“I’ve took the last o’ that there physic, doctor.”
“Perhaps be of incalculable benefit to coming generations,” mused the doctor, as he went on dreaming, standing there with one hand resting on the tomb rail, and seeming to look through the present in the shape of the crabbed and gnarled old sexton to a future where all was health and strength.
“It was rare stuff, doctor,” continued old Moredock, with a chuckle, as he glanced sidewise at the dreaming man. “Mussy me! a drop o’ that allus seemed to make my toes tingle, and it went right up into the roots of my hair.”
“Why not—why not try?” It seemed a great experiment, but how little as compared with what had been done of old! “Why not—why not try?”
“You’ll let me have another bottle, doctor. It does me a sight of good.”
“I must. It seems like fate urging me on. It is for her—to do something to distinguish myself. Here is the opportunity, and I hesitate.”
“One day I took a dose, doctor, and I thought it was trubble nasty, but five minutes after I said to myself, this beats brandy from the inn. They sperrets don’t make your fingers go cricking and your toes tingle. Rare stuff, doctor. What’s he gone to sleep?”
“Yes, I will do it; but how? No; it is impossible.”
“You’ll let me have another bottle o’ that there physic, doctor, won’t yer?”
“Physic, Moredock? Physic?” said the doctor, starting. “You don’t require more now.”