Читать книгу Up the Hill and Over - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay - Страница 4

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He had a fancy that something cool and kind was licking his hand. …

It felt like the tongue of a friendly dog. He seemed to have been dreaming about dogs. Something soft and cold lay on his head. It felt like a wet handkerchief … the pain had dulled to a slow throbbing … if he opened his eyes he would know who licked his hand and what it was that lay upon his head … on the other hand, opening his eyes might bring back the pain. It seemed hardly worth the risk … still, he would very much like to know—

Without being able to decide the question, he fell asleep.

When he awoke, his head was clear and the pain was gone. He felt no longer unbearably tired, but only comfortably weary, deliciously drowsy. Had he been at home in his own bed he would have turned over and gone cheerfully to sleep again. As it was, he opened his eyes with a zestful sense of curiosity.

He was lying, very easily, upon soft grass. Above him spread the thick greenery of a giant maple; his head rested upon a cushion and close beside him, with comforting nose thrust into his open palm, lay a ferocious-looking bull pup. The pup grinned with delight at his tentative pat; barked fiercely, and then grinned again as if to say, "Don't mind me, it's only my fun!"

There was a noise somewhere, a loud, cheerful noise—the noise of children playing. Not one child, nor two, but children—lots of them! This was perplexing; and another perplexing thing was the nearness of a white stoop which led up to the door of a white building; neither stoop nor building had he ever seen before. Again the dog barked, loudly, and as if in answer to the bark, the door above the stoop opened and a young girl came out. She cast a casual glance at him as he lay under the tree, and, settling herself daintily upon the white steps, opened a small basket and took from it a serviceable square of white damask and a lettuce sandwich. He could see the lettuce, crisp and green, peeping out at the edges.

At the sight, he was conscious of a strange sensation; an almost forgotten feeling to which, for the moment, he could put no name.

And then, as the girl bit into the sandwich, illumination came. He was hungry! But what an unkind, inconsiderate girl!—Another bite and the sandwich would be gone—

"I am awake," he suggested meekly.

"So Buster said." The girl smiled approvingly at the dog. "Good Buster!

You may come off guard, sir. Run away and get your lunch."

With a delighted bark for thanks the bull pup trotted away. Callandar's sense of injury deepened. The girl had begun upon a second sandwich. Perhaps there were only two!

"Are you hungry, Mr. Tramp?" asked the girl innocently.

"I think," he said, pausing in order to give his words full weight, "I am starving!" Then, as the blissful meaning of this first feeling of healthy hunger dawned upon him, he added solemnly: "Thank the Lord!"

"Yes?" There was a cool edge of surprise in the girl's voice. She proceeded thoughtfully with the second sandwich.

"Yes. Hunger is a beautiful thing, a priceless possession. Money cannot buy it, skill cannot command it. The price of hunger is far above rubies."

The girl looked down upon him and smiled. It was such a dear little smile that for a moment its recipient forgot about the disappearing sandwich.

"I am so glad," she said warmly, "that you feel like that!"

There was a slight pause. "Because," she went on, finishing the last bite of the second sandwich, "until now I had always thought that hunger wasn't a bit nice. Unless, of course, one has the power to gratify it."

"Fortunately," said Callandar a little stiffly, "I have that power."

The girl raised her eyebrows. They were long and straight and black, and she raised them charmingly. But she was a most unkind and heartless girl, for all that. Never while he lived would he ask her for a sandwich. With a comfortable feeling of security his hand felt for his well-filled pocketbook. It was gone!

"By Jove!"

Stronger ejaculation seemed forbidden by the Presence on the steps. He tapped all his pockets carefully. The pocketbook was in none of them—and he had used the last cent of loose change for a glass of milk for breakfast.

"I suppose," the girl had apparently not noticed his sudden discomfiture, "that you mean you have money? But the nearest place where money would be of use is Coombe, and Coombe is a full mile away. It is a pity that my principles, and the principles of the school-board, should be all against the feeding of tramps. Otherwise I might offer you a sandwich."

"You might," bitterly, "but I doubt it!"

"Even now, putting the school-board aside, I might offer you one if you were to ask prettily and to apologise to me for making rather a fool of me this morning over there by the pump!"

The pump! Why, of course, the pump! It all came back to him now—the pump, the avenging angel! (Had this been the avenging angel?) The avenging dog!—Oh, heaven, was that the avenging dog?

He burst into a boyish shout of laughter.

"There are only two sandwiches left," she warned him. The doctor stopped laughing.

"Oh, please!" he said.

There was something very pleasant about him when he used that tone; a persuasive charm, a trace of command. The girl liked it—and passed a sandwich.

"Anyway it was you who took for granted that I was a tramp," he smiled at her. "If I remember rightly I was hardly in a condition to contradict you. Not but that it was a natural conclusion. I am curious to know why you changed your mind."

"Oh! as soon as you fainted I knew. Tramps don't faint!"

"Not ever?"

"Well—hardly ever! And besides—look at your hands!"

The doctor looked, and blushed.

"Dirty?" he ventured.

"Not half dirty enough! And it wasn't only your hands. I noticed—oh! lots of things!" For no perceptible reason a tiny blush fluttered across the whiteness of her face like a roseleaf chased by the wind. The pleasure of watching it made the doctor forget to answer, and the girl went on:

"I know lots more about you than that you aren't a tramp. I know what you are. You are a doctor!" triumphantly.

"A Daniel come to judgment!"

"Yes, a Daniel! Only I wouldn't have been quite so sure if you hadn't dropped this out of your pocket." With a gleeful laugh she held up a clinical thermometer.

The doctor laughed also. "Men have been hanged on less evidence than that," he admitted. "All the same I don't know where it came from. Some one must have judged me capable of wanting to take my own temperature. Anything else?"

"Only general deductions. You are a doctor, you are going to

Coombe—deduction, you are the doctor who is going to buy out Dr.

Simmonds's practice."

Callandar scrambled up from his pillow with a look of delighted surprise on his face.

"Why—so I am!" he exclaimed.

"You say that as if you had just found it out."

"Well, er—you see I had forgotten it—temporarily. My head, you know."

The suspicion in the girl's eyes melted into sympathy. "I suppose you know," she said with quite a motherly air, "that old Doc. Simmonds hasn't really any practice to sell?"

"No? That's bad. Hasn't he even a little one? You see" (the sympathy had been so pleasant that he felt he could do with a little more of it), "I could hardly manage a big one just now. As you may have noticed, my health is rather rocky. Got to lay up and all that—so it's just as well that old Simpkins' practice is on the ragged edge."

"The name is Simmonds, not Simpkins," coldly.

"Well, I didn't buy the name with the practice. My own name is

Callandar. Much nicer, don't you think?"

"I don't know. A well-known name is rather a handicap."

This time the doctor was genuinely surprised.

"A handicap? What do you mean?"

"People will be sure to compare you with your famous namesake, Dr. Callandar, of Montreal. Everyone you meet," with a mischievous smile, "will say, 'Callandar—ah! no relation to Dr. Henry Callandar of Montreal, I suppose?' And then they will look sympathetic and you will want to slap them."

"Dear me! I never thought of that! I had no idea that the Montreal man would be known up here. In the cities, perhaps, but not here."

The girl raised her straight black brows in a way which expressed displeasure at his slighting tone.

"You are mistaken," she said briefly. "I must go now. It is time to ring the bell. The children are running wild."

For the first time the doctor began to take an intelligent interest in his surroundings, and saw that the tree, the white stoop and the small white building were situated in a little, quiet oasis separated by a low fence from the desert of a large yard containing the red pump. On the other side of the fence was pandemonium!

"Why, it's a school!" he exclaimed.

The school-mistress arose, daintily flicking the crumbs from her white piqué skirt.

"District No. 15. The largest attendance of any in the county. I really must ring the bell." She flicked another invisible crumb. "I hope," she added slowly, "that I haven't discouraged you."

"Oh, no! not at all. Quite the contrary. It seems unfortunate about the name, but perhaps I can live it down. It isn't as if I were just out of college, you know.—In fact," as if the thought had just come to him, "do I not seem to you to be a little old for—to be making a fresh start?"

The girl's eyes looked at him very kindly. It was quite evident that she thought she understood the situation perfectly. "I shouldn't worry about that, if I were you," she said. "Young doctors are often no use at all. A great many people prefer doctors to be older! I know, you see, for my father was a doctor. He was Dr. Coombe; for many years he was the only doctor here, the only doctor that counted," with a pretty air of pride. "The town was named after his father-I am Esther Coombe."

The doctor acknowledged the introduction with a bow and a quick smile of gratitude.

"You are really very kind, Miss Coombe," he said. "If—if I should take Dr. Spifkin's practice, I hope I may see you sometimes. It is not far from here, is it, to the town—pump?"

Esther laughed. "No, but I do not live out here. I only teach here. We live in town, or almost in. You will pass the house on the way to the hotel. But before you go—" with a gleeful smile she handed him his lost pocketbook—"this fell out of your coat when I pull—helped you under the tree. I should have given it to you before, but I wanted you to understand just how far the blessing of hunger depends upon one's power to gratify it."

They laughed together with a splendid sense of comradeship; then with a startled "I really must ring the bell!" she turned and ran up the steps.

Smilingly he watched her disappear, waiting musingly until a sudden furious ringing told him that school was called.