The Young Fur Traders by R. M. Ballantyne (funny books to read txt) 📖

Chapter Five. Peter Mactavish becomes an amateur doctor; Charley promulgates his views of things in general to Kate; and Kate waxes sagacious.

Shortly after the catastrophe just related, Charley opened his eyes to consciousness, and aroused himself out of a prolonged fainting fit, under the combined influence of a strong constitution and the medical treatment of his friends.

Medical treatment in the wilds of North America, by the way, is very original in its character, and is founded on principles so vague that no one has ever keen found capable of stating them clearly. Owing to the stubborn fact that there are no doctors in the country, men have been thrown upon their own resources, and as a natural consequence every man is a doctor. True, there are two, it may be three, real doctors in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s employment; but as one of these is resident on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, another in Oregon, and a third in Red River Settlement, they are not considered available for every case of emergency that may chance to occur in the hundreds of little outposts, scattered far and wide over the whole continent of North America, with miles and miles of primeval wilderness between each. We do not think, therefore, that when we say there are no doctors in the country, we use a culpable amount of exaggeration.

If a man gets ill, he goes on till he gets better; and if he doesn’t get better, he dies. To avert such an undesirable consummation, desperate and random efforts are made in an amateur way. The old proverb that “extremes meet” is verified. And in a land where no doctors are to be had for love or money, doctors meet you at every turn, ready to practise on everything, with anything, and all for nothing, on the shortest possible notice. As may be supposed, the practice is novel, and not unfrequently extremely wild. Tooth-drawing is considered child’s play—mere blacksmith’s work; bleeding is a general remedy for everything, when all else fails; castor oil, Epsom salts, and emetics are the three keynotes, the foundations, and the copestones of the system.

In Red River there is only one genuine doctor; and as the settlement is fully sixty miles long, he has enough to do, and is not always to be found when wanted, so that Charley had to rest content with amateur treatment in the meantime. Peter Mactavish was the first to try his powers. He was aware that laudanum had the effect of producing sleep, and seeing that Charley looked somewhat sleepy after recovering consciousness, he thought it advisable to help out that propensity to slumber, and went to the medicine chest, whence he extracted a small phial of tincture of rhubarb, the half of which he emptied into a wineglass, under the impression that it was laudanum, and poured down Charley’s throat! The poor boy swallowed a little, and sputtered the remainder over the bed-clothes. It may be remarked here that Mactavish was a wild, happy, half-mad sort of fellow—wonderfully erudite in regard to some things, and profoundly ignorant in regard to others. Medicine, it need scarcely be added, was not his forte. Having accomplished this feat to his satisfaction, he sat down to watch by the bedside of his friend. Peter had taken this opportunity to indulge in a little private practice just after several of the other gentlemen had left the office, under the impression that Charley had better remain quiet for a short time.

“Well, Peter,” whispered Mr Kennedy, senior, putting his head in at the door (it was Harry’s room in which Charley lay), “how is he now?”

“Oh! doing capitally,” replied Peter, in a hoarse whisper, at the same time rising and entering the office, while he gently closed the door behind him. “I gave him a small dose of physic, which I think has done him good. He’s sleeping like a top now.”

Mr Kennedy frowned slightly, and made one or two remarks in reference to physic which were not calculated to gratify the cars of a physician.

“What did you give him?” he inquired abruptly.

“Only a little laudanum.”

“Only, indeed! It’s all trash together, and that’s the worst kind of trash you could have given him. Humph!” and the old gentleman jerked his shoulders testily.

“How much did you give him?” said the senior clerk, who had entered the apartment with Harry a few minutes before.

“Not quite a wineglassful,” replied Peter, somewhat subdued.

“A what!” cried the father, starting from his chair as if he had received an electric shock, and rushing into the adjoining room, up and down which he raved in a state of distraction, being utterly ignorant of what should be done under the circumstances.

“Oh dear!” gasped Peter, turning pale as death.

Poor Harry Somerville fell rather than leaped off his stool, and dashed into the bedroom, where old Mr Kennedy was occupied in alternately heaping unutterable abuse on the head of Peter Mactavish, and imploring him to advise what was best to be done. But Peter knew not. He could only make one or two insane proposals to roll Charley about the floor, and see if that would do him any good; while Harry suggested in desperation that he should be hung by the heels, and perhaps it would run out!

Meanwhile the senior clerk seized his hat, with the intention of going in search of Tom Whyte, and rushed out at the door; which he had no sooner done than he found himself tightly embraced in the arms of that worthy, who happened to be entering at the moment, and who, in consequence of the sudden onset, was pinned up against the wall of the porch.

“Oh, my buzzum!” exclaimed Tom, laying his hand on his breast; “you’ve a’most bu’st me, sir. W’at’s wrong, sir?”

“Go for the doctor, Tom, quick! run like the wind. Take the freshest horse; fly, Tom, Charley’s poisoned—laudanum; quick!”

“’Eavens an’ ’arth!” ejaculated the groom, wheeling round, and stalking rapidly off to the stable like a pair of insane compasses; while the senior clerk returned to the bedroom, where he found Mr Kennedy still raving, Peter Mactavish still aghast and deadly pale, and Harry Somerville staring like a maniac at his young friend, as if he expected every moment to see him explode, although, to all appearance, he was sleeping soundly, and comfortably too, notwithstanding the noise that was going on around him. Suddenly Harry’s eye rested on the label of the half-empty phial, and he uttered a loud, prolonged cheer.

“It’s only tincture of—”

“Wild cats and furies!” cried Mr Kennedy, turning sharply round and seizing Harry by the collar, “why d’you kick up such a row, eh?”

“It’s only tincture of rhubarb,” repeated the boy, disengaging himself and holding up the phial triumphantly.

“So it is, I declare,” exclaimed Mr Kennedy, in a tone that indicated intense relief of mind; while Peter Mactavish uttered a sigh so deep that one might suppose a burden of innumerable tons weight had just been removed from his breast.

Charley had been roused from his slumbers by this last ebullition; but on being told what had caused it, he turned languidly round on his pillow and went to sleep again, while his friends departed and left him to repose.

Tom Whyte failed to find the doctor. The servant told him that her master had been suddenly called to set a broken leg that morning for a trapper who lived ten miles down the river, and on his return had found a man waiting with a horse and cariole, who carried him violently away to see his wife, who had been taken suddenly ill at a house twenty miles up the river, and so she didn’t expect him back that night.

“An’ where has ’e been took to?” inquired Tom.

She couldn’t tell; she knew it was somewhere about the White-horse Plains, but she didn’t know more than that.

“Did ’e not say w’en ’e’d be ’ome?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Oh dear!” said Tom, rubbing his long nose in great perplexity. “It’s an ’orrible case o’ sudden and onexpected pison.”

She was sorry for it, but couldn’t help that; and thereupon, bidding him good-morning, shut the door.

Tom’s wits had come to that condition which just precedes “giving it up” as hopeless, when it occurred to him that he was not far from Mr Kennedy’s residence; so he stepped into the cariole again and drove thither. On his arrival, he threw poor Mrs Kennedy and Kate into great consternation by his exceedingly graphic, and more than slightly exaggerated, account of what had brought him in search of the doctor. At first Mrs Kennedy resolved to go up to Fort Garry immediately, but Kate persuaded her to remain at home, by pointing out that she could herself go, and if anything very serious had occurred (which she didn’t believe), Mr Kennedy could come down for her immediately, while she (Kate) could remain to nurse her brother.

In a few minutes Kate and Tom were seated side by side in the little cariole, driving swiftly up the frozen river; and two hours later the former was seated by her brother’s bedside, watching him, as he slept, with a look of tender affection and solicitude.

Rousing himself from his slumbers, Charley looked vacantly round the room.

“Have you slept well, darling?” inquired Kate, laying her hand lightly on his forehead.

“Slept—eh! oh yes, I’ve slept. I say, Kate, what a precious bump I came down on my head, to be sure!”

“Hush, Charley!” said Kate, perceiving that he was becoming energetic. “Father said you were to keep quiet—and so do I,” she added, with a frown. “Shut your eyes, sir, and go to sleep.”

Charley complied by shutting his eyes, and opening his mouth, and uttering a succession of deep snores.

“Now, you bad boy,” said Kate, “why won’t you try to rest?”

“Because, Kate dear,” said Charley, opening his eyes again—“because I feel as if I had slept a week at least; and not being one of the seven sleepers, I don’t think it necessary to do more in that way just now. Besides, my sweet but particularly wicked sister, I wish just at this moment to have a talk with you.”

“But are you sure it won’t do you harm to talk? do you feel quite strong enough?”

“Quite: Samson was a mere infant compared to me.”

“Oh, don’t talk nonsense, Charley dear, and keep your hands quiet, and don’t lift the clothes with your knees in that way, else I’ll go away and leave you.”

“Very well, my pet, if you do I’ll get up and dress and follow you, that’s all! But come, Kate, tell me first of all how it was that I got pitched off that long-legged rhinoceros, and who it was that picked me up, and why wasn’t I killed, and how did I come here; for my head is sadly confused, and I scarcely recollect anything that has happened. And before commencing your discourse, Kate, please hand me a glass of water, for my mouth is as dry as a whistle.”

Kate handed him a glass of water, smoothed his pillow, brushed the curls gently off his forehead, and sat down on the bedside.

“Thank you, Kate; now go on.”

“Well, you see—” she began.

“Pardon me, dearest,” interrupted Charley, “if you would please to look at me you would observe that my two eyes are tightly closed, so that I don’t see at all.”

“Well, then, you must understand—”

“Must I? oh!—”

“That after that wicked horse leaped with you over the stable fence, you were thrown high into the air, and turning completely round, fell head foremost into the snow, and your poor head went through the top of an old cask that had been buried there all winter.”

“Dear me!” ejaculated