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Whether the fact that I never more than half recovered my hearing in that ear, and that for many years it has been almost completely deaf, is due to "Blue Gum's" doctoring or not, is scarcely worth entering into now.
Had Percival Elster lingered ever so short a time near the clerk's house that morning he would have met that functionary himself; for in less than a minute after he had passed out of sight Jabez Gum's door opened, and Jabez Gum glided out of it. It is a term chiefly applied to ghosts; but Mr. Gum was a great deal more like a ghost than like a man.
Ashton himself could not have had less brought against him than Clerk Gum; and it would just have broken Mr. Gum's heart had his good name been tarnished in ever so slight a degree. Perhaps no man living had been born with a larger share of self-esteem than Jabez Gum. Clerk of the parish longer than Dr. Ashton had been its Rector, Jabez Gum had lived at his ease in a pecuniary point of view.
Walking forth, he strolled down the road towards Calne, intending to ask a question or two of the surgeon. Mr. Hillary was at home. His house was at this end of Calne, just past the Rectory and opposite the church, with a side view of Clerk Gum's. The door was open, and Lord Hartledon strolled into the surgery unannounced, to the surprise of Mr. Hillary, who did not know he was at Calne.
Jabez Gum's kitchen consisted of an excavation, two feet square, under the hearth, covered with a grating through which the ashes and the small cinders fell; thereby enabling the economical housewife to throw the larger ones on the fire again. Such wells or "purgatories," as they are called, are common enough in the old-fashioned kitchens of certain English districts. Mrs.
Chewing Gum ran nowhere to Earthly Paradise in the Newberry Stakes this year, and Earthly Paradise, all out to win, was beaten a month ago by seven lengths at Warwick, by Rollicking Lady. And Rollicking Lady was in this race too. So you see it's impossible. Chewing Gum's a Plater." Miranda wrung her hands. "But, Harold, he did win; didn't he, Harper?"
Certainly, if any mother ever was bound up in a child, Mrs. Gum was in hers. The boy was well brought up. A good education was given him; and at the age of sixteen he went to London and to fortune. The one was looked upon as a natural sequence to the other. Some friend of Jabez Gum's had interested himself to procure the lad's admission into one of the great banks as a junior clerk.
Lord Hartledon sat on, and drank his tea. He said well that he was always thirsty, though Mrs. Gum's expression was the better one. That timid matron, overcome by the honour accorded her, sat on the edge of her chair, cup in hand.
"You could do so quite well if you came to time," said the clerk, turning away to his walnut-tree. "Why don't you?" "I overslept myself this morning. Father never called me afore he went out. No doubt he had a drop too much last night." She went flying up the gravel-path as she spoke. Gum's cousin.
Jabez Gum's wife to whom you will shortly have the honour of an introduction, but she is in her bedroom just now had borne him one child, and only one. How this boy was loved, how tenderly reared, let Calne tell you. Mrs. Gum had to endure no inconsiderable amount of ridicule at the time from her gossiping friends, who gave Willy sundry endearing names, applied in derision.
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