Dr. Sevier

“ A physician’s carriage had driven briskly up to it, ground its wheels against the curb-stone, and halted. If any fresh crumbs of horror were about to be dropped, the children must be there to feast on them. Dr. Sevier stepped out, gave Mary his hand and then his arm, and went in with her. A question or two in the prison office, a reference to the rolls, and a turnkey led the way through a dark gallery lighted with dimly burning gas. ”

“ Here the speaker again singled out Dr. Sevier. “Watch the young man out of one corner of your eye; but make him swim!”
“Ah-h!” said the ladies.
“No, no,” continued the banker; “I don’t say let him drown; but I take it, Doctor, that your alms, for instance, [Pg 191] are no alms if they put the poor fellow into your debt and at your back.”
“To whom do you refer?” asked Dr. Sevier. Whereat there was a burst of laughter, which was renewed when the banker charged the physician with helping so many persons, “on the sly,” that he couldn’t tell which one was alluded to unless the name were given. ”

“ He craved and got the little man’s release on parole. A fortnight later, as Dr. Sevier was sitting at the breakfast table, with the little rector at its opposite end, he all at once rose to his full attenuated height, with a frown and then a smile, and, tumbling the chair backward behind him, exclaimed:—
“Why, Laura!”—for it was that one of his two gay young nieces who stood in the door-way. The banker’s wife followed in just behind, and was presently saying, with the prettiest heartiness, that Dr. Sevier looked no older than the day they met the Florida general at dinner years before. ”

“ Richling saw, and they parted.
Thus everybody hoped. Dr. Sevier, wifeless, childless, had his hopes too, nevertheless. Hopes for the hospital and his many patients in it and out of it; hopes for his town and his State; hopes for Richling and Mary; and hopes with fears, and fears with hopes, for the great sisterhood of States. Richling had one hope more. After some weeks had passed Dr. Sevier ventured once more to say:—
“Richling, go home. Go to your wife. I must tell you you’re no ordinary sick man. Your life is in danger.” ”

“ I hate for any one to be afraid of me.”
“Do you, Doctor?” said Richling, with surprise and evident introspection.
“Yes.”
Richling felt his own fear changing to love.
“When I married,” continued Dr. Sevier, “I had thought Alice was one that would go with me hand in hand through life, dividing its cares and doubling its joys, as they say; I guiding her and she guiding me. But if I had let her, she would have fallen into me as a planet might fall into the sun. I didn’t want to be the sun to her. I didn’t want her to shine only when I shone on her, and be dark when I was dark. ”

“ Richling looked down askance, pushed his fingers through his hair perplexedly, drew a deep breath, lifted his eyes to the Doctor’s again, smiled incredulously, and rubbed his brow.
“You don’t see it?” asked the physician, in a tone of surprise.
“O Doctor,”—throwing up a despairing hand,—“we’re miles apart. I don’t see how any work could be nobler. It looks to me”— But Dr. Sevier interrupted.
“—From an emotional stand-point, Richling. Richling,”—he changed his attitude again,—“if you want to be a philanthropist, be cold-blooded.” ”

“ Laura has put two more leaves into her dining-table. Children fill three seats. Alice has another. It is she, now, not her chair, that is tall—and fair. Mary, too, has a seat at the same board. This is their home now. Her hair is turning all to silver. So early? Yes; but she is—she never was—so beautiful! They all see it—feel it; Dr. Sevier—the gentle, kind, straight old Doctor—most of all. And oh! when they two, who have never joined hands on this earth, go to meet John and Alice,—which God grant may be at one and the same time,—what weeping there will be among God’s poor! ”

“ There were not many men whom he could even propose to haunt. He had been to all of them. Dr. Sevier was not one. “Not to-day,” said Richling.
“It all depends on the way it’s done,” he said to himself; “it needn’t degrade a man if it’s done the right way.” It was only by such philosophy he had done it at all. Ristofalo he could have haunted without effort; but Ristofalo was not to be found. Richling tramped in vain. It may be that all plans were of equal merit just then. The summers of New Orleans in those times were, as to commerce, an utter torpor, and the autumn reawakening was very tardy. ”

“ Narcisse was sorry.
“I have been doing what I could for you, downstairs,—running up the prices of things. I wish I could stay to do more, for the sake of old times. I came to see Mr. Richling, Madame Zénobie; is he in? Dr. Sevier wants him.”
Richling? Why, the Richlings did not live there! The Doctor must know it. Why should she be made responsible for this mistake? It was his oversight. They had moved long ago. Dr. Sevier had seen them looking for apartments. Where did they live now? Ah, me! she could not tell. Did Mr. Richling owe the Doctor something? ”

“ Richling bit his lip, but went on:—
“We can bear anything on earth together; but we have sworn to stay together through better and worse”—
“Oh, pf-f-f-f!” said the doctor, closing his eyes and swinging his head away again.
“—And we’re going to do it,” concluded Richling.
“But you can’t do it!” cried the Doctor, so loudly that Narcisse stood up on the rungs of his stool and peered.
“We can’t separate.”
Dr. Sevier smote the desk and sprang to his feet:—
“Sir, you’ve got to do it! If you continue in this way, you’ll die. You’ll die, Mr. Richling—both of you! You’ll die! ”

“ Richling had, in a moment of gloom, tipped the bowl a little too high, as her dear lost husband, the best man that ever walked, had often done, and had been locked up at night to be let out in the morning, why, give him a chance! Let him invent his own little fault-hiding romance and come home with it. Mary was frantic. She could not be kept in; but Mrs. Riley, by prolonged effort, convinced her it was best not to call upon Dr. Sevier until she could be sure some disaster had actually occurred, and sent her among the fruiterers and oystermen in vain search for Raphael Ristofalo. ”

“ Sevier felt, right here at this door-step, that, if this was to be the last of the Richlings, he would feel the twinge of parting every time they came up again in his memory.
He looked at the house opposite,—where there was really nothing to look at,—and at a woman who happened to be passing, and who was only like a thousand others with whom he had nothing to do.
“Richling,” he said, “what brings you to New Orleans, any way?”
Richling leaned his cheek against the door-post.
“Simply seeking my fortune, Doctor.”
“Do you think it is here?”
“I’m pretty sure it is; the world owes me a living.” ”

“ Richling would moan, with his dishevelled brows between his hands, and then start to his feet, exclaiming, “I must not! I must not! I must keep my senses!” And so to the commercial regions or to the hospital.
Dr. Sevier, as we know, left word that Richling should call and see him; but when he called, a servant—very curtly, it seemed to him—said the Doctor was not well and didn’t want to see anybody. This was enough for a young man who hadn’t his senses. The more he needed a helping hand the more unreasonably shy he became of those who might help him. ”

“ I’ll face my duty and think of Mary.”
He laughed.
“Excellent pastime,” responded Dr. Sevier.
They rode on in silence.
“As to”—began Richling again,—“as to such matters as these, once a man confronts the question candidly, there is really no room, that I can see, for a man to choose: a man, at least, who is always guided by conscience.”
“If there were such a man,” responded the Doctor.
“True,” said John.
“But for common stuff, such as you and I are made of, it must sometimes be terrible.”
“I dare say,” said Richling. “It sometimes requires cold blood to choose aright.” ”

“ Still, I lose patience with myself to find myself taking Mary’s absence so hard.”
“All hardships are comparative,” said the Doctor.
“Certainly they are,” replied Richling. “I lie sometimes and think of men who have been political prisoners, shut away from wife and children, with war raging outside and no news coming in.”
“Think of the common poor,” exclaimed Dr. Sevier,—“the thousands of sailors’ wives and soldiers’ wives. Where does that thought carry you?”
“It carries me,” responded the other, with a low laugh, “to where I’m always a little ashamed of myself.” ”

“ A man must die! So, while he lives, let him be a man!”
How inharmonious a setting, then, for Dr. Sevier, was 31⁄2 Carondelet street! As he drove, each morning, down to that point, he had to pass through long, irregular files of fellow-beings thronging either sidewalk,—a sadly unchivalric grouping of men whose daily and yearly life was subordinated only and entirely to the getting of wealth, and whose every eager motion was a repetition of the sinister old maxim that “Time is money.”
[Pg 8] “It’s a great deal more, sir; it’s life!” the Doctor always retorted. ”

“ Izard. “We’re used to strange things, and this isn’t so very strange. No, it’s very common. I suppose he knew that if he gave it to me it would be attended to in a quiet and innocent sort o’ way. Some people hate mighty bad to get talked about. Nobody’s seen that picture but you and one ’aid,’ and just as soon as he saw it he said, ‘Why, that’s the chap that Dr. Sevier took out of the Parish Prison last September.’ And there won’t anybody else see it.”
“Don’t you intend to see Richling?” asked the Doctor, following the detective toward the door. ”

“ The Doctor hesitated. Richling sat gazing at him, afraid to move an eye lest he should lose an advantage. The Doctor turned to his desk and wrote.
On the next morning Richling did not come for his [Pg 250] breakfast; and, not many days after, Dr. Sevier received through the mail the following letter:—
New Orleans, December 2, 1857.
Dear Doctor,—I’ve got the place. I’m Reisen’s book-keeper. I’m earning my living. And I like the work. Bread, the word bread, that has so long been terrible to me, is now the sweetest word in the language. ”

“ Sevier started in his seat. “Richling, I can’t do that. I should ruin you. If you drive my carriage”—
“Just for a time, Doctor, till I find something else.”
“No! no! If you drive my carriage in New Orleans you’ll never do anything else.”
“Why, Doctor, there are men standing in the front ranks to-day, who”—
“Yes, yes,” replied the Doctor, impatiently, “I know,—who began with menial labor; but—I can’t explain it to you, Richling, but you’re not of the same sort; that’s all. I say it without praise or blame; you must have work adapted to your abilities.” ”

“ Take care of Mary, Richling; she’s a priceless treasure. Don’t leave the making and sustaining of the home sunshine all to her, any more than you’d like her to leave it all to you.”
“I’ll not, Doctor; I’ll not.” Richling pressed the Doctor’s hand fervently; but the Doctor drew it away with a certain energy, and rose, saying:—
“Yes, you can sit up to-morrow.”
The day that Richling went back to his malarious home in Prieur street Dr. Sevier happened to meet him just beyond the hospital gate. Richling waved his hand. He looked weak and tremulous. “Homeward bound,” he said, gayly. ”

“ Richling bent his ear.
“All right; we’ll try you! I don’t care much about recommendations. I generally most always make up my opinion about a man from looking at him. I’m that sort of a man.”
He smiled with inordinate complacency.
So, week by week, as has been said already, the winter passed,—Richling on one side of the town, hidden away in his work, and Dr. Sevier on the other, very positive that the “young pair” must have returned to Milwaukee. ”

“ Some men carry their sense on top and their folly down below”—
[Pg 239] Richling smiled broadly through his dejection, and touched his own chest. “Like this big fool here,” he said.
“Exactly,” said Dr. Sevier. “Now you’ve developed a defect of the memory. Your few merchantable qualities have been so long out of the market, and you’ve suffered such humiliation under the pressure of adversity, that you’ve—you’ve done a very bad thing.”
“Say a dozen,” responded Richling, with bitter humor. But the Doctor swung his head in resentment of the levity. ”

“ To fight evil is not enough. Everybody seemed to feel as though that were a war against himself. Oh for some one always to understand—never to fear—the frowning good intention of the lonely man!
[Pg 294]
CHAPTER XXXIX. “PETTENT PRATE.”
It was about the time, in January, when clerks and correspondents were beginning to write ’59 without first getting it ’58, that Dr. Sevier, as one morning he approached his office, noticed with some grim amusement, standing among the brokers and speculators of Carondelet street, the baker, Reisen. ”

“ Come, Doctor Sevier; come out and close the door.
“Strangest thing on earth!” I once heard a physician say,—“the mysterious power that the dying so often have to fix the very hour of their approaching end!” It was so in John Richling’s case. It was as he said. Had Mary and Alice not come when they did, they would [Pg 453] have been too late. He “tarried but a night;” and at the dawn Mary uttered the bitter cry of the widow, and Doctor Sevier closed the eyes of the one who had committed no fault,—against this world, at least,—save that he had been by nature a pilgrim and a stranger in it. ”