The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

meekly.

      “These we watched through all their stages to maturity.”

      “Meaning the death of the poor rogue,” whispered Denys meekly.

      “And now, my poor sufferer, who best merits your confidence, this honest soldier with his youth, his ignorance, and his prejudices, or a greybeard laden with the gathered wisdom of ages?”

      “That is,” cried Denys impatiently, “will you believe what a jackdaw in a long gown has heard from a starling in a long gown, who heard it from a jay-pie, who heard it from a magpie, who heard it from a popinjay; or will you believe what I, a man with nought to gain by looking awry, nor speaking false, have seen; nor heard with the ears which are given us to gull us, but seen with these sentinels mine eye, seen, seen; to wit, that fevered and blooded men die, that fevered men not blooded live? stay, who sent for this sang-sue? Did you?”

      “Not I. I thought you had.”

      “Nay,” explained the doctor, “the good landlord told me one was 'down' in his house; so I said to myself, 'A stranger, and in need of my art,' and came incontinently.”

      “It was the act of a good Christian, sir.”

      “Of a good bloodhound,” cried Denys contemptuously. “What, art thou so green as not to know that all these landlords are in league with certain of their fellow-citizens, who pay them toll on each booty? Whatever you pay this ancient for stealing your life blood, of that the landlord takes his third for betraying you to him. Nay, more, as soon as ever your blood goes down the stair in that basin there, the landlord will see it or smell it, and send swiftly to his undertaker and get his third out of that job. For if he waited till the doctor got downstairs, the doctor would be beforehand and bespeak his undertaker, and then he would get the black thirds. Say I sooth, old Rouge et Noir? dites!”

      “Denys, Denys, who taught you to think so ill of man?”

      “Mine eyes, that are not to be gulled by what men say, seeing this many a year what they do, in all the lands I travel.”

      The doctor with some address made use of these last words to escape the personal question. “I too have eyes as well as thou, and go not by tradition only, but by what I have seen, and not only seen, but done. I have healed as many men by bleeding as that interloping Arabist has killed for want of it. 'Twas but t'other day I healed one threatened with leprosy; I but bled him at the tip of the nose. I cured last year a quartan ague: how? bled its forefinger. Our cure lost his memory. I brought it him back on the point of my lance; I bled him behind the ear. I bled a dolt of a boy, and now he is the only one who can tell his right hand from his left in a whole family of idiots. When the plague was here years ago, no sham plague, such as empyrics proclaim every six years or so, but the good honest Byzantine pest, I blooded an alderman freely, and cauterized the symptomatic buboes, and so pulled him out of the grave; whereas our then chirurgeon, a most pernicious Arabist, caught it himself, and died of it, aha, calling on Rhazes, Avicenna, and Mahound, who, could they have come, had all perished as miserably as himself.”

      “Oh, my poor ears,” sighed Gerard.

      “And am I fallen so low that one of your presence and speech rejects my art and listens to a rude soldier, so far behind even his own miserable trade as to bear an arbalest, a worn-out invention, that German children shoot at pigeons with, but German soldiers mock at since ever arquebusses came and put them down?”

      “You foul-mouthed old charlatan,” cried Denys, “the arbalest is shouldered by taller men than ever stood in Rhenish hose, and even now it kills as many more than your noisy, stinking arquebus, as the lancet does than all our toys together. Go to! He was no fool who first called you 'leeches.' Sang-sues! va!”

      Gerard groaned. “By the holy virgin, I wish you were both at Jericho, bellowing.'

      “Thank you comrade. Then I'll bark no more, but at need I'll bite. If he has a lance, I have a sword; if he bleeds you, I'll bleed him. The moment his lance pricks your skin, little one, my sword-hilt knocks against his ribs; I have said it.”

      And Denys turned pale, folded his arms, and looked gloomy and dangerous.

      Gerard sighed wearily. “Now, as all this is about me, give me leave to say a word.”

      “Ay! let the young man choose life or death for himself.”

      Gerard then indirectly rebuked his noisy counsellors by contrast and example. He spoke with unparalleled calmness, sweetness, and gentleness. And these were the words of Gerard the son of Eli. “I doubt not you both mean me well; but you assassinate me between you. Calmness and quiet are everything to me; but you are like two dogs growling over a bone. And in sooth, bone I should be, did this uproar last long.”

      There was a dead silence, broken only by the silvery voice of Gerard, as he lay tranquil, and gazed calmly at the ceiling, and trickled into words.

      “First, venerable sir, I thank you for coming to see me, whether from humanity, or in the way of honest gain; all trades must live.

      “Your learning, reverend sir, seems great, to me at least, and for your experience, your age voucheth it.

      “You say you have bled many, and of these many, many have not died thereafter, but lived, and done well. I must needs believe you.”

      The physician bowed; Denys grunted.

      “Others, you say, you have bled, and-they are dead. I must needs believe you.

      “Denys knows few things compared with you, but he knows them well. He is a man not given to conjecture. This I myself have noted. He says he has seen the fevered and blooded for the most part die; the fevered and not blooded live. I must needs believe him.

      “Here, then, all is doubt.

      “But thus much is certain; if I be bled, I must pay you a fee, and be burnt and excruciated with a hot iron, who am no felon.

      “Pay a certain price in money and anguish for a doubtful remedy, that will I never.

      “Next to money and ease, peace and quiet are certain goods, above all in a sick-room; but 'twould seem men cannot argue medicine without heat and raised voices; therefore, sir, I will essay a little sleep, and Denys will go forth and gaze on the females of the place, and I will keep you no longer from those who can afford to lay out blood and money in flebotomy and cautery.”

      The old physician had naturally a hot temper; he had often during this battle of words mastered it with difficulty, and now it mastered him. The most dignified course was silence; he saw this, and drew himself up, and made loftily for the door, followed close by his little boy and big basket.

      But at the door he choked, he swelled, he burst. He whirled and came back open-mouthed, and the little boy and big basket had to whisk semicircularly not to be run down, for de minimis non curat Medicina-even when not in a rage.

      “Ah! you reject my skill, you scorn my art. My revenge shall be to leave you to yourself; lost idiot, take your last look at me, and at the sun. Your blood be on your head!” And away he stamped.

      But on reaching the door he whirled and came back; his wicker tail twirling round after him like a cat's.

      “In twelve hours at furthest you will be in the secondary stage of fever. Your head will split. Your carotids will thump. Aha! And let but a pin fall, you will jump to the ceiling. Then send for me; and I'll not come.” He departed. But at the door-handle gathered fury, wheeled and came flying, with pale, terror-stricken boy and wicker tail whisking after him. “Next will come—CRAMPS of the STOMACH. Aha!

      “Then—BILIOUS VOMIT. Aha!

      “Then—COLD SWEAT, and DEADLY STUPOR.

      “Then—CONFUSION OF ALL THE SENSES.

      “Then—BLOODY VOMIT.

      “And after that nothing can save you, not even I; and if I could I would not, and so farewell!”

      Even Denys changed colour at threats so fervent and precise;