The Brownies and Other Tales | Page 3

all alone in a beautiful house, and you
do as you like, and never get into rows, or have anybody but yourself to
think about; and no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem."

"Very nice; eh, Deordie?" said the Doctor.
"Awfully jolly," said Deordie.
"Nothing else to wish for, eh?"
"I should keep harriers, and not a poodle, if I were a man," said Deordie;
"but I suppose you could, if you wanted to."
"Nothing to cry about, at any rate?"
"I should think not!" said Deordie.--"There's Mother, though; let's go
and ask her about the tea;" and off they ran.
The Doctor stretched his six feet of length upon the sward, dropped his
grey head on a little heap of newly-mown grass, and looked up into the
sky.
"Awfully jolly--no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem," said he,
laughing to himself. "Nothing else to wish for; nothing to cry about."
Nevertheless, he lay still, staring at the sky, till the smile died away,
and tears came into his eyes. Fortunately, no one was there to see.
What could this "awfully jolly" Doctor be thinking of to make him cry?
He was thinking of a grave-stone in the churchyard close by, and of a
story connected with this grave-stone which was known to everybody
in the place who was old enough to remember it. This story has nothing
to do with the present story, so it ought not to be told.
And yet it has to do with the Doctor, and is very short, so it shall be put
in, after all.
THE STORY OF A GRAVE-STONE.
One early spring morning, about twenty years before, a man going to
his work at sunrise through the churchyard, stopped by a flat stone
which he had lately helped to lay down. The day before, a name had
been cut on it, which he stayed to read; and below the name some one
had scrawled a few words in pencil, which he read also--Pitifully
behold the sorrows of our hearts. On the stone lay a pencil, and a few
feet from it lay the Doctor, face downwards, as he had lain all night,
with the hoar frost on his black hair.
Ah! these grave-stones (they were ugly things in those days; not the
light, hopeful, pretty crosses we set up now), how they seem
remorselessly to imprison and keep our dear dead friends away from us!
And yet they do not lie with a feather's weight upon the souls that are
gone, while GOD only knows how heavily they press upon the souls
that are left behind. Did the spirit whose body was with the dead, stand

that morning by the body whose spirit was with the dead, and pity him?
Let us only talk about what we know.
After this it was said that the Doctor had got a fever, and was dying,
but he got better of it; and then that he was out of his mind, but he got
better of that, and came out looking much as usual, except that his hair
never seemed quite so black again, as if a little of that night's hoar frost
still remained. And no further misfortune happened to him that I ever
heard of; and as time went on he grew a beard, and got stout, and kept a
German poodle, and gave tea-parties to other people's children. As to
the grave-stone story, whatever it was to him at the end of twenty years,
it was a great convenience to his friends; for when he said anything
they didn't agree with, or did anything they couldn't understand, or
didn't say or do what was expected of him, what could be easier or
more conclusive than to shake one's head and say,
"The fact is, our Doctor has been a little odd, _ever since_--!"
THE DOCTOR'S TEA-PARTY.
There is one great advantage attendant upon invitations to tea with a
doctor. No objections can be raised on the score of health. It is obvious
that it must be fine enough to go out when the Doctor asks you, and
that his tea-cakes may be eaten with perfect impunity.
Those tea-cakes were always good; to-night they were utterly delicious;
there was a perfect abandon of currants, and the amount of citron peel
was enervating to behold. Then the housekeeper waited in awful
splendour, and yet the Doctor's authority over her seemed as absolute
as if he were an Eastern despot. Deordie must be excused for believing
in the charms of living alone. It certainly has its advantages. The
limited sphere of duty conduces to discipline in the household, demand
does not exceed supply in the article of waiting, and there is not that
general scrimmage of conflicting interests which besets a large family
in the most favoured circumstances. The housekeeper waits