“Yes, fever, you selfish old rascal!” cried the doctor irascibly. “You oughtn’t to be afraid of catching a fever at your time of life.”
“But I am, doctor—I am,” said the old man, with a peculiar change in his voice. “You see, I’ve just been ill, and it would be very hard to be ill again. Is—is it ketching?”
“No!” roared the doctor angrily; “not at all. There, take care of yourself, and don’t go to the church again in the dark.”
“I shall go to the church as often as I like and when I like,” grumbled the old man. “It’s my church; but, I say, doctor, is it likely to be—eh?—you know—job for me?”
North looked at him with an expression of horror and loathing that made the old man stare.
“Why, you hideous old ghoul!” he cried; “do you want me to strangle you? Ugh!”
He hurried out of the cottage, and Moredock rose slowly and followed him as far as the door.
“What’s he mean by that? Gool? What’s a gool? He’s been drinking. I see his hand shake; that’s what’s the matter with him; and I’m glad he hasn’t got to mix no physic for me this morning. Now, I wonder what he takes. Them doctors goes into their sudgeries, and mixes theirselves drops as makes ’em on direckly. Old Borton used to, and I buried him. He’s making a bad job of it up at the Rectory, and he’s drinking, but I put him out by speaking of it. Ay, there he goes in at the Rect’ry gate. Wonder whether they’ll have a tomb for her, or a plain grave.”
Leo Salis had looked for some hours past as if one or the other would be necessary, and Moredock’s words had seemed to North as if each bore a sting.
So bad was the patient that when he reached the Rectory that day he decided to stay.