“You mustn’t talk like that. You mustn’t talk at all. I’ll send Dr. Mint to-morrow.”
He raised himself convulsively on his sacking, throwing off the rags and tags that covered him, and revealing the grimy shirt and trousers that formed his bed-costume. His grey hair streamed wildly, almost reaching the bolster. “Ef ye send me a doctor,” he threatened, “Oi’ll die afore he gits here!”
“Do lie down.” She pressed him towards his bolster.
“Oi won’t take no doctors’ stuff,” he gurgled, as his head sank back.
“But why?” she said, covering him up with his fusty bedclothes. “You’re not one of us, surely!”
“A Peculiar? Noa, thank the Lord. Oi told ye Oi don’t believe nawthen of all they religions. Git over me, the whole thing.”
“But if you won’t have medicine, you must pray, like we do.”
“Ye don’t catch me doin’ the one ne yet the tother. Oi count Oi can git along without ’em as much as the other critters in the wood. They don’t have neither.”
“Yes, they do—at least Nip and Methusalem have medicine when they’re sick. I give it ’em myself.”
“Oi reckon that’s what makes ’em sick—relyin’ on Skindles and sech. Oi never seen a stoat nor a squirrel take physic, and ye don’t want nawthen livelier, and Oi never seen a animal goo down on his knees, unless ’twas a hoss what slipped. He, he, he!”