He had a great hectoring voice. The travellers in the room, all except the group in the corner, turned their heads and stared. Aderhold, attempting to pass, made a gesture of denial and repulsion. “Ha! Look at him!” cried Master Anthony Mull. “He makes astrologer’s signs—warlock’s signs! Look if he doesn’t bring a fiend’s own storm upon us ere we get to town!”
Very quiet, kindly, not easily angered, Aderhold could feel white wrath rise within him. He felt it now—felt a hatred of the red and blue man. The most of those in the room were listening. It came to him with bitterness that this bully and liar with his handful of idle words might be making it difficult for him to tarry, to fall into place if any place invited, in the town ahead. He had had some such idea. They said it was a fair town, with some learning....
He clenched his hands and pressed his lips together. To answer in words was alike futile and dangerous; instead, with a shake of the head, he pushed by the red and blue man. The other might have followed and continued the baiting, but some further and unexpected dilatoriness exhibited by the Rose Tavern fanned his temper into conflagration. He joined the more peppery of the merchants in a general denouncement and prophecy of midnight ere they reached the town. Aderhold, as far from him as he could get, put under the surge of anger and alarm. He stood debating within himself the propriety of leaving the inn at once, before Master Mull could make further mischief. The cold twilight and the empty road without were to be preferred to accusations, in this age, of any difference in plane.
The sick man near him gave a deep groan, struggled to a sitting posture, then fell to one side in a fit or swoon, his head striking against the wall. The young serving-man uttered an exclamation of distress and helplessness. The man with the plain hat, who had turned away, wheeled and came back with knitted brows. There was some commotion in the room among those who had noticed the matter, but yet no great amount. The old man seemed unknown to some and to others known unfavourably.
Aderhold crossed to the bench and bending over the sufferer proceeded to loosen his ruff and shirt. “Give him air,” he said, and then to the tall man, “I am a physician.”
They laid Master Hardwick upon a bed in an inner room, where, Aderhold doing for him what he might, he presently revived. He stared about him. “Where am I? Am I at the Oak Grange? I thought I was on the road from London. Where is Will, my man?”
“He is without,” said Aderhold. “Do you want him? I am a physician.”
Master Hardwick lay and stared at him. “No, no! You are a leech? Stay with me.... Am I going to die?”