“Don't make the matter worse, 'Duke, by pretending to talk about surgery,” interrupted Mr. Jones, with a contemptuous wave of the hand: “it is a science that can only be learned by practice. You know that my grandfather was a doctor, but you haven't got a drop of medical blood in your veins. These kind of things run in families. All my family by my father's side had a knack at physic. 'There was my uncle that was killed at Brandywine—he died as easy again as any other man the regiment, just from knowing how to hold his breath naturally. Few men know how to breathe naturally.”
“I doubt not, Dickon,” returned the Judge, meeting the bright smile which, in spite of himself, stole over the stranger's features, “that thy family thoroughly understand the art of letting life slip through their lingers.”
Richard heard him quite coolly, and putting a hand in either pocket of his surcoat, so as to press forward the skirts, began to whistle a tune; but the desire to reply overcame his philosophy, and with great heat he exclaimed:
“You may affect to smile, Judge Temple, at hereditary virtues, if you please; but there is not a man on your Patent who don't know better. Here, even this young man, who has never seen anything but bears, and deer, and woodchucks, knows better than to believe virtues are not transmitted in families. Don't you, friend?”
“I believe that vice is not,” said the stranger abruptly; his eye glancing from the father to the daughter.
“The squire is right, Judge,” observed Benjamin, with a knowing nod of his head toward Richard, that bespoke the cordiality between them, “Now, in the old country, the king's majesty touches for the evil, and that is a disorder that the greatest doctor in the fleet, or for the matter of that admiral either: can't cure; only the king's majesty or a man that's been hanged. Yes, the squire is right; for if-so-be that he wasn't, how is it that the seventh son always is a doctor, whether he ships for the cockpit or not? Now when we fell in with the mounsheers, under De Grasse, d'ye see, we hid aboard of us a doctor—”
“Very well, Benjamin,” interrupted Elizabeth, glancing her eyes from the hunter to Monsieur Le Quoi, who was most politely attending to what fell from each individual in succession, “you shall tell me of that, and all your entertaining adventures together; just now, a room must be prepared, in which the arm of this gentleman can be dressed.”
“I will attend to that myself, Cousin Elizabeth,” observed Richard, somewhat haughtily. “The young man will not suffer because Marmaduke chooses to be a little obstinate. Follow me, my friend, and I will examine the hurt myself.”
“It will be well to wait for the physician,” said the hunter coldly; “he cannot be distant.”
Richard paused and looked at the speaker, a little astonished at the language, and a good deal appalled at the refusal. He construed the latter into an act of hostility, and, placing his hands in the pockets again, he walked up to Mr. Grant, and, putting his face close to the countenance of the divine, said in an undertone: