"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. They say he cures
every one."