Mount Music Part 39

"You'll be drowned," said Mrs. Mangan, doomfully; "and sure if Larry comes over, what'll I say to him?"

"_He'll_ not come!" said Tishy, scornfully. "What a fool he is, a day like this!"

"And they say the river's up in the houses down at the end of the town," went on Mrs. Mangan. "In the name of pity why wouldn't you be satisfied to stay at home for this once, and you leaving me for good to-morrow!"

"Well, I'll die if I stay in this messed-up hole any longer!" said Tishy. "I don't care how wet I get--"

Presently the front door slammed behind her; her mother said to herself that of all the headstrong pieces--! And, further, that she trusted in G.o.d Larry Coppinger would be able to make a hand of her; she then, with the resignation that experience teaches to defeated mothers, went to the kitchen, and prepared a tray with tea, and carried it herself up to the Doctor's surgery.

"Francis, may I come in? I have tea for you and meself."

"Come in to be sure," replied Francis, hospitably. "I'll be glad of a cup. Wait and I'll light the gas."

The Big Doctor was a faithful man, and loved his wife. He treated her as a slave, but it was thus that she not only expected, but preferred to be treated, and the position of a favourite slave may not be without its compensations. He established her in the Patients' chair, arranging it so that the crude flare of the incandescent gas should not be in her eyes, and then sat down in his own huge chair, in comfortable proximity to her and the tea-tray.

"Well, Annie, me girl," he said. "You're looking tired enough, but there isn't one will touch you in looks to-morrow for all that! Your own daughter included!"

"Go on out of that, Francis, with your nonsense!" replied Mrs. Mangan, with a coquettish slap on the Doctor's great round knee, "you ought to be learning sense for yourself by this time!"

"Maybe I'm not so wanting in sense as you might think, Annie!" he answered, his watchful, grey-blue eyes under the over-hanging, musical brows, softening as he looked at her. I think one way and another, I haven't made altogether such a bad fist of things!"

"Darling lovey!" cried Mrs. Mangan, adoringly. "How would you think I meant it!"

"Well, I didn't either!" said the Doctor, with a satisfied laugh, "but I'm inclined to think that I've done better than you're aware of, or that you might give me credit for either!"

"All _I'm_ aware of," said Mrs. Mangan, sitting erect, with a look of defiance, "is that there's nothing in this world, no, nor in Ireland neither, that you couldn't do if you chose to put your mind to it! So now! You needn't be talking to _me_ like that! Pretending I don't know you after all those years!"

"Well, listen to me now," said the Doctor, well pleased, 'Tell me what d'ye think of this marriage of Tishy's?"

"You know well what I think of it, Francis, and what everybody thinks of it, too! The smartest and the richest--"

"Well, that's all right," interrupted the Doctor, "but for a woman like yourself, that sets out to be fond of her children, its surprising that you didn't make a match yet for your son!" He looked at her with indulgent fondness, laughing at her, and she gazed back at him with her heart in her eyes, and thought him the king of men.

"Well, what have you got to say to that, Mrs. Mangan? It's well for the poor boy that his father isn't so neglectful of him!"

"What do you mean, Francis? What are you talking of?"

"I'm talking of poor Barty, my dear!" said the Doctor, enjoying himself intensely, and watching his wife's handsome face with eyes that lost no shade of its quick-changing expression. "You've a high opingen of him, I know! Would you think Miss Christian Talbot-Lowry was good enough for him?"

Mrs. Mangan's mouth opened, in sheer stupefaction. She opened and shut it two or three times before speech came to her.

"Barty!" she panted; "Miss Christian Lowry! Sweet and Blessed Mother of G.o.d! Francis, you're raving! Is it my poor Barty! They'd never look at him!"

The Doctor watched her with triumph in his face. "Don't be too sure of that! I might have an argument up my sleeve--" he checked himself as a nervous knock was heard at the door. "Who's there? Come in! Come in, can't ye?"

A telegram, the orange envelope dark with wet, was handed to him. He read it.

"No answer," he said, getting up quickly. "Well, bad manners to the woman! Such a day to choose!"

"What _is_ it, lovey? _Don't_ tell me it's a sick call! You couldn't _possibly_ go _annywhere_ this evening!" cried Mrs. Mangan, italicising, in her indignation, every second word, "and for goodness'

sake, go on and tell me what was the argument you said you had?"

"My dear, I couldn't go into it properly now. I'll tell you another time. I'm bound to go, and as quick as I can too! Run now, like a good girl, and tell Barty or Mike to get the car ready in a hurry. That wire was from Hannigan that lives below Riverstown. He says his wife'll die--she's very bad, I'm afraid--I'm booked for the job this long time--"

Mrs. Mangan, loudly expostulating, though wise in obedience from experience, flew from the room with her message, and speedily returned to find the Big Doctor still hurrying about the surgery, making his preparations, and talking as he went.

"I mightn't be back till morning, but I'll not miss the wedding, don't be afraid! I'll come as soon as I can, I promise you that!"

"Oh, Francis, love, I hate to see you go out this awful night," wailed Mrs. Mangan, following him into the little hall, and dragging his fur-lined coat off a peg, and holding it for him; "and this scorf, my darling, put it on you before you ketch your death. Will you take Mike with you?"

"I will not. He'll be wanting here. Don't delay me now. Good-bye, girlie!" He kissed her. Then he opened the door, and with a roar, the wind and the rain hurled in, with a force that staggered him, big as he was.

"Well, such a night!" lamented Mrs. Mangan, for the twentieth time, clinging to the door; "I wish to G.o.d the telegraph wires were down before they could send for you! Oh, will you take care of yourself now, Francis?"

"Of course I will! Go in out of the wet--" he pushed himself in under the low hood of the car, and glided into the darkness.

A doctor is a dedicated man. He accepts risks with a laugh, and toil with, perhaps, a grumble, but he does not flinch. Obscure and inglorious perils are his, and hards.h.i.+ps that only himself can gauge.

Be sure that they are not unrecorded. They s.h.i.+ne, and their splendour is hidden, like those lanterns that were hidden under the coats of the lantern-bearers. But there is, very surely, some screen, sensitive to its rays, on which that light is thrown, that will some day show us what we have been too self-centred to realise, and will dazzle us with the devotion to which we are now too much habituated to admire.

CHAPTER XL

It was Barty who had brought out the car, and, on his father's departure, he released the grip of the railings that had enabled him to keep his footing, and was, literally, blown into the house.

"Shut the door, my Pigeon-pie!" said his mother, "the wind's too strong for me."

Barty was too well accustomed to this expression of his mother's affection to resent it, and having done her bidding, he followed her into the Doctor's room, which alone had a fire in it.

"Nothing would please Tishy only to go down to the Whelplys,"

complained Mrs. Mangan, poking the fire, and seating herself in front of it with a long, groaning sigh of exhaustion; "some nonsense about a wreath. A wreath indeed! Any one'd be lucky that kept their hair on their heads in this wind, let alone a wreath! You'll have to go fetch her, my poor boy! I'll not be easy till I see her and Pappy home again! I thought maybe Larry might have come over, but I declare now I'm glad he did not."

"Larry's not like himself lately," said Barty, sitting down in his father's chair, and taking from his pocket a paper packet and extracting a crushed cigarette from it. "I think the loss of th'

election disappointed him greatly."

"'Twas well he had Tishy to console him," said Mrs. Mangan, "it was in the nick of time she cot him!"

"It was," replied Barty, tepidly. "I think also," he went on, "he's put out about his aunt not coming down for the wedding, and even young Mrs. Kirby away. It's funny to think Coppinger's Court and Mount Music are empty now, the two of them--or will be after to-morrow. Miss Christian went to-day."

("See now how he's talking of her!" thought his mother. "I wonder did Francis say anything to him?") Aloud she said: "It's a pity she's gone, but it mightn't be for long."

"I saw her yesterday. The Doctor sent me there for a map," said Barty, with elaborate unconcern.

("Look at that now!" again commented Mrs. Mangan to herself. "How well they never told me he'd gone to see her! Aren't men a fright the way they'll hide things!")

"She's a sweet girl, my Pidgie," she resumed, to her son, "And Pappy's always said the same thing."

Barty looked at her like a horse prepared to shy. Had his father said anything to her? The longing to speak of Christian had mastered him, but if his mother knew--