A Strange Story | Page 8

a party question, in which the Hill would have
been signally worsted, when suddenly the same lady paramount, who
had secured to Dr. Lloyd the smile of the Eminence, spoke forth against
him, and the Eminence frowned.
"Dr. Lloyd," said the Queen of the Hill, "is an amiable creature, but on
this subject decidedly cracked. Cracked poets may be all the better for
being cracked,--cracked doctors are dangerous. Besides, in deserting
that old-fashioned routine, his adherence to which made his claim to
the Hill's approbation, and unsettling the mind of the Hill with wild
revolutionary theories, Dr. Lloyd has betrayed the principles on which
the Hill itself rests its social foundations. Of those principles Dr.
Fenwick has made himself champion; and the Hill is bound to support
him. There, the question is settled!"
And it was settled.
From the moment Mrs. Colonel Poyntz thus issued the word of
command, Dr. Lloyd was demolished. His practice was gone, as well as
his repute. Mortification or anger brought on a stroke of paralysis
which, disabling my opponent, put an end to our controversy. An
obscure Dr. Jones, who had been the special pupil and protege of Dr.

Lloyd, offered himself as a candidate for the Hill's tongues and pulses.
The Hill gave him little encouragement. It once more suspended its
electoral privileges, and, without insisting on calling me up to it, the
Hill quietly called me in whenever its health needed other advice than
that of its visiting apothecary. Again it invited me, sometimes to dinner,
often to tea; and again Miss Brabazon assured me by a sidelong glance
that it was no fault of hers if I were still single.
I had almost forgotten the dispute which had obtained for me so
conspicuous a triumph, when one winter's night I was roused from
sleep by a summons to attend Dr Lloyd, who, attacked by a second
stroke a few hours previously, had, on recovering sense, expressed a
vehement desire to consult the rival by whom he had suffered so
severely. I dressed myself in haste and hurried to his house.
A February night, sharp and bitter; an iron-gray frost below, a spectral
melancholy moon above. I had to ascend the Abbey Hill by a steep,
blind lane between high walls. I passed through stately gates, which
stood wide open, into the garden ground that surrounded the old
Abbots' House. At the end of a short carriage-drive the dark and
gloomy building cleared itself from leafless skeleton trees,--the moon
resting keen and cold on its abrupt gables and lofty chimney-stacks. An
old woman-servant received me at the door, and, without saying a word,
led me through a long low hall, and up dreary oak stairs, to a broad
landing, at which she paused for a moment, listening. Round and about
hall, staircase, and landing were ranged the dead specimens of the
savage world which it had been the pride of the naturalist's life to
collect. Close where I stood yawned the open jaws of the fell anaconda,
its lower coils hidden, as they rested on the floor below, by the winding
of the massive stairs. Against the dull wainscot walls were pendent
cases stored with grotesque unfamiliar mummies, seen imperfectly by
the moon that shot through the window-panes, and the candle in the old
woman's hand. And as now she turned towards me, nodding her signal
to follow, and went on up the shadowy passage, rows of gigantic
birds--ibis and vulture, and huge sea glaucus--glared at me in the false
light of their hungry eyes.

So I entered the sick-room, and the first glance told me that my art was
powerless there.
The children of the stricken widower were grouped round his bed, the
eldest apparently about fifteen, the youngest four; one little girl--the
only female child--was clinging to her father's neck, her face pressed to
his bosom, and in that room her sobs alone were loud.
As I passed the threshold, Dr. Lloyd lifted his face, which had been
bent over the weeping child, and gazed on me with an aspect of strange
glee, which I failed to interpret. Then as I stole towards him softly and
slowly, he pressed his lips on the long fair tresses that streamed wild
over his breast, motioned to a nurse who stood beside his pillow to take
the child away, and in a voice clearer than I could have expected in one
on whose brow lay the unmistakable hand of death, he bade the nurse
and the children quit the room. All went sorrowfully, but silently, save
the little girl, who, borne off in the nurse's arms, continued to sob as if
her heart were breaking.
I was not prepared for a scene so affecting; it moved me to the quick.
My eyes wistfully followed the