The Star-Gazers. Fenn George Manville
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and more, “I thought you had stayed to dinner. This is quite a professional visit.”
“My dear sir, pray don’t call it so,” said Oldroyd. “I only want to give you good advice. I want you to give me better vegetables than these – from your own garden,” he added, merrily, as he turned to Lucy, who was eagerly watching her brother’s face.
“Thank you, doctor,” replied Alleyne shaking his head; “but I have no time.”
Oldroyd hesitated for a moment or two, as he went on with his repast of very badly cooked, exceedingly tough mutton; but a glance at his hostess and Lucy showed him that his words found favour with them, and he persevered in a pleasant, half-bantering strain that had, however, a solid basis of sound shrewd sense beneath its playful tone.
“Hark at him!” he said. “Has not time! Now, look here, my dear Mr Alleyne – pray excuse my familiarity, for though we have been neighbours these past five years, we have not been intimate – I say, look here, my dear sir – potatoes! Thank you, Miss Alleyne. That one will do. I like them waxey. Now look here, my dear sir, you are an astronomer.”
“Only a very humble student of a great science, Mr Oldroyd,” said the other, meekly.
“Ah, well, we will not discuss that. At all events you are a mathematician, and deal in algebraic quantities, and differential calculus, and logarithms, and all that sort of thing.”
“Yes – yes,” said Alleyne, going on eating in his mechanical way as if he diligently took to heart the epigrammatic teaching of the old philosopher – “Live not to eat, but eat to live.”
“Well then, my dear sir, I’ll give you a calculation to make.”
“Not now, doctor, pray,” said Mrs Alleyne, quickly. “My son’s digestion is very weak.”
“This won’t hurt his digestion, madam,” said Oldroyd; “a child could do it without a slate.”
“Pray ask me,” said Alleyne, “and I will endeavour to answer you.”
“Well, then: here is my problem,” said Oldroyd; “perhaps you will try and solve it too, Miss Alleyne. Suppose two men set to work to perform a task, and the one – as you mathematicians would put it, say A, worked twenty hours a day for five years, while B worked eight hours a day for twenty years, which would do most work?”
“I know,” said Lucy, quickly; “the busy B, for he would do a hundred and sixty hours’ work, while A would only do a hundred hours’ work.”
Alleyne smiled and nodded very tenderly at his sister.
“Isn’t that right?” she said quickly, and her cheeks flushed.
“Quite right as to proportion, Lucy,” he said, “but in each case it would be three hundred and sixty-five times, or three hundred and thirteen times as much.”
“Of course,” she said. “How foolish of me.”
“Well, Mr Oldroyd, what about your problem?” continued Alleyne, commencing upon a fresh piece of tough mutton.
“You have solved it,” said Oldroyd. “You have shown me that the eight-hour’s man does more work than the twenty-hour’s man.”
“Yes, but one works five years, the other twenty, according to your arrangement.”
“Not my arrangement, sir, Nature’s. The man who worked twenty hours per diem would be worn out mentally at the end of five years. The man who worked eight hours a day, all surroundings being reasonable, would, at the end of twenty years, be in a condition to go on working well for another ten, perhaps twenty years. Now, my dear sir, do you see my drift?”
Moray Alleyne laid down his knife and fork, placed his elbows on either side of his plate, clasped his hands together, and then seemed to cover them with his thick, dark beard, as he rested his chin.
A dead silence fell upon the little party, and, as if it were some chemical process going on, small round discs of congealed fat formed on the mutton gravy in the dish.
Mrs Alleyne was about to break the silence, but she saw that her son was ready to answer, and she refrained, sitting very upright and motionless in her chair, as she watched the furrows coming and going on his brow.
“That is bringing it home, doctor,” he said, and there was a slight huskiness in his voice as he spoke. “But you are exaggerating.”
“I protest, no,” said Oldroyd, eagerly. “Allow me, I have made some study of animal physiology, and I have learned this: Nature strengthens the muscles, nerves and tissues, if they are well used, up to a certain point. If that mark is passed – in other words, if you trespass on the other side – punishment comes, the deterioration is rapid and sure.”
“Mother,” said Alleyne, turning to her affectionately; “you have been setting the doctor to tell me this.”
“Indeed, no, my dear,” she cried, “I was not aware what course our conversation would take; but, believe me, Moray, I am glad, for this must be true.”
“True?” cried Oldroyd. “My dear madam, the world teems with proofs.”
“Yes,” said Alleyne thoughtfully: and there was a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes as he gazed straight before him as if into space, “it is true – it must be true; but with so much to learn – such vast discoveries to make – who can pause?”
“The man who wishes to win in the long race,” said Oldroyd smiling, and again there was a minute’s absolute silence, during which the young doctor caught a reconnaissant look from Lucy.
Then Alleyne spoke again.
“Yes, Mr Oldroyd, you are right,” he said. “Nature is a hard mistress.”
“What, for not breaking her laws?” cried Oldroyd. “Come, come, Mr Alleyne, my knowledge of astronomy extends to the Great Bear, Perseus, Cassiopeia, and a few more constellations; but where would your science be if her laws were not immutable?”
For answer, to the surprise of all, Moray Alleyne slowly unclasped his hands, and stretched one across to the young doctor.
“Thank you,” he said. “You are quite right. I give way, for I am beaten. Mother, dear, I yield unwillingly, but Nature’s laws are immutable, and I’ll try to obey them. Are you content?”
“My boy!”
Stern, unbending Mrs Alleyne was for the moment carried away by her emotion, and forgetting the doctor’s presence, she left her chair to throw her arms round her son’s neck, bend down, kiss his forehead, and then hurry from the room.
“She loves me, Mr Oldroyd,” said Alleyne simply. “Lucy dear, bring mamma back. We are behaving very badly to our guest.”
Lucy had already left her chair, and she, too, impulsively kissed her brother and then ran from the room to hide her tears.
“Poor things,” said Alleyne, smiling. “I behave very badly to them, doctor, and worry them to death; but I am so lost in my studies that I neglect everything. They have made such sacrifices for me, and I forget it. I don’t see them – I don’t notice what they do. It was to humour me that they came to live in this desolate spot, and my poor mother has impoverished herself to meet the outlay for my costly instruments. It is too bad, but I am lost in my work, and nothing will ever take me from it now.”
“Nothing?” said Oldroyd.
“Nothing,” was the reply, given in all simple childlike earnestness, as the young doctor gazed straight into the deep full eyes that did not for a moment blanch. “So you will not give me pills and draughts, doctor,” said Alleyne at last, smiling.
“Medicine? No. Take exercise, man. Go more into society. See friends. Take walks. Garden. Make this desert bloom with roses.”
“Yes – yes – yes,” said Alleyne, thoughtfully. “I must try. Mr Oldroyd,” he said suddenly, “I should like to see more of you – if – if you would allow me.”
“My dear sir,