Dr. Mortimer

“ From the Admiral to the last ne'er-do-weel of a noble house all sprang to their feet. "God!" said one, under his breath, and another's tankard fell clattering from his shaking hand. Nevil, the calm accustomed state, the iron quiet of his nature quite broken, advanced with agitation. "Mortimer, Mortimer!" he cried, and would have put his arms about his friend, but Ferne stayed him with a gesture and a look that none might understand. Behind him came Robin-a-dale, slipped beneath his outstretched arm, then with head thrown back and wild defiant eyes faced the little throng of adventurers. ”

“ He had the wiry frame and strong jaw without which no explorer is complete, and Mortimer, beside him, seemed but a poor, soft product of our hot-house civilization. Mortimer, I forgot to say, wore glasses; and, if there is one time more than another when a man should not wear glasses, it is while a strong-faced, keen-eyed wanderer in the wilds is telling a beautiful girl the story of his adventures. ”

“ Oh, the heat! There is no air!"
Followed a hideous gurgling; then:
"The earth is dissolving beneath my feet! It is the end. Creation is returning to its original atoms! Oh, my God!" There was a sickening scream that rapidly grew fainter with the effect of fading on radio.
"Williams!" shouted Mortimer. "What happened?"
There was no answer.
"Williams! Williams!" Mortimer was on his feet, fairly shrieking into the instrument. "Do you hear me?"
The only response was utter silence.
Mortimer clutched me by the arm and dragged me with him from the laboratory and down the hall. ”

“ Thus did she deem a union requisite to rouse him to exertion; to restore his peace, and in all probability to save his life. She joined in her brother’s arguments and entreaties, with tears she joined in them, and besought Mortimer to accede to their wishes. She called him the last hope of their house. He had long, she said, been the pride, the delight of their days; their comfort, their existence were interwoven in his; if he sunk, they sunk with him.
The yielding soul of Mortimer could not resist such tenderness, and he gave a promise of acting as they wished. ”

“ We cannot blame Lord Mortimer for them. Situated as you were with him, your conduct has naturally excited the most injurious suspicions. Surely, my child, though not allowed to solve the mystery which has separated you from him, you may be allowed to vindicate your conduct. The sacrifice of fame and happiness is too much. Consider and weigh well what I say, and, if possible, authorize me to inform Lord Mortimer that I know of your retreat, and that you have retired neither to a lover nor a friend ”

“ There was one of them—Maudie—with whom he had flirted in his holidays; he wondered at that, especially when a relentless memory told him that Mrs. Mortimer must have been at the parties where the thing went on. He felt very much older, so much older that Mrs. Mortimer became at once a contemporary; why then should she begin, as she now did, to talk to him, in quasi-maternal fashion, about his prospects? Men don’t have prospects, or, anyhow, are spared questionings thereon. ”

“ I married Mortimer like a blind puppy, not knowing, not seeing. I am nothing wonderful, but I do think I am too good for him! Why did I not see it then? Why is a girl such a fool? Why does nobody tell her? It is very hard. They say, as one has made one’s bed, so one must lie on it.... But suppose I decline to lie on it?”
She almost leaped in her bed with the shock of this crude presentment of a new idea. Then she rose, lit a candle and walked out of her room, and across a landing, and straight into Mortimer’s room. ”

“ He pulled a letter out of his pocket.
"My friend Taplow--'the ladies' doctor' they call him--has a surgery over the water. As you may know, it's not an uncommon thing for a man with a fat West-end practice to run a shilling and six-penny shop in the slums. Anything for money, Mortimer! Well, as I said, he's got a surgery over the water--in the Blackfriars district--and he wants a man to look after it. He'll pay about a hundred and twenty a year. Any good to you?"
"Better than living on air," said Jim. ”

“ You do when you are busy every minute. And then we have the blessing of health, and Mortimer is the best boy in the world, and you are a very good child when you are not in a bad temper. I think you will be handsome, too, although you are pretty hopeless at present; but of course you will never have anything like Mortimer's looks. He is the living image of the painting of your Great-great-great-grandfather Dwight that used to hang in the dining-room in Utica, and who was in the first Congress. ”

“ Dr Mortimer demanded of Mr Harris.
"Yes, I'm the man," was the answer--"I fetched 'em. You see, last night I goes into Dr Mortimer's surgery and svallows vot I took for prussic acid. Yes, 'arf a pint. And vile I vos vaitin' for the end, I fell asleep, and ven I vakes the doctor vos standin' by me. Vell, 'e tells me it vosn't p'ison, and then 'e goes orf to Pine Court. Vell, just after, in comes Mr Somers, and says 'e: 'Vare is the doctor?' an' I says: ''E's gone to vare it mentions in that bit of paper.' 'Pine Court,' says Mr Somers. ”

“ His voice was so hoarse, so strange, that they all turned and looked.
"On the Nile," repeated Mortimer. "All over Egypt. Why?"
Ainsley made no answer. Unclasping his hold, he suddenly slid down the face of the rock, and with a bump lit on his hands and knees. With one bound he had cleared a flower-bed. In two more he had mounted the steps to the terrace, and in another instant had disappeared into the house.
"What happened to him?" demanded Elsie Mortimer.
"He's gone to get a gun!" exclaimed Mortimer. "But he mustn't! How can he think of shooting them?" he cried indignantly. ”

“ Dr Mortimer--this is my step-daughter--Dora."
"I have had the pleasure," said Jim, as he bent his lofty head, "of meeting Miss Dora before, Mrs Maybury."
"Indeed!" cried Mrs Maybury. "How very small the world is! Yes--and--Mr Jefferson--Dr Mortimer."
Dora's companion had entered the room and approached the group. Directly their eyes met, Mr Jefferson and Jim recognised each other, the former being no less a person than the pale-faced gentleman who had uttered loud remarks at the Exhibition concerning early closing. ”

“ An atmosphere, impervious, and almost impalpable, seems to oppress the spirit. Surely we are on the trail of some demon, and his subtle influence is about us."
"Ah!" said Mortimer, starting aside with a shudder, as though a serpent stung him.
"Heardest thou aught, Mortimer?"
"I thought there was a rushing past my ear."
"I heard it too," replied Pilkington, in a low and agitated tone; "but I heard more, Mortimer. A voice, methought, distinct as thine own, swept by: 'Go not,' was faintly uttered. I am sure I heard the words." ”

“ Yes, I am glad you came in time. Do you know, Eros, I did not think Mortimer would come at all? That passage in the letter that I did not read you spoke of a strange pestilence, and immediately it came into my mind that Mortimer was dead. And even now,” she continued, turning to the guest, and half-timidly meeting his strong, unfathomable eyes with her own, “even now, though I see you here between us, I cannot feel as if our Mortimer were in this world. Are you really he? or a messenger come to tell us that he is gone?”
“I am alive—am I not?” ”

“ I had to tell him then of my last interview with Roland, and of the impossible demand he had made upon me, by which, though he tried to laugh, he was much discomposed, as I could see. "We must just perjure ourselves all round," he said, "and swear you exorcised it"; but the man was too kind-hearted to be satisfied with that. "It's frightfully serious for you, Mortimer. I can't laugh as I should like to. I wish I saw a way out of it, for your sake. By the way," he added shortly, "didn't you notice that juniper-bush on the left-hand side?" ”

“ So, after a short silence, Dr Mortimer slackened his pace, and said: "She's a nice girl, then, Mr Somers?"
"She's as nice a girl as you could meet, Doctor."
"Doesn't spend all her time reading silly novels, I trust?"
"Hardly all her time, Doctor. She reads a certain number, I suppose."
"She's a good girl--I mean, a girl with religion? I don't believe in your modern young lady who strums waltzes on the piano instead of going to church!"
"Nor do I," said Koko. "Yes," he added, "she's a good girl. She's been looking after the poor flower-seller who saved Jim's face from the Hooligan's boot." ”

“ But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the disease is incurable?"
I said that while there was life there was hope.
"Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child unborn. If you would —. As I live, the directions say give one teaspoonful once an hour! Once an hour! — as if we had a whole year before us to save the child in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a table-spoonful, and try to be quick!" ”

“ Mortimer let this continue for a moment or so before he recalled the boy from his trance. To my surprise, young Bennet was, upon awakening, quite his usual self without any trace of Hun feature. He spoke, however, with a feeling of weariness.
"Now," I said when Mortimer and I were alone, "would you mind telling me what it is all about?"
He smiled. "Time," he began, "is of two kinds; mental and physical. Of these, mental is the real; physical the unreal; or, we might say, the instrument used to measure the real. ”

“ The earl beheld his emotions, and blessed it as a happy omen. His pride, as well as sensibility, he continued, were deeply wounded at the idea of having Lord Mortimer still considered the slave of a passion which had met so base a return. “Oh! I let not the world,” added he, with increasing energy, “triumph in your weakness; try to shake it off, ere the finger of scorn and ridicule is pointed at you as the dupe of a deceitful woman’s art.”
Lord Mortimer was inexpressibly shocked. His pride had frequently represented as weakness the regret he felt for Amanda ”

“ And so, in the fullness of time, they came home to Mortimer's cosy little house adjoining the links.
Mortimer was so busy polishing his ninety-four clubs on the evening of their arrival that he failed to notice that his wife was preoccupied. A less busy man would have perceived at a glance that she was distinctly nervous. She started at sudden noises, and once, when he tried the newest of his mashie-niblicks and broke one of the drawing-room windows, she screamed sharply. ”

“ He is curiously employed at present, for, being an amateur astronomer, he has an excellent telescope, with which he lies upon the roof of his own house and sweeps the moor all day in the hope of catching a glimpse of the escaped convict. If he would confine his energies to this all would be well, but there are rumours that he intends to prosecute Dr. Mortimer for opening a grave without the consent of the next-of-kin, because he dug up the neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down. He helps to keep our lives from being monotonous and gives a little comic relief where it is badly needed. ”

“ Sir Savile Smart, the renowned specialist in abdominal matters, had written to Dr Mortimer--who was an old friend of his--in high praise of Jim. But there, as ever, was the qualifying clause: "Your lad can do wonders when he likes, which isn't always." And then again Jim was given to bursts of rowdyism, accounts of which had trickled down to Threeways, where Jim was regarded as a lovable, harum-scarum youth, who would come into all the Doctor's money, "and so it would be all right." ”

“ Mortimer has just brought a telescope to bear on the distant object, and we, with that lack of good-breeding which has characterized all romancers from time immemorial, will look over his shoulder. The delighted occupant of the boat is that audacious fellow, Tim, who has taken a trip up to Ivyton from the great city, to spend a week with "Mr. Mortimer." It may be well to say that Tim—Timothy Jones, Esq., Mr. Reader—has ceased to have a proclivity for the "machine;" and now-a-days, the City Hall alarm bell never disturbs his equanimity. ”

“ Now as he raised his tankard to thirsty lips, suddenly from the square below, shattering all the languid stillness of the tropic dawn, brayed a trumpet, arose a noise of hurrying steps and hasty voices. Baldry, at the window, wheeled, color in his cheeks, light in his deep eyes.
"War is my mistress! Down the hillside come those to whom I can speak--can speak as well as thou, Sir Mortimer Ferne!" ”

“ So stood matters when old Doctor Mortimer stole a couple of days from his wealthy and, in many cases, hypochondriacal patients down at Threeways, and, running up to town to see Jim, pitched his tent in a quiet Arundel Street hotel. In order to reach Mount Street he had only to make his way along the Embankment to Blackfriars Bridge, whence to Derby Crescent was a smart fifteen minutes' walk. For the Doctor always walked if it was fine weather. "It keeps a man alive--walking," the old gentleman told Koko, who lunched with him on the day of his arrival in town. ”

“ Jim made no rejoinder. So Dora, meaning only to make him feel that she sympathised with his position, said again that she hoped all would be right between him and his grandfather by the time Christmas came.
"But you have friends," she continued, comfortingly; "there is Mr Somers, and Sir Savile and I know my father likes you--oh yes, you have friends. You must not be disheartened. You must look upon us all as your friends, Dr Mortimer." ”