“It was from some friend’s gossip of the sick room that she heard of this invention—­this phonograph—­and with the quick insight of a loving woman she saw how she might use it for her ends.  She sent me to London to procure the best which money could buy.  With her dying breath she gasped into it the words which have held me straight ever since.  Lonely and broken, what else have I in all the world to uphold me?  But it is enough.  Please God, I shall face her without shame when He is pleased to reunite us!  That is my secret, Mr. Colmore, and whilst I live I leave it in your keeping.”

The Black Doctor

Bishop’s Crossing is a small village lying ten miles in a south-westerly direction from Liverpool.  Here in the early seventies there settled a doctor named Aloysius Lana.  Nothing was known locally either of his antecedents or of the reasons which had prompted him to come to this Lancashire hamlet.  Two facts only were certain about him; the one that he had gained his medical qualification with some distinction at Glasgow; the other that he came undoubtedly of a tropical race, and was so dark that he might almost have had a strain of the Indian in his composition.  His predominant features were, however, European, and he possessed a stately courtesy and carriage which suggested a Spanish extraction.  A swarthy skin, raven-black hair, and dark, sparkling eyes under a pair of heavily-tufted brows made a strange contrast to the flaxen or chestnut rustics of England, and the newcomer was soon known as “The Black Doctor of Bishop’s Crossing.”  At first it was a term of ridicule and reproach; as the years went on it became a title of honour which was familiar to the whole countryside, and extended far beyond the narrow confines of the village.

For the newcomer proved himself to be a capable surgeon and an accomplished physician.  The practice of that district had been in the hands of Edward Rowe, the son of Sir William Rowe, the Liverpool consultant, but he had not inherited the talents of his father, and Dr. Lana, with his advantages of presence and of manner, soon beat him out of the field.  Dr. Lana’s social success was as rapid as his professional.  A remarkable surgical cure in the case of the Hon. James Lowry, the second son of Lord Belton, was the means of introducing him to county society, where he became a favourite through the charm of his conversation and the elegance of his manners.  An absence of antecedents and of relatives is sometimes an aid rather than an impediment to social advancement, and the distinguished individuality of the handsome doctor was its own recommendation.