Troubles were coming in crowds,
and the bullet, the splinters, and the Commission put the little
doctor to flight. He left the seven diggers, the five soldiers, and
the drummer boy in the hospital, and made straight for Colac. Fear
dogged his footsteps wherever he went, and the mere sight of him had
sent the impudent thief Lilias to hide behind the tussocks.
I always hate a man who won't talk to me and tell me things, and the
doctor was so silent and unsociable, that, by way of revenge, I left
him to the care and curses of old "Specs."
After four days he departed, and he appeared again at Ballarat on
January 15th, giving evidence at an inquest on one Hardy, killed by a
gunshot wound. In the meantime a total change had taken place among
the occupants of the Government camp. Commissioner Rede had retired,
Dr. Williams, the coroner, and the district surgeons had received
notice to quit in twenty-four hours, and they left behind them
twenty-four patients in and around the camp hospital.
Dr. Carr left the colony, and the next report about him was from
Manchester, where he made a wild and incoherent speech to the crowd
at the Exchange. His last public appearance was in a police-court on
a charge of lunacy. He was taken away by his friends, and what
became of him afterwards is not recorded.
Doctors, when there is a dearth of patients, sometimes take to war,
and thus succeed in creating a "practice.
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