“What are these pills for? All for the same disorder?”
“They were made up for different disorders, sir.”
“And pray how do you distinguish them?”
“I cannot distinguish them now. They have been mixed. Even if returned to me I could not use them. I have a piece of furniture at home, sir, that I call my pill-case. It has various drawers in it, each drawer being labelled with the sort of pills kept in it: camomile, dandelion, and so on. Mr. Jones must be able to corroborate this.”
Old Jones nodded. He had never seen nothing neater nor more exact in all his life, than the keeping o’ them there pills. He, Mr. Jones, had tumbled the drawerfuls indiscriminately into his bag, and so mixed them.
“And they will be so much loss to me,” quietly observed Abel. “It does not matter.”
“Were you brought up to the medical profession?” cried the coroner—and some of us thought he put the question in irony.
“No, sir,” replied Abel, taking it seriously. “I have learnt the healing art, as supplied by herbs and roots, and I know their value. Herbs will cure sometimes where the regular doctor fails. I have myself cured cases with them that the surgeons could not cure; cases that but for me, under God, might never have been cured in this world. I make no boast of it; any one else might do as much who had made herbs a study as I have.”
“Are you making a fortune by it?” went on the coroner.