"Ah, my friend," pleaded the Abbé, "how could you desire me to swallow a quart an hour?—I hold but a pint!"
This reminds us of a story we have heard told of an irascible physician who died, after attaining a venerable age, at the close of the last century. The story is one of those which, told once, are told many times, and affixed to new personages, according to the whim or ignorance of the narrator.
"Your husband is very ill—very ill—high fever," observed the Doctor to the poor labourer's wife; "and he's old, worn, emaciated: his hand is as dry as a Suffolk cheese. You must keep giving him water—as much as he'll drink; and, as I am coming back to-night from Woodbridge, I'll see him again. There—don't come snivelling about me!—my heart is a deuced deal too hard to stand that sort of thing. But, since you want something to cry about, just listen—your husband isn't going to die yet! There, now you're disappointed. Well, you brought it on yourself. Mind lots of water—as much as he'll drink"
The doctor was ashamed of the feminine tenderness of his heart, and tried to hide it under an affectation of cynicism, and a manner at times verging on brutality. Heaven bless all his descendants, scattered over the whole world, but all of them brave and virtuous! A volume might be written on his good qualities; his only bad one being extreme irascibility. His furies were many, and sprung from divers visitations; but nothing was so sure to lash him into a tempest as to be pestered with idle questions.
"Water, sir?" whined Molly Meagrim. "To be sure, your honour—water he shall have, poor dear soul! But, your honour, how much water ought I to give him?"
"Zounds, woman! haven't I told you to give him as much as he'll take?—and you ask me how much! How much?—give him a couple of pails of water, if he'll take 'em. Now, do you hear me, you old fool? Give him a couple of pails."
"The Lord bless your honour—yes," whined Molly.
To get beyond the reach of her miserable voice the Doctor ran to his horse, and rode off to Woodbridge. At night as he returned, he stopped at the cottage to inquire after the sick man.
"He's bin took away, yer honour," said the woman, as the physician entered. "The water didn't fare to do him noan good—noan in the lessest, sir. Only then we couldn't get down the right quantity, though we did our best. We got down better nor a pail and a half, when he slipped out o' our hands. Ah, yer honour! if we could but ha' got him to swaller the rest, he might still be alive! But we did our best, Doctor!"
Clumsy empirics, however, as the Taylors were, they attended people of the first importance. The elder Taylor was called to London to attend Thurlow, Bishop of Durham, the brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow. The representative men of the Faculty received him at the bishop's residence, but he would not commence the consultation till the arrival of John Hunter. "I won't say a word till Jack Hunter comes," roared the Whitworth doctor; "he's the only man of you who knows anything." When Hunter arrived, Taylor proceeded to his examination of the bishop's state, and, in the course of it, used some ointment which he took from a box.