With this leverage, he could now operate
with far more advantage, and his next
step was to move over to England, to
secure the blessings of the best education
for his dear girls. There, casting about
for settlement, the recollection of some
sketch or description of Tilston (over
punch) by his friend the general, made
him think of that place. It was pastoral,
rustic, rather at the back of God speed; in
short, just the sort of oyster our Doctor felt
he was able to open in the most skilful way.
He often, to both his family and friends,
dwelt on what he called the mysterious
agency that had led him to Tilston. He
knew no more of the place than the child
unborn! He vowed, if it was to be his last
moment, that something, something kept
drawing, drawing him to the place. He really
seemed to convey the idea that some
miraculous interposition had been specially
exerted to bring him, Peter Findlater, to that
particular spot to work out some undefined
mission. But, as he said, with great justice,
"let Peter get his fingers closed on the rope,
and he'll show you his soles before you can
look about you." Then, with the judicious
airing of his late pupil, the annuity allowed
in token of gratitude, the due ventilation of
the late general, well known in these parts,
and with his own singularly pushing ways,
and attempts at setting up ladders on which
he was to mount, he made himself a
personage in the place—hail fellow well met
with all: friendly, jovial; and in about three
weeks was known to every one. Another
reason short of the miraculous one which led
Doctor Findlater to this curious spot, was the
fact that an asylum was about to be built,
and he arrived there just as the first stone
was laid by the Lord-Lieutenant of the
county. By the time of its completion, in two
years, he expected to have reared his own
structure of interest and connexion, and to
be appointed one of the assistant physicians
of the place, or at least to a vacancy left by
such an appointment. By the time it was
ready and the election had to be made,
quite a fierce contest set in, the Doctor
modestly "going for" an assistant physician
to the local infirmary; offices about
which the county gentlemen grew quite
excited. A sort of hot party feeling was
roused, and, as every weapon was thought
fair in such matters, the accident of the
Doctor's birth was worked against him. "Oh!
listen to this! Here's my country thrown
in my teeth bodily! After that, can you
wonder, sir, that we feel like slaves and
Parryers, 'ewers of wood and drawers of water
in a strange land? Where's your English
knock-down spirit of fair play? Where's
your British fair field and no favour? Here
am I, Peter Findlater, an honest man,
earning my bread by the sweat of my brow,
ready to dig, or carry a hod with any man
to put bread in the mouths of those children,
and, of course, Mrs. Findlater's, and no
sooner do I get a firm grip of the ladder,
than the lads of the place come screeching
and howling after me: 'He's Irish! hunt him!
hunt him!' as if I was some wild fox to
be chased over the country."

One of Doctor Findlater's bitterest
opponents was a certain Mr. Ridley, a cousin
of Lord Ridley's, a tall, long, yellow-faced
gentleman, with a large family. He was of
a very litigious "cranky" nature, and had
had a violent quarrel with his family, of
many years' standing. At any sort of
meeting—for charity, vestry, politics, or
any other purpose, he was certain to oppose
and move amendments, and had a small party to
support him—worshippers of the idol, rank.
A good deal, too, he owed to a certain
dread of his powers, and especially of his
tongue. From the first, this gentleman had
set himself against Doctor Findlater. He
was "a low, scheming fellow that never
ought to have been let into the place. A
humbugging, over-drinking adventurer,
that always seemed to have his tongue in
his cheek. The only prescription he knew
how to write, was one for compounding
whisky-and-water. Don't tell him: he had
been quartered in Ireland, and knew exactly
the stamp of rascal. There was one of this
sort in every little village." But when the
Doctor became a candidate for official
position, Mr. Ridley grew furious, and worked
hard to oppose it, and with such success,
that it was only by the narrowest chance
that he was elected to be a sort of
supernumerary assistant to the infirmary.
This,however, was some sort of a rung to
that wonderful ladder on which he was going
up, as often as a gymnast at a circus.

The Doctor's public behaviour under this
persecution was strangely resigned. He
said, "he supposed it was laid upon him
for his cross. He despised Ridley. He
himself was plain Peter Findlater, who had
not been held at the font by noble or lordly
ladies; but if he had, he'd be ashamed to
lend his aristocracy to the oppression of
the lowly man, the sweat of whose brow
was his sole inheritance. He left it all to
time, and to the Maker of all!" In his
own family, before his two sympathising
girls and obedient wife, the Doctor was