The Garden Doctor 



Chapter XVII {Continued) 



TEPHEN McLEOD ? He is a 



curious fellow who comes up 



c 



w y here every Sunday. He has 

 stock in the pasture above — you 

 may see him when you go up the hill — 

 he haunts it. He looks a little like your 

 patron saint, 'Apple seed Johnny.'" 



"What did he have to do with your 

 getting well?" 



"Lots. I can't tell exactly; but he did. 

 He makes you feel as if you were only a 

 little part of a very great life, as if in all 

 the out-of-doors was an immense and 

 wonderful force that enfolded you. And 

 it rests you, just like when you were little 

 and things went wrong, and your mother 

 took you up in her arms. The fret and the 

 trouble goes out and the quietness and the 

 strength comes in. I don't know how it 

 happens, but it does happen, and the touch 

 of the earth has something to do with it. 

 You feel as if the things that had concerned 

 you were curiously unimportant beside the 

 sky and the birds and the growing things, 

 and you come in touch with the wonderful 

 patience of the old earth." 



"However it was brought about," said 

 he, "I'm delighted at the result."' Then 

 a silence fell. 



Suddenly I had that curious warning 

 sensation that every woman knows, some- 

 where in the back of one's head or hair 

 (our inheritance, I suppose from the pre- 

 historic days when a man's attentions 

 consisted of dragging one by the hair or 

 whacking one over the head with a club) 

 while clear before my eyes as if it were 

 present, instead of the apple tree and the 

 wide stretch of green, was the old garden 

 of the Protheroes' just as it looked on a day 

 three years ago. June, it was, and early 

 in the morning, too. And Richard had 

 made me come over to see his roses, and he 

 stood by the sun dial at the end of the 

 garden and touched the little Wichuraianas 

 that had climbed to its face. His hand 

 trembled a little as he touched them while 

 he asked me what I wished he had not. 

 The thin, brown hand that laid beside me 

 now on the seamed weatherbeaten threshold 

 trembled a little. I came back to the pres- 

 ent with a start. Richard was speaking. 



"But I didn't come altogether for the 

 orchards," he was saying, "that was in the 

 nature of a — pretext. Do you remember 

 what I asked you three years ago?" he 

 ended abruptly. 



Continued from page 52, September number 



"Yes," I said slowly, "I remember, 

 But I feel like a wholly different person, 

 Richard, like a snake that has sloughed 

 his skin " 



"Then you may feel differently," he 

 said, "about that. People change, ideas 

 — modify. I have cared for you for a 

 long time," he said simply. 



"But I'm not the sort you want, Rich- 

 ard," I protested uncomfortably. "It 

 should be some one stronger, with some 

 life and force, and energy. I haven't 

 courage to take up so — demanding a life. 

 I couldn't! I couldn't face parishoners; 

 any time they worried my roots, I should 

 just succumb, like the plants with the cut- 

 worms! It's humiliating, but it's true. 

 I couldn't." 



"Those are excuses," said Richard 

 quietly, "not reasons. What's the reason? 

 Don't you care at all?" He laid one thin 

 brown hand on mine and at that I turned 

 and faced the large lenses which were rather 

 terrifying just then. 



"Not that way," I answered. "Don't 

 you see, it's just because we've been neigh- 

 bors and friends for so long that you think 

 of — of this sort of thing. Propinquity 

 makes no end of trouble. You can care 

 for some one else very differently, so that it 

 would be an utterly different thing. I 

 know it." 



"How do you know it?" said Richard 

 quickly and a bit suspiciously. 



Whereat I was idiotic enough to color, 

 as people often do for nothing at all. But 

 Richard looked at me still more sus- 

 piciously. He started to say something, 

 but what it was, I don't know, for just at 

 that moment Clarky came around the 

 corner by the lilac bush with the milk can 

 in her hand. She was a bit flushed from 

 her walk and her thick boots were soaking. 



"How early we all are! " said she briskly. 

 "Have you been catching worms, Mr. 

 Protheroe?" 



"I am bound for the old orchard, Miss 

 Clarke," he said. "I have no doubt there 

 are worms in abundance there. If you 

 are planning a fishing excursion, I will 

 bring you some, though I had intended 

 leaving them for the woodpeckers." 



"Why didn't you keep him for a proper 

 breakfast?" said Clarky disappointedly, 

 as Richard took his way up the hill. "I 

 know Mrs. Tarbox has given him nothing 

 but pie for his lunch — pie and perhaps 

 layer cake. That's not suitable nourish- 

 ment for an all-day tramp. I certainly 



105 



hope his experiment works. It's as rare 

 to see a clergyman trying his precepts as 

 it is to see a physician willing to take his 

 own medicine and submit to his preferred 

 operation. Administering is so much more 

 pleasant." 



Chapter XVIII 



T3 ICHARD was by no means as dis- 

 -^ *- consolate as it seemed to me he ought 

 to have been. Rather he appeared re- 

 lieved; his spirits, instead of being heavier, 

 grew perceptibly lighter. Until I began to 

 wonder if Aunt Cassandra had put into his 

 head any extraordinary ideas about mj 

 being in a languishing condition owing to 

 blighted affection. You can count on your 

 friends, but you never can tell what relatives 

 are likely to do; they often feel empowered 

 to act for you and to think for you, and yet 

 they know you less than any one of your 

 aquaintance. Wherein lies the nucleus of 

 many a family quarrel. 



But to return to Richard Protheroe. He 

 prolonged, instead of curtailing his visit. 

 He stayed two weeks more with Mrs. 

 Tarbox, nor did he shun our hill. Instead. 

 he came up it every day. He sat on 

 Clarky's bench below the lilac bush and 

 had tea with us. He stayed for dinner or 

 supper whenever he was asked. He said 

 our whole scheme ' of life was " distinctly 

 Ardenic "; that our housekeeping reminded 

 him of Rosalind's and Celia's. "But what 

 a pity they had no fireless cooker!" The 

 odd fellow who haunted the woods, he con- 

 ceived to be Orlando; he said he firmly 

 expected to find panegyrics hung upon the 

 trees and had already begun to look for 

 them. And -he called Mrs. Tarbox Au- 

 drey, behind her back, of course; he said 

 she had that Shakespearian character's 

 literalness and passion for the exact, the 

 concrete. Also that Audrey was the true 

 type of the native countrywoman, while 

 the others of "As You Like It" were 

 dilettante. 



He grew quite interested in my garden, 

 although, like Clarky, he didp.^. take it as 

 seriously as I could have iflfcied. He 

 admired my mound of blossomifig squash 

 vines encircled by cornflowers and said it 

 would have delighted William Morris with 

 its combination of the Useful and the 

 Beautiful. 



Mrs. Tarbox didn't altogether approve 

 of the Rev. Richard. She thought he came 

 up our hill too much. She eyed him 

 severely when he talked of "prospecting" 



