The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

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; but Gerard only gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hard bolster with kindling eye.

This added fuel to the fire, and brought the insulted ancient back from the impassable door, with his whisking train.

“And after that—MADNESS!

“And after that—BLACK VOMIT

“And then—CONVULSIONS!

“And then—THAT CESSATION OF ALL VITAL FUNCTIONS THE VULGAR CALL 'DEATH,' for which thank your own Satanic folly and insolence. Farewell.” He went. He came. He roared, “And think not to be buried in any Christian church-yard; for the bailiff is my good friend, and I shall tell him how and why you died: felo de se! felo de se! Farewell.”

Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnastic power excitement lent him, and seeing him so moved, the vindictive orator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threat the world has unhappily lost; for as he came with his whisking train, and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face and knocked him down like a shot, the boy's head cracked under his falling master's, and crash went the dumb-stricken orator into the basket, and there sat wedged in an inverted angle, crushing phial after phial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one of his age.

He was sitting on the hot coals.

They had singed the cloth and were now biting the man. Struggling wildly but vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled yelling over with it sideways, and lo! a great hissing; then the humane Gerard ran and wrenched off the tight basket not without a struggle. The doctor lay on his face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chafer, and slaked a moment too late by his own villainous compounds, which, however, being as various and even beautiful in colour as they were odious