Dr. RowlandThought, chief physician of Barnardstown, the nearest place of any importance to Silverview, reached the Castle almost as soon as the new Duke of Shropshire and Cheyne. The groom had brought him to the place in a dog-cart.

Dr. Rowland had the reputation of being one of the most intelligent and skilful doctors in the provinces. He had early made his reputation and position, in spite of mean personal appearance, untidiness in dress, and indifference to some nice points in the profession. He had unquestionably genius, and cared nothing for routine or for canons that were not salutary. His first remarkable case had been that of a man whom two of the great formal doctors of Barnardstown had left at night, saying he could not last till morning. This man happened to be a wealthy eccentric bachelor, who lived in a lonely house a little way out of the town. The sick man's servant, Johnson, had been at one time a patient of Rowland's, and entertained the highest respect for Rowland's skill; and it so happened that on the night the sick man was despaired of Dr. Rowland met Johnson. The latter told the former that the great medical men had come and gone, and said his master could by no possibility get through the night. Johnson implored Rowland to see his master. The latter agreed; and next morning the patient was better. In three weeks the man was up and about, and one of his first acts was to give Johnson and Rowland a hundred pounds each, observing that if Johnson had not called in Rowland, Rowland would not have been able to do him any good. After this the two old formal doctors refused to meet Rowland in consultation, which determination in no way discomposed the young man, who replied, caustically, that if he might only come in by himself when they had failed, and be paid by results, he should have a very large and lucrative practice. When asked by what means he had cured the dying man, he had answered: "Gumption, a jug of hot water, and a tin of mustard."

His next cure was that of an old woman whom two other grave and reverend members of the profession had declared beyond help. When he was asked what drugs he had employed in this case, he answered: "Brandy and beef-tea. I wonder the venerables did not do some good there, for you didn't want any gumption in that case."

After this the elder and more regular members of the profession gave up declaring their despair; and although they adhered to their resolution of not meeting Dr. Rowland in consultation, the younger practitioners of the town had no objection to avail themselves of his aid in extreme cases. He was, however, peculiar in more ways than this. He would not take any regular practice. He would not tie himself down to routine work. He had no patience with hypochondriacs, and positively refused to attend trifling cases. "I like to let these old dunderheads ripen a case for me. When they have goaded a patient into a really bad state, then I don't mind tucking up my sleeves and giving them a lesson."

These and many more things he did and said were not professional, but they got him a name in the neighbourhood for being the best man in an emergency. Accordingly, when the Duke's groom asked the steward whom he should fetch, the steward answered, "Rowland."

Dr. Rowland was not only low in stature and untidy in dress, but many other physical details were against him. He had round shoulders and thin legs. He had a yellow shining skin. His nose was too long and too prominent for his face, and his eyes had an uncandid and suspicious look in them. But he diagnosed almost instinctively, knew medicine well, and acted with the promptness of a good general.

The doctor examined first the Duke. He knew the constitution of his grace, and although he had never before attended him, he felt at once that the case was one of extreme gravity. He acted with decision, but he refused to bear the whole responsibility.

"The case is serious, very serious. I don't think anyone can be of use; no one certainly but Granby. Of that I am quite sure. Telegraph for Granby. I'll stop here until he comes."

Accordingly a telegram was sent to the celebrated West-End doctor, Sir Francis Granby, asking the great baronet to come and see the great duke who lay ill.

"And now," said Dr. Rowland, "for the other man. What's the matter with him?"

He was shown into the room where Cheyne lay. He had learned that Cheyne was unknown at the Castle, and not a guest in the ordinary meaning of the word. When Rowland had examined the second patient, he said:

"Nothing wrong with you beyond a few cuts and bruises. You will be all right in a few days. In the meantime you must keep quiet; that's all you want, and some tepid water, a sponge and lint."

Although Sir Francis Granby was one of the most gifted and distinguished of the West-End doctors, it was not every day he was called to go special to a duke with four hundred thousand a-year. It was not every day he enjoyed the advantage of pocketing a thousand-pound fee. It was not every day he had the opportunity of meeting that erratic genius Oliver Rowland; for though the baronet was many years older than the country doctor, he had a great respect for his junior.

"It is all up with him, Granby," said Rowland, when the two were alone after examining the new Duke.

"A very bad case. You found out what was the matter at once?"

"God bless my soul, yes! It is as plain as the nose on your face. I knew you'd find it out, too. That's the reason I sent for you."

"And yet it is obscure, very obscure. I have met only three cases of the kind before. Have you met one?"

"No, not one. Nothing can be done."

"Nothing. He cannot last long."

The burly London baronet shook his head.

"Not a week?"

"Not half that, I think. Is there not another man hurt here? Do you wish me to see him?"

"Oh, he's all right. Only knocked about a bit by wind and water. Cuts and bruises, and nothing more, except exhaustion. He's a kind of hero, you know. Swam out with a rope. Wonderfully fine physique. He must be an uncommonly powerful man. He was the means of saving all the lives that were saved. What a funny thing that only the Duke and the Marquis should have been lost!"

"Funny, Rowland! What a ghastly notion of fun you must have to call the loss of the two most valuable lives in the yacht funny!"

"Valuable! In what way were these lives valuable? They were not valuable even to the men themselves. One was a hopeless invalid and the other was as morose as Boreas. One of them did, it is true, occasionally vote in the House of Lords, but only to oppose all useful measures of reform. The other had not become even one of that most useless body of men in England, members of the House of Commons."

"Rowland! Rowland! this will never do!"

"Who wants it to do? Not I, any way. I don't want myself to do. Wanting to do is one of the common and mean aspirations. It is the father of hypocrisy, and servility, and lies, and all the degrading vices of the time-server; it is the foul pollution upon which the parasites of success fatten and fester."

"Well, well, Rowland. Long ago, before you had grown quite so violent, I used to recommend you to come up to London; but now I would not think of doing so."

"Of course not; nor would I think of going, nor did I ever think of going. London is the grave of independence and self-respect. You cannot be yourself there. You must be the creature of somebody else or the tool of a clique. Give me the hillside and freedom----"

"And five hundred a-year if you are lucky, instead of London and fifteen thousand a-year----"

"And bowing and scraping, and heeling and toeing, and my-lording and my-ladying----"

"Well, well, well," said the great city physician; "I shall never be able to convert you. You are the only man I know in the country who I am sure ought to be in town."

"And you are the only man in town who I know ought to be in the country."

"In very few places in the country will you get such madeira as this," said Sir Francis, in order to change the conversation.

"And nowhere in the town," said Rowland warmly. "No one thinks of keeping good wines in town to be guttled down by foreigners, adventurers, fraudulent speculators, and beggared noblemen. No, no. If your country gentleman has a brand of which he is particularly proud or fond, he keeps it down in the country, where he and his real friends, who come to him on cordial invitations, can discuss it gravely, un-distracted by the bore of comparative strangers, and the noise and smoke of the city. Good wine, Granby, should never be drunk when there is another house within a mile, or with men you have not known twenty years."

"Well, well, well;" which was the great man's formula for dismissing a subject. "Let it be--let it be. Suppose you drop the Duke and his wines. What do you think of your other patient? Don't you think he'd make a very good soldier?"

"Good heavens, Granby, the town has turned your brain! Make a soldier of him! A soldier of a man with such a torso, and limbs, and muscles! Won't the puny and the deformed do you for soldiers? Isn't anything good enough to pull a rifle-trigger or be shot at? Your parade soldiers, all puffed and padded, are good enough to please the vanity of the eye; but their puffs and pads are all in their own way. They don't help them to chase a man or kill a man. They are stuck on them for no more reason than women wore crinolines. Why should we try to get the finest men of all the nation into an institution or force which boasts of being ready to expose these men to sudden death at any moment--a duty which, by-the-way, they are very seldom called upon to fulfil?"

"Rowland, I now go farther than ever I went with you about London: I must strongly recommend you not to go there."

"Of course not; I told you I should never suit it or it me. But I'll tell you what our friend the burly patient would make, Granby--he'd make a magnificent coal-porter, or corn-porter, or backwoodsman."

"Well, well, well, you are hard on the young man. But we cannot agree on several points that have arisen; but on two we are agreed: that the Duke cannot live more than a few days, and that nothing can be done?"

"Yes."

"And that the other man will be all right with care in a very short time?"

"Yes, Granby, that's how I read it."

As the great London physician was leaving later, he said to the country doctor: "When shall I see you again, Rowland? We ought to meet now and then."

"Ay, we ought," said Rowland, with the shadow of sadness on his inexpressive face. This was followed by a gleam of pleasure. "Granby, come down here for a week's fishing. I mean come to my place at Barnardstown. There is capital fishing there. I'll give you new-laid eggs and porridge for your breakfast; beef or fowl and ham, with sound claret for your dinner; and a good supper, with excellent beer, and afterwards a rare good glass of Scotch whisky and a cigar."

The great man shook his head ruefully. "I wish I could, Rowland, my friend. It would remind me of younger and more light-hearted days. But it can't be done now. Is there any chance of inducing you to come up to London to stay with us awhile? Do, Rowland!"

"Pooh, pooh, man."

"And when shall we meet again?"

"When some accident befalls the next duke."

"But," said the London baronet, pausing, as he was about to step into the carriage, "I understood that there was no heir to the title?"

"True, true. I forgot that, Granby. Well, good-bye."

"Good-bye, Rowland."

And the two shook hands.

"I wonder what they would think of him?" By they he meant the faculty in London.

"Every day I hate London more and more. Granby and I were made for pals. D---- London!" thought Rowland, as he turned back into the house of mourning and pain.