Grudgingly he handed eight silver coins, but while still in his hand, his cough took him and they were shaken upon the deck.
One by one, the herb-doctor picked them up, and, examining them, said: “These are not quarters, these are pistareens; and clipped, and sweated, at that.”
“Oh don’t be so miserly—ugh, ugh!—better a beast than a miser—ugh, ugh!”
“Well, let it go. Anything rather than the idea of your not being cured of such a cough. And I hope, for the credit of humanity, you have not made it appear worse than it is, merely with a view to working upon the weak point of my pity, and so getting my medicine the cheaper. Now, mind, don’t take it till night. Just before retiring is the time. There, you can get along now, can’t you? I would attend you further, but I land presently, and must go hunt up my luggage.”
CHAPTER XXI.
A HARD CASE.
“Yarbs, yarbs; natur, natur; you foolish old file you! He diddled you with that hocus-pocus, did he? Yarbs and natur will cure your incurable cough, you think.”
It was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear’s-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand—a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft and rifles.
He must have overheard some of the talk between the miser and the herb-doctor; for, just after the withdrawal of the one, he made up to the other—now at the foot of the stairs leaning against the baluster there—with the greeting above.
“Think it will cure me?” coughed the miser in echo; “why shouldn’t it? The medicine is nat’ral yarbs, pure yarbs; yarbs must cure me.”