Brownsmith's Boy: A Romance in a Garden

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

  THE GARDENER SURGEON.

  "People sneer at gardening and gardeners, Grant," said the old gentlemanto me one day. "Perhaps you may take to some other occupation when yougrow older; but don't you never be ashamed of having learned to be agardener."

  "I'm sure I never shall," I said.

  "I hope you will not, my boy, for there's something in gardening andwatching the growth of trees and plants that's good for a lad's nature;and if I was a schoolmaster I'd let every boy have a garden, and makehim keep it neat. It would be as good a lesson as any he could teach."

  "I like gardening more and more, sir," I said.

  "That's right, my boy. I hope you do, but you've a deal to learn yet.Gardening's like learning to play the fiddle; there's always somethingmore to get hold of than you know. I wish I had some more glass."

  "I wish you had, sir," I said.

  "Why, boy?--why?" he cried sharply.

  "Because you seem as if you'd like it, sir," I said, feeling ratherabashed by his sharp manner.

  "Yes, but it was so that I should be able to teach you, sir. But wait abit, I'll talk to my brother one of these days."

  Time glided on, and as I grew bigger and stronger I used now and then togo up with Ike to the market. He would have liked me to go every time,but Mr Brownsmith shook his head, and would only hear of it in times ofemergency.

  "Not a good task for you, Grant," he used to say. "I want you at home."

  We were down the garden one morning after a very stormy night, when thewind had been so high that a great many of the fruit-trees had had theirbranches broken off, and we were busy with ladder, saw, and knife,repairing damages.

  I was up the ladder in a fine young apple-tree, whose branch had beenbroken and was hanging by a few fibres, and as soon as I had fixedmyself pretty safely I began to cut, while when I glanced down to see ifOld Brownsmith was taking any notice I saw that he was smiling.

  "Won't do--won't do, Grant," he said. "Cutting off a branch of a treethat has been broken is like practising amputation on a man. Cut lower,boy."

  "But I wanted to save all that great piece with those little boughs," Isaid.

  "But you can't, my lad. Now just look down the side there below whereyou are cutting, and what can you see?"

  "Only a little crack that will grow up."

  "Only a little crack that won't grow up, Grant, but which will admit therain, and the wet will decay the tree; and that bough, at the end of twoor three years, instead of being sound and covered with young shoots,will be dying away. A surgeon, when he performs an amputation, cutsright below the splintered part of the bone. Cut three feet lower down,my lad, and then pare all off nice and smooth, just as I showed you overthe pruning.

  "That's the way," he said, as he watched me. "That's a neat smoothwound in the tree that will dry up easily after every shower, and naturewill send out some of her healing gum or sap, and it will turn hard, andthe bark, just as I showed you before, will come up in a new ring, andswell and swell till it covers the wood, and by and by you will hardlysee where the cut was made."

  I finished my task, and was going to shoulder the ladder and get on tothe next tree, when the old gentleman said in his quaint dry way:

  "You know what the first workman was, Grant?"

  "Yes," I said, "a gardener."

  "Good!" he said. "And do you know who was the first doctor andsurgeon?"

  "No," I said.

  "A gardener, my boy, just as the men were who first began to improve theway in which men lived, and gave them fruit and corn and vegetables toeat, as well as the wild creatures they killed by hunting."

  "Oh, yes!" I said, "I see all that, but I don't see how the firstdoctor and surgeon could have been a gardener."

  "Don't you?" he said, laughing silently. "I do. Who but a gardenerwould find out the value of the different herbs and juices, and whatthey would do. You may call him a botanist, my lad, but he was agardener. He would find out that some vegetables were good for theblood at times, and from that observation grew the whole doctrine ofmedicine. That's my theory, my boy. Now cut off that pear-treebranch."

  I set the ladder right, and proceeded to cut and trim the injury,thinking all the while what a pity it was that the trees should havebeen so knocked about by the storm.

  "Do you know who were the best gardeners in England in the olden times,Grant?" said the old gentleman as he stood below whetting my knife.

  "No, sir,--yes, I think I do," I hastened to add--"the monks."

  "Exactly. We have them to thank for introducing and improving no end ofplants and fruit-trees. They were very great gardeners--famousgardeners and cultivators of herbs and strange flowers, and it was thusthat they, many of them, became the doctors or teachers of theirdistrict, and I've got an idea in my head that it was on just such amorning as this that some old monk--no, he must have been a young monk,and a very bold and clever one--here, take your knife, it's as sharp asa razor now."

  I stooped down and took the knife, and hanging my saw from one of therounds of the ladder began to cut, and the old gentleman went on:

  "It must have been after such a morning as this, boy, that some monkmade the first bold start at surgery."

  I looked down at him, and he went on:

  "You may depend upon it that during the storm some poor fellow had beencaught out in the forest by a falling limb of a tree, one of the boughsof which pinned him to the ground and smashed his leg."

  "An oak-tree," I said, quite enjoying the fact that he was inventing astory.

  "No, boy, an elm. Oak branches when they break are so full of toughfibre that they hang on by the stump. It is your elm that is thetreacherous tree, and snaps short off, and comes down like thunder."

  "An elm-tree, then," I said, paring away.

  "Yes, a huge branch of an elm, and there the poor fellow lay till someone heard his shouts, and came to his help."

  "Where he would be lying in horrible agony," I said, trimming away atthe bough.

  "Wrong again, Grant. Nature is kinder than that. With such an injurythe poor fellow's limb would be numbed by the terrible shock, andpossibly he felt but little pain. I knew an officer whose foot wastaken off in a battle in India. A cannon-ball struck him just above theankle, and he felt a terrible blow, but it did not hurt him afterwardsfor the time; and all he thought of was that his horse was killed, tillhe began to struggle away from the fallen beast, when he found that hisown leg was gone."

  "How horrible!" I said.

  "All war is horrible, my boy," he said gravely. "Well, to go on with mystory. I believe that they came and hoisted out the poor fellow underthe tree, and carried him up to the old priory to have his broken legcured by one of the monks, who would be out in his garden just the sameas we are, Grant, cutting off and paring the broken boughs of his appleand pear trees. Then they laid him in one of the cells, and his leg wasbound up and dressed with healing herbs, and the poor fellow was left toget well."

  "And did he?" I said.

  "Then the gardener monk went out into the garden again and continued totrim off the broken branches, sawing these and cutting those, andthinking all the while about his patient in the cell.

  "Then the next day came, and the poor fellow's relatives ran up to seehim, and he was in very great agony, and they called upon the monks tohelp him, and they dressed the terrible injury again, and the poorfellow was very feverish and bad in spite of all that was done. But atlast he dropped off into a weary sleep, and the poor people went awaythinking what a great thing it was to have so much knowledge of healing,while, as soon as they had gone the monk shook his head.

  "Next day came, and the relatives and friends were delighted, for thepain was nearly all gone, and the injured man lay very still.

  "`He'll soon get well now,' they said; and they went away full of hopeand quite satisfied; but the monk, after he had given the patient somerefreshing drink, went out into his garden among his trees, and t
henafter walking about in the sunny walk under the old stone wall, hestopped by the mossy seat by the sun-dial, and stood looking down at thegnomon, whose shadow marked the hours, and sighed deeply as he thoughthow many times the shadow would point to noon before his poor patientwas dead."

  "Why, I thought he was getting better," I said.

  "Carry your ladder to the next tree, Grant," said the old gentleman,"and you shall work while I prattle."

  I obeyed him, and this time I had a great apple-tree bough to operateupon with the thin saw. I began using the saw very gently, andlistening, for I seemed to see that monk in his long grey garment, andrope round his waist, looking down at the sun-dial, when Old Brownsmithwent on slowly:

  "He knew it could not be long first, for the man's leg was crushed andthe bone splintered so terribly that it would never heal up, and thatthe calm sense of comfort was a bad sign, for the limb was mortifying,and unless that mortification was stopped the man must die."

  "Poor fellow!" I ejaculated, for the old man told the story with suchearnestness that it seemed to be real.

  "Yes, poor fellow! That is what the monk said as he thought of all theherbs and decoctions he had made, and that not one of them would stopthe terrible change that was going on. He felt how helpless he was, andat last, Grant, he sat down on the mossy old stone bench, and coveringhis face with his hands, cried like a child."

  "But he was a man," I said.

  "Yes, my lad; but there are times when men are so prostrated by miseryand despair that they cry like women--not often--perhaps only once ortwice in a man's life. My monk cried bitterly, and then he jumped up,feeling ashamed of himself, and began walking up and down. Then he wentand stood by the great fish stew, where the big carp and tench weregrowing fatter as they fed by night and basked in the sunshine among thewater weeds by day; but no thought came to him as to how he could savethe poor fellow lying in the cell."

  Old Brownsmith stopped to blow his nose on a brown-and-orange silkhandkerchief, and stroke two or three cats, while I sawed away veryslowly, waiting for what was to come.

  "Then he went round by where one apple-tree, like that, had lost abough, and whose stump he had carefully trimmed--just as you are goingto trim that, Grant."

  "I know," I cried, eagerly; "and then--"

  "You attend to your apple-tree, sir, and let me tell my story," he said,half gruffly, half in a good-humoured way, and I sawed away with my thinsaw till I was quite through, and the stump I had cut off fell with sucha bang that the cats all jumped in different directions, and then staredback at the stump with dilated eyes, till, seeing that there was nodanger, one big Tom went and rubbed himself against it from end to end,and the others followed suit.

  "All at once, as he stood staring at the broken tree, an idea flashedacross his brain, Grant."

  "Yes," I said, pruning-knife in hand.

  "He knew that if he had not cut and trimmed off that branch the limbwould have gone on decaying right away, and perhaps have killed thetree."

  "Yes, of course," I said, still watching him.

  "Isn't your knife sharp enough, my lad?" said Old Brownsmith dryly.

  "Yes, sir," I said; and I went on trimming. "Well, he thought that ifthis saved the tree, why should it not save the life of the man?" and hegrew so excited that he went in at once and had a look at the patient,and then went in to the prior, who shook his head.

  "`Poor fellow,' he said; `he will die.'

  "`Yes,' said the young monk, `unless--'

  "`Unless--' said the prior.

  "`Yes, unless,' said the young monk; and he horrified the prior bytelling him all his ideas, while the other monks shook their heads.

  "`It could not be done,' they said. `It would be too horrible.'

  "`There is no horror in performing an act like that to save a man'slife,' said the young monk; `it is a duty.'

  "`But it would kill the poor fellow,' they chorused.

  "`He will die as it is,' said the young monk. `You said as much when Icame in, and I am sure of it.'

  "`Yes,' said the prior sadly, `he will die.'

  "`This might save his life,' said the young monk; but the old men shooktheir heads.

  "`Such a thing has never been done,' they said. `It is too horrible.'

  "`And even if it saved his life he would only have one leg.'

  "`Better have no legs at all,' said the young monk, `than die before histime.'

  "`But it would be his time,' said the old monks.

  "`It would not be his time if I could save his life,' said the youngmonk.

  "But still the old monks shook their heads, and said that no man hadever yet heard of such a thing. It was too terrible to be thought of,and they frowned very severely upon the young monk till the prior, whohad been very thoughtful, exclaimed:--

  "`And cutting the limb off the apple-tree made you think that?'

  "The young monk said that it was so.

  "`But a man is not an apple-tree,' said the oldest monk present; and allthe others shook their heads again; but, oddly enough, a few minuteslater they nodded their heads, for the prior suddenly exclaimed:--

  "`Our brother is quite right, and he shall try.'

  "There was a strange thrill ran through the monks, but what the priorsaid was law in those days, Grant, and in a few minutes it was known allthrough the priory that Brother Anselm was going to cut off the poorswineherd's leg.

  "Then--I say, my boy, I wish you'd go on with your work. I can't talkif you do not," said Old Brownsmith, with a comical look at me, and Iwent on busily again while he continued his story.

  "When Brother Anselm had obtained the prior's leave to try hisexperiment he felt nervous and shrank from the task. He went down thegarden and looked at the trees that he had cut, and he felt more thanever that a man was, as the monks said, not an apple-tree. Then heexamined the places which looked healthy and well, and he wonderedwhether if he performed such an operation on the poor patient he alsowould be healthy and well at the end of a week, and he shook his headand felt nervous."

  "If you please, Mr Brownsmith," I said, "I can't go on till you'vedone, and I must hear the end."

  He chuckled a little, and seating himself on a bushel basket which heturned upside down, a couple of cats sprang in his lap, another got onhis shoulder, and he went on talking while I thrust an arm through oneof the rounds of the ladder, and leaned back against it as he went on.

  "Well, Grant," he said, "Brother Anselm felt sorry now that he had leaveto perform his experiment, and he went slowly back to the cell andtalked to the poor swineherd, a fine handsome, young man with fair curlybrown hair and a skin as white as a woman's where the sun had not tannedhim.

  "And he talked to him about how he felt; and the poor fellow said hefelt much better and much worse--that the pain had all gone, but that hedid not think he should ever be well any more.

  "This set the brother thinking more and more, but he felt that he coulddo nothing that day, and he waited till the next, lying awake all nightthinking of what he would do and how he would do it, till the cold timeabout sunrise, when he had given up the idea in despair. But when hesaw the light coming in the east, with the glorious gold and orangeclouds, and then the bright sunshine of a new day, he began to think ofhow sad it would be for that young man, cut down as he had been in amoment, to be left to die when perhaps he might be saved. He thought,too, about trees that had been cut years before, and which had beenhealthy and well ever since, and that morning, feeling stronger in hisdetermination, he went to the cell where the patient lay, to talk tohim, and the first thing the poor fellow said was:--

  "`Tell me the truth, please. I'm going to die, am I not?'

  "The young monk was silent.

  "`I know it,' said the swineherd sadly. `I feel it now.'

  "Brother Anselm looked at him sadly for a few minutes and then said tohim:--

  "`I must not deceive you at such a time--yes; but one thing might saveyour life.'

  "`What is that?' cri
ed the poor fellow eagerly; and he told him asgently as he could of the great operation, expecting to see the patientshudder and turn faint.

  "`Well,' he said, when the monk had ended, `why don't you do it?'

  "`But would you rather suffer that--would you run the risk?'

  "`Am I not a man?' said the poor fellow calmly. `Yes: life is verysweet, and I would bear any pain that I might live.'

  "That settled the matter, and the monk went out of the cell to shuthimself up in his own and pray for the space of two hours, and the oldmonks said that it was all talk, and that he had given up his horribleidea; but the prior knew better, and he was not a bit surprised to seeAnselm coming out of his cell looking brave, and calm, and cool.

  "Then he took a bottle of plant juice that he knew helped to stopbleeding, and he got ready his bandages, and his keenest knives, and hissaw, and a bowl of water, and then he thought for a bit, and ended byasking the monks which of them would help him, but they all shrank awayand turned pale, all but the prior, who said he would help, and thenthey went into the poor fellow's cell."

  Old Brownsmith stopped here, and kept on stroking one of the cats forsuch a long time, beginning at the tip of his nose and going right on tothe end of his tail, that I grew impatient.

  "And did he perform the operation?" I said eagerly.

  "Yes, bravely and well, but of course very clumsily for want ofexperience. He cut off the leg, Grant, right above where the bone wassplintered, and all the terrible irritation was going on."

  "And the poor fellow died after all?" I said.

  "No, he did not, my lad; it left him terribly weak and he was very lowfor some days, but he began to mend from the very first, and I supposewhen he grew well and strong he had to make himself a wooden leg or elseto go about with a crutch. About that I know nothing. There was thepoor fellow dying, and there was a gardener who knew that if the brokenplace were cut Nature would heal it up; for Nature likes to be helpedsometimes, my boy, and she is waiting for you now."

  "Yes, sir, I'll do it directly," I said, glancing at the stump I hadsawn off, and thinking about the swineherd's leg, and half-wonderingthat it did not bleed; "but tell me, please, is all that true?"

  "I'm afraid not, Grant," he said smiling; "but it is my idea--my theoryabout how our great surgeons gained their first knowledge from agardener; and if it is not true, it might very well be."

  "Yes," I said, looking at him wonderingly as he smoothed the fur of hiscats and was surrounded by them, rubbing themselves and purring loudly,"but I did not know you could tell stories like that."

  "I did not know it myself, Grant, till I began, and one word coaxed outanother. Seriously, though, my boy, there is nothing to be ashamed ofin being a gardener."

  "I'm not ashamed," I said; "I like it."

  "Gardeners can propagate and bring into use plants that may prove to beof great service to man; they can improve vegetables and fruits--andwhen you come to think of what a number of trees and plants are useful,you see what a field there is to work in! Why, even a man who makes abetter cabbage or potato grow than we have had before is one who hasbeen of great service to his fellow-creatures. So work away; you may dosomething yet."

  "Yes," I cried, "I'll work away and as hard as I can; but I begin towish now that you had some glass."

  "So do I," said the old gentleman.

  "There!" I said, coming down the ladder, "I think that will heal upnow, like the poor swineherd's leg. It's as smooth as smooth."

  "Let me look," said a voice behind me; and I started with surprise tofind myself face to face with a man who seemed to be Old Brownsmith whenhe was, if not Young Brownsmith, just about what he would have been atforty.