“Ay, I’ve been there, an’ said I mun ha’ it done, but they said, ‘No, the coffer were empty; I was very able to do’t mysen,’ an’ I ar’n’t. Th’ pigs hanna done well this year, and ar Jack’s rabbits has been stown—nothing but ill luck. Nay, they wanted me to pay th’ doctor’s bill.”
“What doctor had you?”
“Owd Doctor Drawatter.”
“What! him with th’ pigtail and powdered head,” said Betty, “and that fine gold-headed cane, and that smooth finiking voice? My gracious! that such a fine powdery peacock sort of a doctor should come to you, Nathan.”
“Ay, and what do you think he said? When I told him poor folks couldna pay doctors’ bills—they had enough to do to get bread—he says, ‘Pooh, pooh, man! the poor are the best off of any people; they’ve got no dignity to support, like gentlemen, and gentlemen doctors.’”
“There’s something in that, though,” said Betty, “though you laugh at it.”
“Ay,” said another man, “if they would na plague us wi’ lawyers and doctors, we might do. There’s Lawyer Metthard been selling up poor Judy Selston for rent, poor old soul, and now she must end her days i’ th’ workhouse.”
“Oh, drat that Lawyer Metthard,” said Betty. “He should be called Meteasy, for he’s only too easy to meet, and not so easy to get away from.”
Betty’s sally was warmly applauded, and was sure to be reported all over the parish. “But, Betty,” says another, “pr’ythee give me just a spoonful more beer.”
Betty, who was an English female Eulenspiegel, though she never had heard of him even in his English name of Owlinglass, and often amused herself by taking people literally at their word, took up a table-spoon, filled it with beer, and handed it to the astonished labourer.