Part 42 (2/2)

”Strychnine! I never heard tell of it. Is that Latin for a.r.s.enic?”

”Now isn't this lamentable? Why, a.r.s.enic is a mital; strychnine a vigitable. N'hist me! Your man was here seeking strychnine to poison his mouse; a harmless, domistic, necessary mouse. I told him mice were a part of Nature as much as Maxleys, and life as sweet t.i.t as tim: but he was dif to scientific and chrisehin preceps; so I told him to go to the Deevil: 'I will,' sis he, and went t' a docker. The two a.s.sa.s.sins have poisoned the poor beastie between 'em; and thin, been the greatest miser in the world, except one, he will have roasted his victim, and ate her on the sly, imprignated with strychnine. 'I'll steal a march on t'other miser,' sis he; and that's you: t' his brain flew the strychnine: his brain sint it to his spinal marrow: and we found my lorrd bent like a bow, and his jaw locked, and nearer knowin the great secret than any man in England will be this year to live: and sairves the a.s.sa.s.sinating old vagabin right.”

”Heaven forgive you, Doctor,” said Mrs. Maxley, half mechanically.

”For curin a murrderer? Not likely.”

Mrs. Maxley, who had shown signs of singular uneasiness during Sampson's explanation, now rose, and said in a very peculiar tone she must go home directly.

Mrs. Dodd seemed to enter into her feelings, and made her go in the fly, taking care to pay the fare and the driver out of her own purse. As the woman got into the fly, Sampson gave her a piece of friendly and practical advice. ”Nixt time he has a mind to breakfast on strychnine, you tell me; and I'll put a pinch of a.r.s.enic in the salt-cellar, and cure him safe as the bank. But this time he'd have been did and stiff long before such a slow ajint as a.r.s.enic could get a hold on um.”

They sat down to luncheon, but neither Alfred nor Julia fed much, except upon sweet stolen looks; and soon the active Sampson jumped up, and invited Alfred to go round his patients. Alfred could not decline, but made his adieux with regret so tender and undisguised, that Julia's sweet eyes filled, and her soft hand instinctively pressed his at parting to console him. She blushed at herself afterwards, but at the time she was thinking only of him.

Maxley and his wife came up in the evening with a fee. They had put their heads together, and proffered one guinea. ”Man and wife be one flesh, you know, Doctor,” said the rustic miser.

Sampson, whose natural choler was constantly checked by his humour, declined this profuse proposal. ”Here's vanity!” said he. ”Now do you really think your two lives are worth a guinea? Why, it's 252 pence!

1008 farthings!”

The pair affected disappointment--vilely.

At all events, he must accept this basket of gudgeons Maxley had brought along. Being poisoned was quite out of Maxley's daily routine, and had so unsettled him, that he had got up, and gone fis.h.i.+ng--to the amazement of the parish.

Sampson inspected the basket. ”Why, they are only fish,” said he; _”I was in hopes they were pas.h.i.+nts._” He accepted the gudgeons, and inquired how Maxley got poisoned. It came out that Mrs. Maxley, seeing her husband set apart a portion of his Welsh rabbit, had ”grizzled,” and asked what that was for; and being told ”for the mouse,” and to ”mind her own business,” had grizzled still more, and furtively conveyed a portion back into the pan for her master's own use. She had been quaking dismally all the afternoon at what she had done, but finding Maxley--hard but just--did not attack her for an involuntary fault, she now brazened it out, and said, ”Men didn't ought to have poison in the house unbeknown to their wives. Jem had got no more than he worked for,” &c. But, like a woman, she vowed vengeance on the mouse: whereupon Maxley threatened her with the marital correction of neck-twisting if she laid a finger on it.

”My eyes be open now to what a poor creature do feel as dies poisoned.

Let her a be: there's room in our place for her and we.”

Next day he met Alfred, and thanked him with warmth, almost with emotion. ”There ain't many in Barkington as ever done me a good turn, Master Alfred; you be one on 'em: you comes after the Captain in my book now.”

Alfred suggested that his claims were humble compared with Sampson's.

”No, no,” said Maxley, going down to his whisper, and looking, monstrous wise: ”Doctor didn't go out of his business for me: you did.”

The sage miser's grat.i.tude had not time to die a natural death before circ.u.mstances occurred to test it. On the morning of that eventful day which concluded my last chapter, he received a letter from Canada. His wife was out with eggs; so he caught little Rose Sutton, that had more than once spelled an epistle for him; and she read it out in a loud and reckless whine: ”'At -- noon -- this -- very -- daie -- Muster --Hardie's a-g-e-n-t, aguent -- d-i-s dis, h-o-n -- honour_ed_ --dis-honour_ed_--a--bill; and sayed.'” Here she made a full stop. Then on to the next verse.

”'There -- were no -- more -- a.s.ses.'”

”Mercy on us! but it can't be a.s.ses, wench: drive your spe-ad into't again.”

”'A-s-s-e-t-s. a.s.sets.'”

”Ah! Go an! go an!”

”'Now -- Fatther -- if -- you -- leave -- a s-h-i-l-l-i-n-g, s.h.i.+lling --at --Hardie's -- after -- this -- b-l-a-m-e, ble-am -- your -- self --not-- me -- for -- this -- is -- the -- waie -- the r-o-g-u-e-s, rogews -- all-- bre-ak -- they -- go -- at -- a-- d-i-s-t-a-n-c-e, distance --first-- and -- then -- at -- h-o-m-e, whuoame. -- Dear -- fatther' --Lawk o' daisy, what ails you, Daddy Maxley? You be as white as a Sunday smock. Be you poisoned again, if _you_ please?”

”Worse than that--worse!” groaned Maxhey, trembling all over.

”Hus.h.!.+--hold your tongue! Give me that letter! Don't you never tell n.o.body nothing of what you have been a reading to me, and I'll--I'll--It's only Jem's fun: he is allus running his rigs--that's a good wench now, and I'll give ye a halfpenny.”

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