The Doctor's Prescription.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1884, 2 August 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Doctor's Prescription.

" You ought to get married, Lay ton, and the sooner the better. A young vicar who is a bacholor is almost as awkwardly placed as a young doctor. Marriage, sir, marriage, that's your plan." "Very good advice, doctor, I have no doubt,," answered John Layton, vicar of Stoke Minim in the Lincoln marshes, " but then you know the old saying ' Marry in haste, repent at leisure.' " " Then don't marry in haste," returned the doctor; bsating his boot with his ridingwhip as he sat sidewise upon his cob. " Take your time over it. ' Pon my word, that woman would drive mo mad. What made you come hero to lodge? " " They told me that Mrs. Dredge was such a clean woman," said the young vicar, looking baok into the garden rather dolefully, as he stood just outside the gate, talking to the doctor, who was going his round. And certainly the prospect was not pleasant, for Mis. Dredge, a very industrious widow by tho way, was having what she called, " a good clean ; " and as it was a fine day, the whole of tb.9 parlor furniture had been moved out into the garden, where chairs were piled up as if engaged in acrobatic tricks, the table straddling over the flower-bed, the carpet lay on the tiny grassplot, the shred hearthrug hung over the fence, and there came from within a lively sound of scrubbing and the washing of water in a pail. " Why, what are you jloing now this is going on ? " " Oh, I am obliged to' make" shift in 1 the bedroom till this is done," remarked the vicar, dolefully. " Ah, I shall have to find you a wife." 41 Better find me a new vicarage." " Oh ! don't see much chance of that," said the doctor. "We are too poor over here. Why don't you come and have a walk ? Freshen up." " Well, I think I will," said the vicar. " Wait till I get my hat." He ran in for his soft felt hat, and came back to find the doctor dismounted and tying his cob's reins in a knot, so that they could not trail. " Teh, Jacob I " he cried, as the vicar joined him, and the cob went steadily on in front, while its master walked with tho young clergyman behind. " Ah 1 " said the doctor," " I must get you a wife. Let me soe." " Don't you think my income ought to preclude all matrimonial ideas ?" said John Layton, smiling. " Pooh, nonsense ! what's enough for one i 3 enough for two," cried the doctor. " Come, sir, none of your celibate ideas. llow am I to livo if people don't marry, and have children to be vaccinated and have measles and scarlatina, and rashes, and all that sort of thing ? Look here, marry a woman with money. What do you say to Mias Johnson, at Coley farm? She has been to church regularly ever since you came. There's a Btrapper. Dark hair, dark eyes, good points —but she's so plumpiyou can't talk of points. Warranted sound." " Are you talking of a lady or a horse, doctor ? " " Lady, sir, lady. Then there's Miss Wardman ; slim, genteel, hundred a year in the three per cent. Her nose is rather red, certainly, but matrimony may take that away. What are you shaking your head about ? She isn't fifty." " Won't do, doctor, wont do." " Oh, bless us and save us I " said the plump, hearty lifctte doctor, with mock surprise. " He's particular and dainty, is he? Well, what do you say to Dolly Betts, the shopkeeper's daughter? Twenty, nice pink and white good teeth, vaccinated her myself, had measles, croup, scarlet fever, chickenpox and thrush. Hegularly salted, you see, and tho old man will leave her a round sum when he can't stick to it any longer." " Try again," said the vicar, laughing, while they trudged sturdily on, with Jacob stopping every now and ,'thenjto browse, and being left a good hundred yards behind ; but the genial doctor paid no heed, and at the end of a few minutes the cob came trotting after him, went on in front, and kept there till he saw something' else toothsome. "Try again, eh? Why, you are particular ! What do you say to Lady Laura Peignton, at the Towers,?," " No, thank you." " Well then, Sir John Taunton's daughter Bridget? Ah! there's a girl for you. See her trot to hounds! Why, she leada the field, sir, and stops at nothing." " Ah, now you are talking sense, doctor," paid John Layton, mockingly; "that's just the woman to share a poor clergyman's house and visit his sick. She'll darn his stockings and sew hi 3 buttons, and help him spread out his little income so that there might be enough and to spare for charity. A woman who would help him with her counsel and advise him when trouble came upon him, and his spirit was low ; a woman who would be a helpmeet for him. Would your galloping Bridget Taunton do that? " " No, I'll bo blessed if she would, my lad. She drives me mad with her horsey slang and groom-like ways." " Then we'll leave her out of the'question," said the vicar, laughingly humoring the doctor in his prescribing fit. " That's the sort of a woman" you want, then, eh— one of that button-sewing, stock-ing-darning sort ? " " Yes." "Full of sympathy, and all that sort of thing ? " " Of course." " Saving, and ministering, and gentle ? " " Yes." "Sort of a nineteenth- century angel in petticoats ? " "Yesl" " Ah, now I see what you want," said the doctor, with a droll twinkle in his eye. " We'll soon put that right. There she is ! Hi I Fan-ny!" The vicar started with astonishment as the doctor threw open the gate of what seemed to be a pretty cottage farm, and held it while Jacob cantered through, and began to enjoy himself among the grass. But what at once took the vicar's attention was the sight of a J tall young lady in a light grass-cloth dress and soft grey hat, rising from a camp-stool, with a sketching-board in her hand, the spot where she had been sitting being beneath some pollard willows at the side of a large pond, and she stood for a moment hesitating before advancing to meet them. 1 As she came nearer the vicar could see that she had long, loosely arranged, fair hair, a very sweet expression of countenance, that she was graceful and lady-like, that she was apparently about two or three and twenty, and perfectly calm and self-possessed. " How are you, my darling ? " said the doctor, kissing her affectionately. " Don't sit out there in the sun. Here, I've brought you a visitor— the Eov. John Layton, I want him to talk to you, and see if he can't do you some good." " Oh, uncle, why ? " cried the girl, looking in astonishment, after returning the vicar's salute. " Oh, I'm serious, my dear, and it's for your good. She's just out of that wicked London, Layton — came down to stay with my sister here. I want her ways mended." " Why, uncle, what have I been doing ? " she said, laughing so merrily that, as the young vicar gazed in her sweet ingenious face, with its -brightening eyes and pleasant dimples, he wished she would laugh again. "'What have you been doing,' miss? Why, getting along with that wicked artistic lot. Parson, she uses the most terrible slang, and utters bad words. My wall paper didn't please her, and ?he called ft dado, and

aotaally said my picture that I bought at Manor House sale was hot and foxy." " Oh, hush, uncle ! " " No, miss, I won't hush. Then she says chiaroscuro, a nasty foreign word, and all sorts of other things. You must lecture her, Layton, you must indeed. There, Btop and. have a chat with her. I told my sister I'd bring you over, and there'll be a bit of dinner in about an hour'a time. I'll ride over and see Mother Baker and old Tim Rogers. Back in time." " Then this was all planned," said the vicar, quickly. "To be sure it was, my dear boy. I saw you were out of sorts, and ydu were grumbling, last time I saw you, about wanting society, so I thought I'd arrange this. There, ta-ta for the present." " This ia like a surprise, Miss Brown.'^said the vicar. " My name is Anderson — Frances Anderson," said the pleasant, bright little vision that had, as it were, suddenly made its appearance in the vicar's rustic world. I have not been very well, and nnole said I must come down for a change, so I am staying with Aunt Frances. Will jou come in ? Ah, here she is." A pleasant, comely little widow body, wonderfully like the doctor refined down, came toddling out of the cottage just then, and the vicar recognised her a3 a lady who had once been over to the church. " I am very glad to see you, Mr. Layton," she said, warmly. " I don't como over to see you often, for you see I belong to Mr. Morris's parish, though your church is nearer. Will you come in and sit down ? " " If you will allow me," said the vicar, " I should like to stay in the open air. Everything is so beautiful at this time of year, and peihapa Miss Anderson will go on with her drawing. I take great interest ia art." "Do you ? Then Igoon at once," said the girl, eagerly. " When uncle comes back I'll see about a little fruit." The vicar had felt angry at first, not liking to be made a victim of what was rather like a practiaal joke, but before he bad been ten minutes in Fanny Andersons company all that was forgotten, and he was delighted with her sweetness and utter absence of modern society young-ladyism. Ho was, in fact, chatting freely with a highly-cultivated girl, ardently in love with the art she practiced. How the time passed under those shady willows neither of them knew, for the vicar had proved himself to be no mean artist, and they were in the midst of a discussion on perspective when they were startled by the doctor's voice. "Been two hours, instead of one. Very sorry, but Mother Baker really is ill now. Fanny, my dear, get your aunt to make up a basket of odds and ends, and go and see the poor old soul." " Oh, yes uncle, I will," said Fanny, and the vicar felt a suspicious twinge as to whether this wa3 got up ; but no, it was perfectly natural, and, to hi 3 great satisfaction, there was nothing at the pleasant dinner that jarred. The doctor was quiet and gentlemanly, and never once approached a bantering tone ; so that when the hour for parting came the vicar felt that he had passed one of the pleasanlest days of his life. A week passed — a fortnight— and the doctor did not come near, so at last the Rev. John Layton found his way acros3 to the little farm, to be warmly greeted, but still in a way that never once touched upon his susceptibilities. Mrs. Baker was not in his parish, but he heard of her ailments, and how many times Fanny had been over to see the poor old lady, what she had said, and how grateful she was for a book being read to her for an hour or two, and so on. The vicar's next visit was at the end of a week, and that day there was some sketching done. Next day old Doctor Brown called upon the vicar and stopped chatting for an hour, but he never once mentioned Fanny Andersons name. He, however, invited the yicar to come and spend an evening with him ; and then they played che3S, and went down the garden, for the doctor was fond of his patch, as he called it — a very extensive garden, by the way. But, to the vicar's disappointment, no mention was made of Fanny's name. Then came more visits to the farm ; then one pleasant golden afternoon the doctor and the vicar dined there, and everything seemed peaceful and sweet. Then time ran on again till Fanny had been down for fully four months, and one soft, sunny autumn noon when, according to the now frequent custom, the vicar had walked over to the little farm, he found her by the gate with a letter in her hand, which had jußt been left by a man who had been over to the town. The grass of the home close was as soft as velvet, and the vicar's footsteps were unheard, so that he was close to Fanny Anderson before she looked up, and he saw that her cheeks were wet with tears. A sudden pang, such as he had never before felt, shot through his breast at the sight of her pained face, and he stepped forward and caught her hand in his. " You are in trouble," he said. " You have heard bad news." " I ought not to call it trouble," she replied, coloring slightly. " I ought not, perhaps, to call it bad news ; but I have been so happy down here," she said, with a plaintive look in her eyes, as she gazed round the place with its verdant fields and charming woods. " Everything has been ao calm and peaceful, and I have been so well, Mr. Layton, that I quite dread poor smoky London with its dingy streets." " Yes,'" said the vicar, in a low voice, " you are much changed since you came. Do you leave us soon ? " "My aunt, with whom I live in town, says she shall expect me to-morrow night, and I fear I have been very ungrateful to her in staying away so long." There was a minute's silence then, during which both seemed to be gazing wistfully at the willows by the little mere. "Will you try to finish the sketch?" he said, at last. "Yes," she replied, sadly ; and, going in, she returned with her folio, which he took from her mechanically and placed beneath his arm as they walked slowly and in Bilence toward the pool, and then round to the farther side beneath the old pollard willow trees. He had never spoken worda of love to her, serious or light. Her intercourse with him had been that of one of the sweetest and most ingenious of her sex, but now it had come upon them suddenly that this was the last day of the sweet communion they had enjoyed, and all the future seemed to be a blank. John Layton was very silent as they walked on gazing straight before them, till, looking round, he saw that Fanny was walking with her hands clasped together, and that her tears were falling fast. "Don't— don't," he cried, passionately, for the sight of her grief unmanned him, "I cannot bear to see you like this." She looked up at him wistfully, and the folio fell to the ground. Not a word was spoken then, but he caught her hands in his and stood gazing almost wildly in her soft wistful eyes. Then she snatched them away and covered her face, sobbing now aloud. " Fanny," he said, laying his hand upon her arm, •' this has come like a surprise. I ought not, perhaps, to speak, but I am carried out of my ordinary way of thinking by — by this shock. I am so poor — merely a country parson — but I love you .better than I can tell." " Oh, hush!" she said between her sobs. "loughtnotto have spoken— l ought not to have sent you away thinking of my folly, but the words would oat. I ought to have had more self-command, but this news seemed to tell me how necessary you had become to my existence. It has been so sweet a time, and now — forgive me— it must end." " Must end," she said, softly, repeating hia words. " I have been cruel to you to speak as I have, It was my want of self-control.

Fanny, God bless you i Good-bye. I oannot Btay." He had turned to go, but a faint ciy arrested him, and, a3 he aaw tho blank, despairing face and anguished eyes of her whom he was about to leave, hit! heart leaped within him, and the next moment Fanny Anderson, was sobbing upon his breast. It was a very solitary place, fortunately, but they eamo'to their senses after Fanny had softly owned that it would break her heart to leave that pleasant, simple Eden now. Perhaps if tho Adam had been transferred to town she might have altered her opinion, but he -was not going to be transferred to town, and so they went on, in and out among the willow trees, talking or their future, whon they both started guiltily as a voice behind them said : " Ah, here you are then, eh ? " It was the doctor, and a quiet smile full of drollery stole over his face as he said : " I found a letter at home from" auntie, saying you are to go back at once and I -went to tell Layton, but I found he bad come here, and— is it all right ? " No one answered. "You'll come bsick again, won't you, my darling ? " said the doctor. " Oh, uncle ! " she cried ; and the tears overflowed once more, as she Hang her arms round his nock, kissei him, and then fled towards the cottage. "Ah 1 " said the doctor, " I've never said a word since I brought you over that day. I thought J'd let matters take their own course. I prescribed, and you took the medicine like a man. John Layton, you've won about the best and truest girl I ever knew." "The' best and truest," said the vicar, holding out his hand. " And not the poorest either, for I alwayg look upon her as my child, and some day perhaps . Well, there, John Liyton, I'm very, very, very glad." The sequel to this needs no telling.