YEAR ROUND ALL THE A Weekly Journal CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS' SATURDAY, JUNE 4, 1870. THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. TILSTON. PRICE TWOPENCE. Shenstones' flour-mill-another pride of the place into which the Tilt kept pouring day and night long with a sullen roar; then the long straggling street, which began like a village, thickened into a sort of town, present to the provincial eye in the glories of the assembly rooms, in the Leader Arms, and the rival Bull; the three-horse coach, which arrived daily at the former house; to say nothing of M'Intyre and Co.'s mart, and St. Martin's Church. an axe, the other a log-and motto, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum" hung, like a large school slate, over the door of the inn. THERE are still some old country towns which the railways, with all their laborious and eccentric meanderings, have never touched-dry and thirsty spots, which the new and fruitful streams of traffic have not irrigated. Tilston was one of these unlucky places, long since left behind, hob- The Leader Arms was, of course, the bling on in its old-fashioned clothes, wheez- old feudal shape of homage to a potentate ing asthmatically, yet bearing itself as if it of the district; indeed, thus easily may be were as fresh, brisk, well-shaped, and well- learned, without questioning, who is the dressed as the great city itself. But this grand duke, as it were, to whom the surrural conceit was as pardonable as an old rounding territory belongs: The late Chief man's belief in the past-that is, in what is was a "Sir Harry," as he was always spoken his past. It was delightfully unconscious of, whose place, Leadersfort, was some three that it was "failing," that its blood, flesh, or four miles away, and whose escutcheon strength, bone even, was being drawn-supporters, two pioneers, flourishing, one away to Westcope, the young and flourishing giant some ten miles away, which throbbed with manufacture, glowed with the hot blood of labour, the fires of fur- Occasionally, this elderly settlement raised naces, and positively radiated off the centre itself, as some dim light came into its eyes of a metallic cobweb of railways. Yet -as when there was a "bachelors' ball" at Tilston had attractions of its own. It lay the assembly rooms, or the sessions were in a rich district, well furnished, which on-and the gentry came and gathered at a nature, as a manufacturing gentleman from sort of impalpable society known as the Westcope remarked, had cushioned and club, taking lunch on the first floor of the upholstered in her very best green terry. Leader Arms, sacredly kept apart for them. Who does not know that pattern of a Time had been when the assizes were held at place, seen a good way off; its patches Tilston. There was the old "court house," of white playing hide and seek with us for evidence; but Westcope, with indecent among the trees; the supporting hills on eagerness, had carried away the assizes. each side, whose shoulders lean forward Sometimes the hunt came near, and a few as though they were whispering; the fine, riders in scarlet were for a short time seen broad river, crossed by a handsome bridge, about the door of the Leader Arms. There of which the Tilston folk were vastly proud, was a little theatre, in a dreadfully mouldy though it had been built for them by the way, which seemed, like so many of its brecounty; the old-fashioned heavy mill, thren, to be built at a conflux of drainage, white-washed, not of new flaming brick, so mysterious and special were the odours VOL. IV. 79 a that hung about it. It used to be opened in the glorious old assize times during the reign of Legitimacy. It was sometimes taken by wandering monologue gentlemen and ladies, fragments of whose dreary selfemblazonment clung to lone walls long after "Harry Newcombe" and his diverting "Bandbox of Oddities," comprising Men, Manners, and Modes, had passed on to another town. But no one went to see the "oddities." A few letters, a torn "BANDB," flapped and dripped in rain and wind for extraordinary periods-dismal reminder like the agitation of some bird with a broken wing making an effort to escape. Sometimes a performing lady came by with her spring cart, on which was emblazoned her name in gold-"LILLIE KNOWLES' Mirthful Medley," which drove away in the morning, after receipt of five or six shillings and disbursement of forty or fifty. Sometimes a CIRCUS' made its triumphant entry, in all the splendour of that dispiriting spectacle the sickly ladies in coloured habits, and the old-looking men in pink fleshings, and, what the clergyman pronounced " disgusting and degrading spectacle," the Shakespearean clown, in his full professional dress, bringing up the rear in a perambulator drawn by two donkeys. The tent was pitched on the corner of the comand very often remained for two nights, so attractive was the entertainment. But the real monument of the old Tilston glory, was the Barracks-the cavalry barracks, which the local paper had often daringly said were "the finest in the kingdom." This was certainly a flight; and latterly they had taken the appearance of a disused sugar refinery-the panes shattered with extraordinary regularity; the roof out of shape, and generally astray, and its front all scarred and battered as if it had stood a fire of musketry. The town had felt acutely the slight of the withdrawal of the troops from the place nearly twenty years before. The sting was the transfer of these protectors to the juvenile town. The decay of the place, so far as it was admitted, was at tributed to this fatal act of oppression. "Ah, the time we had the soldiers here,' was often repeated fondly. At every election, when Sir Harry came before his constituents, some elector for Tilston was certain to stand forward and ask, "Will you, Sir Harry, press upon the government the necessity of sending a regiment to Tilston ?" On which the candidate would solemnly declare that his best exertions, mon, " day and night, would be devoted to that restoration, and he had reason to believe that, if they were united and pulled together, their exertions would be crowned with success. The "barrack question" was renewed again and again; it was a scandal, a shame; but meanwhile it seemed likely that by the time the barrack question would be resolved favourably, the barracks themselves would have crumbled away out of existence. Deputations were always going to town about the barracks, and always. came back as they went. CHAPTER II. THE LEADERS. ALL this pleasant district, ripe, rich, and green, was spread out in gently rolling waves of a luxurious soil, about the noble demesne of Leadersfort. The town was indeed built on Leadersfort land, and the great fortress-like gateway, rather too ambitious even for the imposing mansion, rose at the entrance of the main street, and spoke out plainly the seigneural pretensions. The drive up the avenue was over a mile long, and the visitor bowling along that smooth track, which wound in the most wanton curves, saw something like a grand prairie spreading away on both sides, with grand trees, stragglers or in groups, frightened herds of deer rushing wildly off, and scattered oxen feeding, solitary as anchorites. Far off, was a crowded clustering of thicker trees, denser shade, and the snowy shoulder, as it were, of the house, carelessly revealed. Old people were fond of talking of the times of the late Sir Harry, when, during the hunting season, that lawn would be lit up by the cheerful blaze of fifty red coats, when the ground seemed alive with the animated tails of hounds. In those old times, too, was the unbounded hospitality of Sir Harry, when forty sat down to dinner twice in the week, and six times in the year the old bedrooms had each their tenant, and there was the ball, the dance, the uproarious singing. Sir Harry was a bachelor, and had quarrelled with his Indian brother, General Leader, resenting furiously some rebukes given to him as to the wild scenes and revelling which was bringing Leadersfort into notoriety. Turned out of the old house, this Robert Leader obtained a commission in the Indian service, and in the full blush of the old nabob days, and their legal booty, soon became rich. As he grew old, the squire's tastes never abated; the Leadersfort covers kept up their reputation, and |