The Heather and the Pine

August 11th, 185~

The young master has taken a turn for the worse in the night. He is clearly delirious with pain, and I do wonder if the ankle injury is perhaps worse than it looks to the eye. It happened sometimes on the farm, and it can be a bad thing. He is clammy, says Jack, and burning to the touch in a fever. Sometimes, on the farm, we would...oh! I am being called.

~

Jack has been dispatched to the next house to summon a doctor. At such a time, the remoteness of our situation in this country lodge is plain. A country girl, even I find it remote here. The next house is a mile away, and we suppose the doctor is in the next town, which is another good hour's ride.

Everyone is most distressed (the mistress especially), and I wish I could have offered to ride to the farm myself, if nothing else but to escape the atmosphere here. But it would not do for a kitchen maid to go riding about the country (even if, as Mrs H said to me privately, I could surely handle a horse better than the young master), and anyway I have so much to do helping the others as we adjust the running of the household to our invalid

~

(Later, just before bed)

Finally, we are all able to rest. What a long day!

The house to which Jack was sent belongs to a farmer whose land abuts the Major's friend, our host's. He is apparently prosperous, with a household about the same size as ours and a daughter about my age who is (Jack says) very pretty indeed. The farmer appreciated the urgency of our situation, and rode into town with Jack himself to fetch the doctor.

The doctor is a well-respected man, it seems, and therefore also a busy man, and was not at home. But he has a daughter on whom he has lavished all his affection since the early death of his wife, and affection, for the good doctor, apparently also meant teaching his only child his trade. Although an unconventional arrangement even in the remoteness of the Highlands, it seems that she is become almost as competent a practitioner as her father and often acts for him in his absence (and everyone is grateful for it.) The farmer (says Jack) spoke of her with a sort of begrudging admiration, and it is clear that Jack is quite in awe of her.

She is certainly a confident woman, and I am a little in awe of her myself, from the little I saw of her. I had a glimpse of her from the kitchen window as they cantered up to the house, and she rides well. As she swung herself down from the saddle, I was shocked to see she was in trousers! But I suppose if she must do a lot of riding to see people in this sparse country, it is more comfortable and practical. She is tall and most comely, with an upright bearing and thick red curls pinned up under a hard-wearing man's cap.

She evidently impressed the mistress that she knows her business, she was allowed to examine the young master quite comprehensively. The main injury she declared a broken ankle, which she has now reset with a temporary splint. The rest is apparently the boy's body coping with the shock. We were directed to keep a decent fire going in the boy's room and to give him tea and a little bread and thin soup should he require anything.

She will return tomorrow, with something to help with the fever and a better way of resetting the leg. I wonder if I shall get to see any more of her tomorrow. I do not know why I should desire to so urgently, but I cannot deny that I do, and, knowing the shameful secret depths of my own heart, I fear my desires.