Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope (interesting books to read TXT) 📖

had been occasionally in partnership with one man for one thing,

and then with another for another; but had, on the whole, kept his

interests to himself, and now at the time of our story, he was a very

rich man.

 

And he had acquired more than wealth. There had been a time when the

Government wanted the immediate performance of some extraordinary

piece of work, and Roger Scatcherd had been the man to do it. There

had been some extremely necessary bit of a railway to be made in half

the time that such work would properly demand, some speculation to

be incurred requiring great means and courage as well, and Roger

Scatcherd had been found to be the man for the time. He was then

elevated for the moment to the dizzy pinnacle of a newspaper hero,

and became one of those “whom the king delighteth to honour.” He went

up one day to kiss Her Majesty’s hand, and come down to his new grand

house at Boxall Hill, Sir Roger Scatcherd, Bart.

 

“And now, my lady,” said he, when he explained to his wife the high

state to which she had been called by his exertions and the Queen’s

prerogative, “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 to

send three ordinary men very drunk to bed.

 

While conquering the world Roger Scatcherd had not conquered his old

bad habits. Indeed, he was the same man at all points that he had

been when formerly seen about the streets of Barchester with his

stone-mason’s apron tucked up round his waist. The apron he had

abandoned, but not the heavy prominent thoughtful brow, with the

wildly flashing eye beneath it. He was still the same good companion,

and still also the same hard-working hero. In this only had he

changed, that now he would work, and some said equally well, whether

he were drunk or sober. Those who were mostly inclined to make a

miracle of him—and there was a school of worshippers ready to adore

him as their idea of a divine, superhuman, miracle-moving, inspired

prophet—declared that his wondrous work was best done, his

calculations most quickly and most truly made, that he saw with most

accurate eye into the far-distant balance of profit and loss, when

he was under the influence of the rosy god. To these worshippers his

breakings-out, as his periods of intemperance were called in his own

set, were his moments of peculiar inspiration—his divine frenzies,

in which he communicated most closely with those deities who preside

over trade transactions; his Eleusinian mysteries, to approach him in

which was permitted only to a few of the most favoured.

 

“Scatcherd has been drunk this week past,” they would say one to

another, when the moment came at which it was to be decided whose

offer should be accepted for constructing a harbour to hold all the

commerce of Lancashire, or to make a railway from Bombay to Canton.

“Scatcherd has been drunk this week past; I am told that he has taken

over three gallons of brandy.” And then they felt sure that none but

Scatcherd would be called upon to construct the dock or make the

railway.

 

But be this as it may, be it true or false that Sir Roger was most

efficacious when in his cups, there can be no doubt that he could not

wallow for a week in brandy, six or seven times every year, without

in a great measure injuring, and permanently injuring, the outward

man. Whatever immediate effect such symposiums might have on the

inner mind—symposiums indeed they were not; posiums I will call

them, 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 the

working of his brain might be affected, his body suffered greatly. It

was not that he became feeble or emaciated, old-looking or inactive,

that his hand shook, or that his eye was watery; but that in the

moments of his intemperance his life was often not worth a day’s

purchase. The frame which God had given to him was powerful beyond

the power of ordinary men; powerful to act in spite of these violent

perturbations; powerful to repress and conquer the qualms and

headaches and inward sicknesses to which the votaries of Bacchus are

ordinarily subject; but this power was not without its limit. If

encroached on too far, it would break and fall and come asunder, and

then the strong man would at once become a corpse.

 

Scatcherd had but one friend in the world. And, indeed, this friend

was no friend in the ordinary acceptance of the word. He neither ate

with him nor drank with him, nor even frequently talked with him.

Their pursuits in life were wide asunder. Their tastes were all

different. The society in which each moved very seldom came together.

Scatcherd had nothing in unison with this solitary friend; but he

trusted 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 at

least as one friend should trust another. He believed that this man

would not rob him; would probably not lie to him; would not endeavour

to make money of him; would not count him up or speculate on him, and

make out a balance of profit and loss; and, therefore, he determined

to use him. But he put no trust whatever in his friend’s counsel, in

his modes of thought; none in his theory, and none in his practice.

He disliked his friend’s counsel, and, in fact, disliked his

society, for his friend was somewhat apt to speak to him in a manner

approaching to severity. Now Roger Scatcherd had done many things

in the world, and made much money; whereas his friend had done but

few things, and made no money. It was not to be endured that the

practical, efficient man should be taken to task by the man who

proved himself to be neither practical nor efficient; not to be

endured, certainly, by Roger Scatcherd, who looked on men of his own

class as the men of the day, and on himself as by no means the least

among them.

 

The friend was our friend Dr Thorne.

 

The doctor’s first acquaintance with Scatcherd has been already

explained. He was necessarily thrown into communication with the man

at the time of the trial, and Scatcherd then had not only sufficient

sense, but sufficient feeling also to know that the doctor behaved

very well. This communication had in different ways been kept up

between them. Soon after the trial Scatcherd had begun to rise, and

his first savings had been entrusted to the doctor’s care. This had

been the beginning of a pecuniary connexion which had never wholly

ceased, and which had led to the purchase of Boxall Hill, and to the

loan of large sums of money to the squire.

 

In another way also there had been a close alliance between them, and

one not always of a very pleasant description. The doctor was, and

long had been, Sir Roger’s medical attendant, and, in his unceasing

attempts to rescue the drunkard from the fate which was so much to

be dreaded, he not unfrequently was driven into a quarrel with his

patient.

 

One thing further must be told of Sir Roger. In politics he was as

violent a Radical as ever, and was very anxious to obtain a position

in which he could bring his violence to bear. With this view he was

about to contest his native borough of Barchester, in the hope of

being returned in opposition to the de Courcy candidate; and with

this 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 prepared

to spend it; whereas, rumour said that Mr Moffat was equally

determined to do nothing so foolish. Then again, Sir Roger had a sort

of rough eloquence, and was able to address the men of Barchester in

language that would come home to their hearts, in words that would

endear him to one party while they made him offensively odious to the

other; but Mr Moffat could make neither friends nor enemies by his

eloquence. The Barchester roughs called him a dumb dog that could not

bark, and sometimes sarcastically added that neither could he bite.

The de Courcy interest, however, was at his back, and he had also the

advantage of possession. Sir Roger, therefore, knew that the battle

was not to be won without a struggle.

 

Dr Thorne got safely back from Silverbridge that evening, and found

Mary waiting to give him his tea. He had been called there to a

consultation with Dr Century, that amiable old gentleman having so

far fallen away from the high Fillgrave tenets as to consent to the

occasional endurance of such degradation.

 

The next morning he breakfasted early, and, having mounted his strong

iron-grey cob, started for Boxall Hill. Not only had he there to

negotiate the squire’s further loan, but also to exercise his medical

skill. Sir Roger having been declared contractor for cutting a canal

from sea to sea, through the Isthmus of Panama, had been making a

week of it; and the result was that Lady Scatcherd had written rather

peremptorily to her husband’s medical friend.

 

The doctor consequently trotted off to Boxall Hill on his iron-grey

cob. Among his other merits was that of being a good horseman, and

he did much of his work on horseback. The fact that he occasionally

took a day with the East Barsetshires, and that when he did so he

thoroughly enjoyed it, had probably not failed to add something to

the strength of the squire’s friendship.

 

“Well, my lady, how is he? Not much the matter, I hope?” said the

doctor, as he shook hands with the titled mistress of Boxall Hill in

a small breakfast-parlour in the rear of the house. The show-rooms

of Boxall Hill were furnished most magnificently, but they were set

apart for company; and as the company never came—seeing that they

were never invited—the grand rooms and the grand furniture were not

of much material use to Lady Scatcherd.

 

“Indeed then, doctor, he’s just bad enough,” said her ladyship, not

in a very happy tone of voice; “just bad enough. There’s been some’at

at the back of his head, rapping, and rapping, and rapping; and if

you 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 very

well help hisself, so we put him to bed. And then, he don’t seem to

be quite right yet about the legs, so he hasn’t got up; but he’s got

that Winterbones with him to write for him, and when Winterbones is

there, Scatcherd might as well be up for any good that bed’ll do

him.”

 

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 certain

work which could not well be adjusted without some contrivance. He

was a little, withered, dissipated, broken-down man, whom gin and

poverty had nearly burnt to a cinder, and dried to an ash. Mind he

had none left, nor care for earthly things, except the smallest

modicum of substantial food, and the largest allowance of liquid

sustenance. All that he had ever known he had forgotten, except how

to count up figures and to write: the results