"Ah! my dear sir," replied the farmer, "were I to say I had any losses, I should lie, for I have been a thriving man all my life, and want for nothing; but indeed I have crosses enough, for I have a d—d scolding wife at home, who, though I am the best of husbands to her, and daily do my best to make her and my children happy, is always raving and scolding about the house like a madwoman. I am daily almost nagged out of my life. If there be such a thing as perpetual motion, as some scientific men say, I'm sure it is in my wife's tongue, for it never lies still, from morning to night. Scolding is so habitual to her that she even scolds in her sleep. If any man could tell me how to remedy it, I have a hundred pounds in gold and silver about me which I would give him with all my heart, for so great a benefit which I should receive by the taming of this confounded shrew."
Horner, listening to this most pleasant tune of a hundred pounds, said: "Sir, I'll just tell the ingredients with which nature first formed a scold, and thus, the cause of the distemper being known, it will be easier to effect a cure. You must understand, then, that nature, in making a scold, first took of the tongues and galls of bulls, bears, wolves, magpies, parrots, cuckoos, and nightingales, of each a like number; the tongues and tails of vipers, adders, snails, and lizards, six each; aurum fulminans, aqua fortis, and gunpowder, of each a pound; the clappers of seventeen bells, and the pestles of thirty apothecaries' mortars, which becoming all mixed, she calcined them in Mount Stromboli and dissolved the ashes in water, distilled just under London Bridge at three-quarters flow-tide, and filtered through the leaves of Calepin's dictionary, to render the operation more verbal; after which she distilled it again through a speaking-trumpet, and closed up the remaining spirits in the mouth of a cannon. Then she opened the graves of all recently-deceased pettifoggers, mountebanks, barbers, coffeemen, newsmongers, and fishwives at Billingsgate, and with the skin of their tongues made a bladder, covered over with drumheads and filled with storms, tempests, whirlwinds, thunder and lightning. Lastly, to irradiate the whole elixir, and make it more churlish, she cut a vein under the tongue of the dog-star, drawing thence a pound of the most choleric blood; and from which sublimating the spirits, she mixed them with the foam of a mad dog; and then, putting all together in the before-mentioned bladder, stitched it up with the nerves of Socrates' wife."
"A damned compound, indeed." said the farmer; "and surely it must be impossible for any man to tame a shrew at this rate."
"Not at all," replied Horner, "for when she first begins to be in her fits, you shall perceive it by the bending of her brows; then apply to her a plaster of good words: after that, give her a wheedling potion; and if that will not do, take a bull's tail, and, applying the same with a strong arm from shoulder to flank, it shall infallibly complete the cure."
The farmer was very well pleased with this prescription, and, giving Horner many thanks and treating him liberally at the next inn, they continued to ride on together. At last, coming to a convenient place, Horner said, "Please pay me now, sir, for my advice."
"I thought the entertainment I provided for you just now at the inn was all the satisfaction you required," retorted the surprised farmer.
"No, sir," said Horner, "you promised a hundred pounds if any one would find you a remedy for your scolding wife; and a bargain is a bargain all the world over, in the market or on the road": so presenting his pistol at the farmer's head, "d—n me, sir," he continued, "presently deliver your bag, or you are a dead man!"
The farmer delivered the bag, which, if it did not contain quite a hundred pounds, formed an excellent recompense for the time Horner had spent in exercising his fantastic imagination upon him.
Shortly after this exploit, Horner met a gentleman on Hounslow Heath, saluting him with the customary demand to hand over his dibs.