrop,--that is if I ever do, it does not stand in the way of work."So Mr Winterbones, picking up his cup again, and concealing it insome way beneath his coat flap, retreated out of the room, and thetwo friends were alone.

  "Scatcherd," said the doctor, "
you have been as near your God, as anyman ever was who afterwards ate and drank in this world."

  "Have I, now?" said the railway hero, apparently somewhat startled.

  "Indeed you have; indeed you have."

  "And now I'm all right again?"

  "All right! How can you be all right, when you know that your limbsrefuse to carry you? All right! why the blood is still beating roundyour brain with a violence that would destroy any other brain butyours."

  "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Scatcherd. He was very proud of thinkinghimself to be differently organised from other men. "Ha! ha! ha!Well, and what am I to do now?"

  The whole of the doctor's prescription we will not give at length.To some of his ordinances Sir Roger promised obedience; to others heobjected violently, and to one or two he flatly refused to listen.The great stumbling-block was this, that total abstinence frombusiness for two weeks was enjoined; and that it was impossible, soSir Roger said, that he should abstain for two days.

  "If you work," said the doctor, "in your present state, you willcertainly have recourse to the stimulus of drink; and if you drink,most assuredly you will die."

  "Stimulus! Why do you think I can't work without Dutch courage?"

  "Scatcherd, I know that there is brandy in the room at this moment,and that you have been taking it within these two hours."

  "You smell that fellow's gin," said Scatcherd.

  "I feel the alcohol working within your veins," said the doctor, whostill had his hand on his patient's arm.

  Sir Roger turned himself roughly in the bed so as to get away fromhis Mentor, and then he began to threaten in his turn.

  "I'll tell you what it is, doctor; I've made up my mind, and I'll doit. I'll send for Fillgrave."

  "Very well," said he of Greshamsbury, "send for Fillgrave. Your caseis one in which even he can hardly go wrong."

  "You think you can hector me, and do as you like because you had meunder your thumb in other days. You're a very good fellow, Thorne,but I ain't sure that you are the best doctor in all England."

  "You may be sure I am not; you may take me for the worst if you will.But while I am here as your medical adviser, I can only tell you thetruth to the best of my thinking. Now the truth is this, that anotherbout of drinking will in all probability kill you; and any recourseto stimulus in your present condition may do so."

  "I'll send for Fillgrave--"

  "Well, send for Fillgrave, only do it at once. Believe me at anyrate in this, that whatever you do, you should do at once. Obligeme in this; let Lady Scatcherd take away that brandy bottle till DrFillgrave comes."

  "I'm d---- if I do. Do you think I can't have a bottle of brandy inmy room without swigging?"

  "I think you'll be less likely to swig it if you can't get at it."

  Sir Roger made another angry turn in his bed as well as hishalf-paralysed limbs would let him; and then, after a few moments'peace, renewed his threats with increased violence.

  "Yes; I'll have Fillgrave over here. If a man be ill, really ill,he should have the best advice he can get. I'll have Fillgrave, andI'll have that other fellow from Silverbridge to meet him. What's hisname?--Century."

  The doctor turned his head away; for though the occasion was serious,he could not help smiling at the malicious vengeance with which hisfriend proposed to gratify himself.

  "I will; and Rerechild too. What's the expense? I suppose five or sixpound apiece will do it; eh, Thorne?"

  "Oh, yes; that will be liberal I should say. But, Sir Roger, will youallow me to suggest what you ought to do? I don't know how far youmay be joking--"

  "Joking!" shouted the baronet; "you tell a man he's dying and jokingin the same breath. You'll find I'm not joking."

  "Well I dare say not. But if you have not full confidence in me--"

  "I have no confidence in you at all."

  "Then why not send to London? Expense is no object to you."

  "It is an object; a great object."

  "Nonsense! Send to London for Sir Omicron Pie: send for some man whomyou will really trust when you see him.

  "There's not one of the lot I'd trust as soon as Fillgrave. I'veknown Fillgrave all my life, and I trust him. I'll send for Fillgraveand put my case in his hands. If any one can do anything for me,Fillgrave is the man."

  "Then in God's name send for Fillgrave," said the doctor. "And now,good-bye, Scatcherd; and as you do send for him, give him a fairchance. Do not destroy yourself by more brandy before he comes."

  "That's my affair, and his; not yours," said the patient.

  "So be it; give me your hand, at any rate, before I go. I wish youwell through it, and when you are well, I'll come and see you."

  "Good-bye--good-bye; and look here, Thorne, you'll be talking to LadyScatcherd downstairs I know; now, no nonsense. You understand me, eh?no nonsense, you know."