Elliotson and he were devoted friends. Dr. Turnbull was
tall, thin, upright, with undimmed grey eyes and dark hair, which
had hardly yet begun to turn in colour, but was a little worn off
his forehead. He had a curiously piercing look in his face, so that
it was impossible if you told him an untruth not to feel that you
were detected. He never joked or laughed in the sickroom or in his
consulting-room, and his words were few. But what was most striking
in him was his mute power of command, so that everybody in contact
with him did his bidding without any effort on his part. He kept
three servants--two women and a man. They were very good servants,
but all three had been pronounced utterly intractable before they
went to him. Master and mistress dared not speak to them; but with
Dr. Turnbull they were suppressed as completely as if he had been
Napoleon and they had been privates. He was kind to them, it is
true, but at times very severe, and they could neither reply to him
nor leave him. He did not affect the dress nor the manners of the
doctors who preceded him. He wore a simple, black necktie, a shirt
with no frill, and a black frock-coat. The poor worshipped him, as
well they might, for his generosity to them was unexampled, and he
took as much pains with them and was as kind to them as if they were
the first people in Eastthorpe. He was perhaps even gentler with
the poor than with the rich. He was very apt to be contemptuous,
and to snarl when called to a rich man suffering from some trifling
disorder who thought that his wealth justified a second opinion, but
he watched the whole night through with the tenderness of a woman by
the bedside of poor Phoebe Crowhurst when she had congestion of the
lungs before she lived with Mrs.
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