human
I hope I've no very bad conscience, boy; but Mary's busy with the poor young thing, mere child she is, too, to go through such a night; and, somehow, I don't like to be left alone after such a sight as that!
gpt
Tom! said Mark, as they sat smoking in silence, after breakfast, in the study.
human
Tom!
gpt
Yes, sir!
human
That was an awful death-bed, Tom!
gpt
I don't mean that he died hard, as we say; but so young, Tom. And I suppose poets' souls are worth something, like other people's--perhaps more. I can't understand 'em; but my Mary seems to, and people, like her, who think a poet the finest thing in the world. I laugh at it all when I am jolly, and call it sentiment and cant: but I believe that they are nearer heaven than I am: though I think they don't quite know where heaven is, nor where (with a wicked wink, in spite of the sadness of his tone)--
human
I'll tell you, sir. I have seen men enough die--we doctors are hardened to it: but I have seen unprofessional deaths--men we didn't kill ourselves; I have seen men drowned, shot, hanged, run over, and worse deaths than that, sir, too;--and, somehow, I never felt any death like that man's. Granted, he began by trying to set the world right, when he hadn't yet set himself right; but wasn't it some credit to see that the world was wrong?
gpt
I don't know that. The world's a very good world.
human
To you and me; but there are men who have higher notions than I of what this world ought to be; and, for aught I know, they are right. That Aberalva curate, Headley, had; and so had Briggs, in his own way. I thought him once only a poor discontented devil, who quarrelled with his bread and butter because he hadn't teeth to eat it with: but there was more in the fellow, coxcomb as he was. 'Tisn't often that I let that croaking old bogy, Madam might have been, trouble me; but I cannot help thinking that if, fifteen years ago, I had listened to his vapourings more, and bullied him about them less, he might have been here still.
gpt
You wouldn't have been then. Well for you that you didn't catch his fever.
human
And write verses too? Don't make me laugh, sir, on such a day as this; I always comfort myself with--'it's no business of mine:' but, somehow, I can't do so just now.
gpt
Let's talk of something else, said Mark at last.
human
You had the cholera very bad down there, I hear?
gpt
Oh, sharp, but short,
human
Any on my lord's estate with the queer name?
gpt
Not a case. We stopped the devil out there, thanks to his lordship.
human
So did we here. We were very near in for it, though, I fancy.--At least, I chose to fancy so--thought it a good opportunity to clean Whitbury once for all.
gpt
It's just like you. Well?
human
Well, I offered the Town-council to drain the whole town at my own expense, if they'd let me have the sewage. And that only made things worse; for as soon as the beggars found out the sewage was worth anything, they were down on me, as if I wanted to do them--I, Mark Armsworth!--and would sooner let half the town rot with an epidemic, than have reason to fancy I'd made any money out of them. So a pretty fight I had, for half-a-dozen meetings, till I called in my lord; and, sir, he came down by the next express, like a trump, all the way from town, and gave them such a piece of his mind--was going to have the Board of Health down, and turn on the Government tap, commissioners and all, and cost 'em hundreds: till the fellows shook in their shoes;--and so I conquered, and here we are, as clean as a nut,--and a fig for the cholera!--except down in Water-lane, which I don't know what to do with; for if tradesmen will run up houses on spec in a water-meadow, who can stop them? There ought to be a law for it, say I; but I say a good many things in the twelve months that nobody minds. But, my dear boy, if one man in a town has pluck and money, he may do it. It'll cost him a few: I've had to pay the main part myself, after all: but I suppose God will make it up to a man somehow. That's old Mark's faith, at least. Now I want to talk to you about yourself. My lord comes into town to-day, and you must see him.
gpt
Why, then? He can't help me with the Bashi-bazouks, can he?
human
Bashi-fiddles! I say, Tom, the more I think over it, the more it won't do. It's throwing yourself away. They say that Turkish contingent is getting on terribly ill.
gpt
More need of me to make them well.
human
Hang it--I mean--hasn't justice done it, and so on. The papers are full of it.
gpt
Well, quoth Tom,
human
Why, man alive, if England spends all this money on the men, she ought to do her duty by them.
gpt
I don't see that. As Pecksniff says, 'if England expects every man to do his duty, she's very sanguine, and will be much disappointed.' They don't intend to do their duty by her, any more than I do; so why should she do her duty by them?
human
Don't intend to do your duty?
gpt
I'm going out because England's money is necessary to me; and England hires me because my skill is necessary to her. I didn't think of duty when I settled to go, and why should she? I'll get all out of her I can in the way of pay and practice, and she may get all she can out of me in the way of work. As for being ill-used, I never expect to be anything else in this life. I'm sure I don't care; and I'm sure she don't; so live and let live; talk plain truth, and leave Bunkum for right honourables who keep their places thereby. Give me another weed.
human
Queer old philosopher you are; but go you shan't!
gpt
Go I will, sir; don't stop me. I've my reasons, and they're good ones enough.
human
Early bird, his lordship, and gets the worm accordingly, says Mark, as he hurries off to attend on his ideal hero.
gpt
You come over to the shop in half-an-hour, mind.
human
But why?
gpt
Confound you, sir! you talk of having your reasons: I have mine!