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I should not object to being a lady doctor, if I could have a brougham like this of my very own. There! We never thought of that when we were discussing my possible fields of labour!" Dr Maclure bent forward, and glanced out of the window. His horse was travelling quickly to-night; in another ten minutes Mr Connor's house would be reached, and his opportunity over.
Then Ruth's thoughts roamed a little further afield to the few intimate friends of the family, foremost among whom came Eleanor Maclure and her brother. What would Eleanor say if the grand expedition ended in ignominious failure?
She therefore knew many of the Edinburgh people, and had drawn upon this knowledge in getting pupils for her school. She wondered if Mrs Maclure was a certain Jane Scott whom she knew in her youth, and who had married a Dr Maclure. She felt not a little surprise at this visit at so early and important an hour.
"We thank you, Lord Kilspindie," said the doctor, "for your presence with us in our sorrow and your tribute to the memory of William MacLure, and I choose this for his text: "'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Milton was, at that time, held in the bonds of a very bitter theology, and his indignation was stirred by this unqualified eulogium.
Then Drumsheugh put on his spectacles, and searched for some comfortable Scripture. Presently he began to read: "In My Father's house are many mansions;" but MacLure stopped him. "It's a bonnie word," he said, "but it's no' for the like o' me. It's ower guid; a' daurna tak' it."
One was Tammas, Annie Mitchell's man; and another was Saunders Baxter, for whose life MacLure had his great fight with death; and the third was the Glen Urtach shepherd for whose wife's sake MacLure suffered a broken leg and three fractured ribs in a drift; and the fourth, a Dunleith man, had his own reasons of remembrance.
MacLure escaped with a broken leg and the fracture of three ribs, but he never walked like other men again. He could not swing himself into the saddle without making two attempts and holding Jess's mane. Neither can you "warstle" through the peat bogs and snow drifts for forty winters without a touch of rheumatism.
He awoke with a start to find the room flooded with the morning sunshine, and every trace of last night's work removed. The doctor was bending over the bed, and speaking to Saunders. "It's me, Saunders, Doctor MacLure, ye ken; dinna try tae speak or move; juist let this drap milk slip ower ye 'ill be needin' yir breakfast, lad and gang tae sleep again."
Troubled by no vulgar ambition, by no hankering after notoriety, by no yearning to join ostensibly in the game of life, she shrouds herself in obscurity, as the widow Bessie Maclure in Old Mortality did in an old red cloak, and directs with a whisper the way of the passer-by.
"This sounds like self-sacrifice," said Sir George. "I sincerely hope it may answer. We are going different ways, I think. Good-morning." He raised his hand to his hat in a perfunctory way, and hurried off. The next time he saw Mrs. Kilroy, he described this encounter with Dr. Maclure. "This is a complete change of front," said Angelica; "what does it mean?"
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