Paul Faber, Surgeon | Page 2

of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and
anon well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of
ancient forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector
felt every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up
their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth. Just in front of
them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs
with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse. Down he came into the road,
bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first
sight, attractive rider. A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat
smooth sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately
finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue
eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression. He drew up close to
the hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr.
Bevis slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were
moving gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off
fore wheel.
"Heigh, Faber," said the clergyman, "you'll break your neck some day!
You should think of your patients, man. That wasn't a jump for any
man in his senses to take."
"It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then," returned the
surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage
between them.
"Upon my word," said Mr. Bevis, "when you came over the hedge
there, I took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his
own and changed horses with t'other one."
As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself
guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the
person of his wife. But that conscience was a very easy one, being
almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request.
"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector.
"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one
behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder.
"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a
heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the

world and out again, at all events."
There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was
in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as well
as every one else he knew him to be no friend to the church, or to
Christianity, or even to religious belief of any sort, his liking, coupled
with a vague sense of duty, had urged him to this most unassuming
attempt to cast the friendly arm of faith around the unbeliever.
"I plead guilty to the former," answered Faber, "but somehow I have
never practiced the euthanasia. The instincts of my profession, I
suppose are against it. Besides, that ought to be your business."
"Not altogether," said the rector, with a kindly look from his box,
which, however, only fell on the top of the doctor's hat.
Faber seemed to feel the influence of it notwithstanding, for he
returned,
"If all clergymen were as liberal as you, Mr. Bevis, there would be
more danger of some of us giving in."
The word liberal seemed to rouse the rector to the fact that his
coachman sat on the box, yet another conscience, beside him. Sub divo
one must not be too liberal. There was a freedom that came out better
over a bottle of wine than over the backs of horses. With a word he
quickened the pace of his cleric steeds, and the doctor was dropped
parallel with the carriage window. There, catching sight of Mrs. Bevis,
of whose possible presence he had not thought once, he paid his
compliments, and made his apologies, then trotted his gaunt Ruber
again beside the wheel, and resumed talk, but not the same talk, with
the rector. For a few minutes it turned upon the state of this and that
ailing parishioner; for, while the rector left all the duties of public
service to his curate, he ministered to the ailing and poor upon and
immediately around his own little property, which was in that corner of
his parish furthest from the town; but ere long, as all talk was sure to do
between the parson and any body who owned but a donkey, it veered
round in a certain direction.
"You don't seem to feed that horse of yours upon beans, Faber," he
said.
"I don't seem, I grant," returned the doctor; "but you should see him
feed! He eats enough for two, but he _can't_ make fat: all