'Well!' said Joe, thinking that his master's name had not altogether produced the magic effect which he had expected; remembering, also, how submissive Greyson had always been, who, being a London doctor, must be supposed to be a bigger man than this provincial fellow. 'Do you know as how my master is dying, very like, while you stand there?'
'What is your master's disease?' said the doctor, facing Joe, slowly, and still rubbing his hands. 'What ails him? What is the matter with him?'
'Oh; the matter with him? Well, to say it out at once then, he do take a drop too much at times, and then he has the horrors—what is it they call it? delicious beam-ends, or something of that sort.'
'Oh, ah, yes; I know; and tell me, my man, who is attending him?'
'Attending him? why, I do, and his mother, that is, her ladyship.'
'Yes; but what medical attendant: what doctor?'
'Why, there was Greyson, in London, and—'
'Greyson!' and the doctor looked as though a name so medicinally humble had never before struck the tympanum of his ear.
'Yes; Greyson. And then, down at what's the name of the place, there was Thorne.'
'Greshamsbury?'
'Yes; Greshamsbury. But he and Thorne didn't hit it off; and so since that he has had no one but myself.'
'I will be at Boxall Hill in the course of the morning,' said Dr. Fillgrave; 'or, rather, you may say, that I will be there at once: I will take it in my way.' And having thus resolved, he gave his orders that the post-horses should make such a detour as would enable him to visit Boxall Hill on his road. 'It is impossible,' said he to himself, 'that I should be twice treated in such a manner in the same house.'
He was not, however, altogether in a comfortable frame of mind as he was driven up to the hall door. He could not but remember the smile of triumph with which his enemy had regarded him in that hall; he could not but think how he had returned fee-less to Barchester, and how little he had gained in the medical world by rejecting Lady Scatcherd's bank-note. However, he also had had his triumphs since that. He had smiled scornfully at Dr. Thorne when he had seen him in the Greshamsbury street; and had been able to tell, at twenty houses through the county, how Lady Arabella had at last been obliged to place herself in his hands. And he triumphed again when he found himself really standing by Sir Louis Scatcherd's bedside.
