“Can’t say he does,” said the smoker.
“For my part,” said Ned, “or indeed any man’s part, most people in such a case would have said, it’s all up with me, and good reason why, as I said afore, with a shaft clean through your inside, right up to the tug—and two inches besides into the stable wall, by way of a benefit. But somehow he always stuck to it—not the wall, you know—but his own opinion, that he should get over it—he was as firm as flints about that—and sure enough the event came off exactly.”
“The better for him,” said the smoker.
“I don’t know the rights on it,” said Ned, “for I warn’t there—but they do say when he was dextricated from the rod, there was a regular tunnel through him, and in course the greatest danger was of his ketching cold in the lungs from the thorough draught.”
“Nothing more likely,” said the fumigator.
“Howsomever,” continued Ned, “he was cured by Dr. Maiden of Stratford, who give him lots of physic to provoke his stomach, and make him eat hearty; and by taking his feeds well,—warm mashes at first, and then hard meat, in course of time he filled up. Nobody hardly believed it, though, when they see him about on his legs again—myself for one—but he always said he would overcome it, and he was as good as his word. If that an’t game, I don’t know what is.”
“No more do I,” said the man with the Havannah.
“I don’t know the philosophy on it,” resumed Ned, “but it’s a remark of mine about recovering, if a man says he will, he will,—and if he says he won’t, he won’t—you may book that for certain. Mayhap a good pluck helps the wounds in healing kindly,—but so it is, for I’ve observed it. You’ll see one man with hardly a scratch on his face, and says he, I’m done for—and he turns out quite correct—while another as is cut to ribbons will say—never mind,—I’m good for another round, and so he proves, particularly if he’s one of your small farmers. I’ll give you a reason why.”
“Now then,” said the smoker.
“My reason is,” replied Ned, “that they’re all as hard as nails—regular pebbles for game. They take more thrashing than their own corn, and that’s saying something. They’re all fortitude, and nothing else. Talk about punishment! nothing comes amiss to ’em, from butt-ends of whips and brickbats down to bludgeons loaded with lead. You can’t hurt their feelings. They’re jist like badgers, the more you welt ’em the more they grin, and when it’s over, maybe a turn-up at a cattle fair, or a stop by footpads, they’ll go home to their missises all over blood and wounds as cool and comfortable as cowcumbers, with holes in their heads enough to scarify a whole hospital of army surgeons.”