第48章

'I'll have it done, I will, by heavens! if you'll only say the word,' protested Sir Roger.

But the doctor did not say the word, and so the idea was passed off.

'You shouldn't be so testy with a man when he is ill,' said Scatcherd, still holding the doctor's hand, of which he had again got possession;

'specially not an old friend; and specially again when you're been a-blowing him up.'

It was not worth the doctor's while to aver that the testiness had all been on the other side, and that he had never lost his good-humour; so he merely smiled, and asked Sir Roger if he could do anything further for him.

'Indeed you can, doctor; and that's why I sent for you,--why I sent for you yesterday. Get out of the room, Winterbones,' he then said gruffly, as though he were dismissing from his chamber a dirty dog.

Winterbones, not a whit offended, again hid his cup under his coat-tail and vanished.

'Sit down, Thorne, sit down,' said the contractor, speaking in quite a different manner from any that he had yet assumed. 'I know you're in a hurry, but you must give me half an hour. I may be dead before you can give me another; who knows?'

The doctor of course declared that he hoped to have many a half-hour's chat with him for many a year to come.

'Well, that's as may be. You must stop now, at any rate. You can make the cob pay for it, you know.'

The doctor took a chair and sat down. Thus entreated to stop, he had hardly any alternative but to do so.

'It wasn't because I'm ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you. Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don't know what it is that makes me like this? When I see that poor wretch Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don't know what's coming to myself as well as him?

'Why do you take it then? Why do you do it? Your life is not like his. Oh, Scatcherd! Scatcherd!' and the doctor prepared to pour out the flood of his eloquence in beseeching this singular man to abstain from his well-known poison.

'Is that all you know of human nature, doctor? Abstain. Can you abstain from breathing, and live like a fish does under water?'

'But Nature has not ordered you to drink, Scatcherd.'

'Habit is second nature, man; and a stronger nature than the first. And why should I not drink? What else has the world given me for all that I have done for it? What other resource have I? What other gratification?'

'Oh, my God! Have you not unbounded wealth? Can you not do anything you wish? be anything you choose?'

'No,' and the sick man shrieked with an energy that made him audible all through the house. 'I can do nothing that I would choose to do; be nothing that I would wish to be! What can I do? What can I be? What gratification can I have except the brandy bottle? If I go among gentlemen, can I talk to them? If they have anything to say about a railway, they will ask me a question: if they speak to me beyond that, I must be dumb. If I go among my workmen, can they talk to me? No; I am their master, and a stern master. They bob their heads and shake in their shoes when they see me. Where are my friends? Here!' said he, and he dragged a bottle from under his very pillow. 'Where are my amusements? Here!' and he brandished the bottle almost in the doctor's face. 'Where is my one resource, my one gratification, my only comfort after all my toils. Here, doctor; here, here, here!' and, so saying, he replaced his treasure beneath his pillow.

There was something so horrifying in this, that Dr Thorne shrank back amazed, and was for a moment unable to speak.

'But, Scatcherd,' he said at last; 'surely you would not die for such a passion as that?' 'Die for it? Aye, would I. Live for it while I can live; and die for it when I can live no longer. Die for it! What is that for a man to do? What is a man the worse for dying? What can I be the worse for dying? A man can die but once, you said just now. I'd die ten times for this.'

'You are speaking now either in madness, or else in folly, to startle me.'

'Folly enough, perhaps, and madness enough, also. Such a life as mine makes a man a fool, and makes him mad too. What have about me that I should be afraid to die? I'm worth three hundred thousand pounds; and I'd give it all to be able to go to work to-morrow with a hod and mortar, and have a fellow clap his hand upon my shoulder, and say:

"Well, Roger, shall us have that 'ere other half-pint this morning?"

I'll tell you what, Thorne, when a man has made three hundred thousand pounds, there's nothing left for him but to die. It's all he's good for then. When money's been made, the next thing is to spend it. Now the man who makes it has not the heart to do that.'

The doctor, of course, in hearing all this, said something of a tendency to comfort and console the mind of his patient. Not that anything he could say would comfort or console the man; but that it was impossible to sit there and hear such fearful truths--for as regarded Scatcherd they were truths--without making some answer.'

'This is as good as a play, isn't, doctor?' said the baronet. 'You didn't know how I could come out like one of those actor fellows. Well, now, come; at last I'll tell you why I have sent for you. Before that last burst of mine I made my will.'

'You had made a will before that.'

'Yes, I had. That will is destroyed. I burnt it with my own hand, so that there should be no mistake about it. In that will I had named two executors, you and Jackson. I was then partner with Jackson in the York and Yeovil Grand Central. I thought a deal of Jackson then. He's not worth a shilling now.'

'Well, I'm exactly in the same category.'

'No, you're not. Jackson is nothing without money; but money'll never make you.'

'No, nor I shan't make money,' said the doctor.

'No, you never will. Nevertheless, there's my other will, there, under that desk there; and I've put you in as sole executor.'

'You must alter that, Scatcherd; you must indeed; with three hundred thousand pounds to be disposed of, the trust is far too much for any one man: besides you must name a younger man; you and I are of the same age, and I may die first.'