‘Only we don’t know what fever Rupert’s got,’ Charles said. ‘It might be the scarlet kind or the swine kind, if humans have that.’
They also found that the rose was ‘a conſiderable reſtorative. The bitterneſs of the roſes when they be freſh is of good uſe to cure choler and watery humours.’
‘I suppose watery humours means when you’re in the humour to cry; he isn’t that,’ said Charlotte.
Farther down the page they found: ‘The moiſt conſerve of roſes mixed with mithridate and taken together is good for thoſe that are troubled with diſtillations of rheum from the brain to the eyes and the noſe.’
‘That’s it!’ cried Caroline. ‘I knew the rose would do the trick! I know a cold in the head is rheum. That’s French. I daresay it’s Latin too,’ she added hastily. ‘But I never knew before that colds come from your brain. I expect that’s what makes you feel so duffing when you’ve got a cold.’
If a doubt was still left in any breast, it was set at rest when they learned that ‘Red roſes procure reſt and ſleep,’ and that ‘a ſtrong tincture of the roſe maketh a pleaſant julep, calmeth delirium, and helpeth the action of the bark.’
‘Rest’s what he wants; the Wil-cat said so,’ Caroline shut the book with a bang, ‘and if roses help the action of the bark, that’s the very thing. She said the cough wanted easing.’
‘Does bark mean cough?’ Charles asked doubtfully.
‘You may depend it did in those old times,’ Caroline assured him. ‘Aunt Emmeline told me lots of the words they call slang now, were book-words once. “Swank” wasn’t slang in Shakespeare’s time, she said. And it’s stopped raining. Let’s get the roses, and we can think about how we’ll give them afterwards. Perhaps if he just smelt them.’