At half-past ten o’clock, Mr. Dangerfield abandoned hope.  Had it been Dr. Pell, indeed, it would have been otherwise.  But Black Dillon had not a patient; his fame was in the hospitals.  There was nothing to detain him but his vices, and five hundred pounds to draw him to Chapelizod.  He had not come.  He must be either brained in a row, or drunk under a table.  So Mr. Dangerfield took leave of good Mrs. Sturk, having told her in case the doctor should come, to make him wait for his arrival before taking any measures, and directing that he should be sent for immediately.

So Mr. Dangerfield got into his white surtout silently in the hall, and shut the door quickly after him, and waited, a grim sentry, under the tree, with his face towards Dublin.  Father Time had not blunted the white gentleman’s perceptions, touched his ear with his numb fingers, or blown the smoke of his tobacco-pipe into his eyes.  He was keen of eye, sharp of hearing; but neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and so he turned, after a few minutes, and glided away, like a white ghost, toward the Brass Castle.

In less than five minutes after, the thunder of a coach shook Dr. Sturk’s windows, followed by a rousing peal on the hall-door, and Dr. Dillon, in dingy splendours, and a great draggled wig, with a gold-headed cane in his bony hand, stepped in; and, diffusing a reek of whiskey-punch, and with a case of instruments under his arm, pierced the maid, who opened the door, through, with his prominent black eyes, and frightened her with his fiery face, while he demanded to see Mrs. Sturk, and lounged, without ceremony, into the parlour; where he threw himself on the sofa, with one of his bony legs extended on it, and his great ugly hand under his wig scratching his head.

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

IN WHICH TWO COMRADES ARE TETE-A-TETE IN THEIR OLD QUARTERS, AND DOCTOR STURK’S CUE IS CUT OFF, AND A CONSULTATION COMMENCES.

The buzz of a village, like the hum of a city, represents a very wonderful variety of human accent and feeling.  It is marvellous how few families thrown together will suffice to furnish forth this dubia coena of sweets and bitters.

The roar of many waters—­the ululatus of many-voiced humanity—­marvellously monotonous, considering the infinite variety of its ingredients, booms on through the dark.  The story-teller alone can take up the score of the mighty medley, and read at a glance what every fife and fiddle-stick is doing.  That pompous thrum-thrum is the talk of the great white Marseilles paunch, pietate gravis; the whine comes from Lazarus, at the area rails; and the bass is old Dives, roaring at his butler; the piccolo is contributed by the studious school-boy, whistling over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs. Fondle’s farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room, is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song—­shut your ears, and pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the bawl upon its lips.