MIDDLEMARCH (Completed)

Chapter 26

"He beats me and I rail at him: O worthy satisfaction!

would it were otherwise--that I could beat him while

he railed at me.--"

--Troilus and Cressida.

But Fred did not go to Stone Court the next day, for reasons that

were quite peremptory. From those visits to unsanitary Houndsley

streets in search of Diamond, he had brought back not only a bad

bargain in horse-flesh, but the further misfortune of some ailment

which for a day or two had deemed mere depression and headache,

but which got so much worse when he returned from his visit to Stone

Court that, going into the dining-room, he threw himself on the sofa,

and in answer to his mother's anxious question, said, "I feel very ill:

I think you must send for Wrench."

Wrench came, but did not apprehend anything serious, spoke of a

"slight derangement," and did not speak of coming again on the morrow.

He had a due value for the Vincys' house, but the wariest men are apt

to be dulled by routine, and on worried mornings will sometimes go

through their business with the zest of the daily bell-ringer.

Mr. Wrench was a small, neat, bilious man, with a well-dressed wig:

he had a laborious practice, an irascible temper, a lymphatic wife

and seven children; and he was already rather late before setting out

on a four-miles drive to meet Dr. Minchin on the other side of Tipton,

the decease of Hicks, a rural practitioner, having increased Middlemarch

practice in that direction. Great statesmen err, and why not small

medical men? Mr. Wrench did not neglect sending the usual white parcels,

which this time had black and drastic contents. Their effect was

not alleviating to poor Fred, who, however, unwilling as he said

to believe that he was "in for an illness," rose at his usual easy

hour the next morning and went down-stairs meaning to breakfast,

but succeeded in nothing but in sitting and shivering by the fire.

Mr. Wrench was again sent for, but was gone on his rounds,

and Mrs. Vincy seeing her darling's changed looks and general misery,

began to cry and said she would send for Dr. Sprague.

"Oh, nonsense, mother! It's nothing," said Fred, putting out his

hot dry hand to her, "I shall soon be all right. I must have taken

cold in that nasty damp ride."

"Mamma!" said Rosamond, who was seated near the window (the

dining-room windows looked on that highly respectable street called

Lowick Gate), "there is Mr. Lydgate, stopping to speak to some one.

If I were you I would call him in. He has cured Ellen Bulstrode.