Nothing could be more seasonable than the delivery of this billet, which he had no sooner perused than his reflection returned, and he entered into a serious deliberation with his own heart. He considered that Aurelia was by this time far beyond a possibility of being overtaken, and that by a precipitate pursuit he should only expose his own infirmities. He confided in the attachment of his mistress, and in the fidelity of her maid, who would find opportunities of communicating her sentiments by means of this lacquey, of whom he perceived by the letter she had already made a conquest. He therefore resolved to bridle his impatience, to proceed leisurely to London, and, instead of taking any rash step which might induce Anthony Darnel to remove his niece from that city, remain in seeming quiet until she should be settled, and her guardian returned to the country. Aurelia had mentioned to him the name of Doctor Kawdle, and from him he expected in due time to receive the most interesting information formerly tormented with the pangs of despairing love, which had actually unsettled his understanding, he was now happily convinced that he had inspired the tender breast of Aurelia with mutual affection; and, though she was invidiously snatched from his embrace in the midst of such endearments as had wound up his soul to ecstasy and transport, he did not doubt of being able to rescue her from the power of an inhuman kinsman, whose guardianship would soon of course expire; and in the meantime he rested with the most perfect dependence on her constancy and virtue.
As he next day crossed the country, ruminating on the disaster that had befallen his squire, and could now compare circumstances coolly, he easily comprehended the whole scheme of that adventure, which was no other than an artifice of Anthony Darnel and his emissaries to draw him from the inn, where he proposed to execute his design upon the innocent Aurelia. He took it for granted that the uncle, having been made acquainted with his niece’s elopement, had followed her track by the help of such information as he received, from one stage to another; and that, receiving more particulars at the White Hart touching Sir Launcelot, he had formed the scheme in which Crabshaw was an involuntary instrument towards the seduction of his master.
Amusing himself with these and other cogitations, our hero in the afternoon reached the place of his destination, and, entering the inn where Timothy had been left at sick quarters, chanced to meet the apothecary retiring precipitately in a very unsavoury pickle from the chamber of his patient. When he inquired about the health of his squire, this retainer to medicine, wiping himself all the while with a napkin, answered in manifest confusion, that he apprehended him to be in a very dangerous way from an inflammation of the piamater, which had produced a most furious delirium. Then he proceeded to explain, in technical terms, the method of cure he had followed; and concluded with telling him the poor squire’s brain was so outrageously disordered, that he had rejected all administration, and just thrown an urinal in his face.
The knight’s humanity being alarmed at this intelligence, he resolved that Crabshaw should have the benefit of further advice, and asked if there was not a physician in the place? The apothecary, after some interjections of hesitation, owned there was a doctor in the village, an odd sort of a humourist; but he believed he had not much to do in the way of his profession, and was not much used to the forms of prescription. He was counted a scholar, to be sure, but as to his medical capacity—he would not take upon him to say. “No matter,” cried Sir Launcelot, “he may strike out some lucky thought for the benefit of the patient, and I desire you will call him instantly.”
While the apothecary was absent on this service, our adventurer took it in his head to question the landlord about the character of this physician, which had been so unfavourably represented, and received the following information:—
“For my peart, measter, I knows nothing amiss of the doctor—he’s a quiet sort of an inoffensive man; uses my house sometimes, and pays for what he has, like the rest of my customers. They says he deals very little in physic stuff, but cures his patients with fasting and water-gruel, whereby he can’t expect the ‘pothecary to be his friend. You knows, master, one must live, and let live, as the saying is. I must say, he, for the value of three guineas, set up my wife’s constitution in such a manner, that I have saved within these two years, I believe, forty pounds in ‘pothecary’s bills. But what of that? Every man must eat, thof at another’s expense; and I should be in a deadly hole myself if all my customers should take it in their heads to drink nothing but water-gruel, because it is good for the constitution. Thank God, I have as good a constitution as e’er a man in England, but for all that, I and my whole family bleed and purge, and take a diet-drink twice a year, by way of serving the ‘pothecary, who is a very honest man, and a very good neighbour.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the return of the apothecary with the doctor, who had very little of the faculty in his appearance. He was dressed remarkably plain; seemed to be turned of fifty; had a careless air, and a sarcastical turn in his countenance. Before he entered the sick man’s chamber, he asked some questions concerning the disease; and when the apothecary, pointing to his own head, said, “It lies all here,” the doctor, turning to Sir Launcelot, replied, “If that be all there’s nothing in it.”
Upon a more particular inquiry about the symptoms, he was told that the blood was seemingly viscous, and salt upon the tongue; the urine remarkably acrosaline; and the faeces atrabilious and foetid. When the doctor said he would engage to find the same phenomena in every healthy man of the three kingdoms, the apothecary added, that the patient was manifestly comatous, and moreover afflicted with griping pains and borborygmata. “A f—t for your borborygmata,” cried the physician; “what has been done?” To this question, he replied, that venesection had been three times performed; that a vesicatory had been applied inter scapulas; that the patient had taken occasionally of a cathartic apozem, and between whiles, alexipharmic boluses and neutral draughts.—“Neutral, indeed,” said the doctor; “so neutral, that I’ll be crucified if ever they declare either for the patient or the disease.” So saying, he brushed into Crabshaw’s chamber, followed by our adventurer, who was almost suffocated at his first entrance. The day was close; the window-shutters were fastened; a huge fire blazed in the chimney; thick harateen curtains were close drawn round the bed, where the wretched squire lay extended under an enormous load of blankets. The nurse, who had all the exteriors of a bawd given to drink, sat stewing in this apartment like a damned soul in some infernal bagnio; but rising when the company entered, made her curtsies with great decorum.—“Well,” said the doctor, “how does your patient, nurse?”—“Blessed be God for it, I hope in a fair way. To be sure his apozem has had a blessed effect— five-and-twenty stools since three o’clock in the morning. But then, a’would not suffer the blisters to be put upon his thighs. Good lack! a’has been mortally obstropolous, and out of his senses all this blessed day.”—“You lie,” cried the squire, “I an’t out of my seven senses, thof I’m half mad with vexation.”
The doctor having withdrawn the curtain, the hapless squire appeared very pale and ghastly; and having surveyed his master with a rueful aspect, addressed him in these words: “Sir Knight, I beg a boon. Be pleased to tie a stone about the neck of the apothecary, and a halter about the neck of the nurse, and throw the one into the next river, and the other over the next tree, and in so doing you will do a charitable deed to your fellow-creatures; for he and she do the devil’s work in partnership, and have sent many a score of their betters home to him before their time.” —“Oh, he begins to talk sensibly.”—“Have a good heart,” said the physician. “What is your disorder?”—“Physic.”—“What do you chiefly complain of?”—“The doctor.”—“Does your head ache?”—“Yea, with impertinence.” “Have you a pain in your back?”—“Yes, where the blister lies.”—“Are you sick at stomach?”—“Yes, with hunger.”—“Do you feel any shiverings?”—“Always at sight of the apothecary.”—“Do you perceive any load in your bowels?”—“I would the apothecary’s conscience was as clear.”—“Are you thirsty?”—“Not thirsty enough to drink barley-water.” —“Be pleased to look into his fauces,” said the apothecary; “he has got a rough tongue, and a very foul mouth, I’ll assure you.”—“I have known that the case with some limbs of the faculty, where they stood more in need of correction than of physic.—Well, my honest friend, since you have already undergone the proper purgations in due form, and say you have no other disease than the doctor, we will set you on your legs again without further question. Here, nurse, open that window, and throw these phials into the street. Now lower the curtain, without shutting the casement, that the man may not be stifled in his own steam. In the next place, take off two-thirds of these coals, and one-third of these blankets.—How dost feel now, my heart?” “I should feel heart-whole, if so be as yow would throw the noorse a’ter the bottles, and the ‘pothecary a’ter the noorse, and oorder me a pound of chops for my dinner, for I be so hoongry, I could eat a horse behind the saddle.”
The apothecary, seeing what passed, retired of his own accord, holding up his hands in sign of astonishment. The nurse was dismissed in the same breath. Crabshaw rose, dressed himself without assistance, and made a hearty meal on the first eatable that presented itself to view. The knight passed the evening with the physician, who, from his first appearance, concluded he was mad; but, in the course of the conversation, found means to resign that opinion without adopting any other in lieu of it, and parted with him under all the impatience of curiosity. The knight, on his part, was very well entertained with the witty sarcasms and erudition of the doctor, who appeared to be a sort of cynic philosopher tinctured with misanthropy, and at open war with the whole body of apothecaries, whom however it was by no means his interest to disoblige.