Page:An Old English Home and Its Dependencies.djvu/264

250 husband—was standing on the bed, one foot on each side of the patient, with a black kitchen kettle in his hand, endeavouring to pour the contents down her mouth. Both men were hot and perspiring freely, and the poor woman was gasping for breath and almost expiring under the treatment.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed the doctor, "what are you about?" "Please, sir," answered the husband, blowing hard, and wiping his brow with his sleeve, "us've been giving her the medicine you sent down. It got all stiff and hard, so we clapped it into the kettle and gave it a bile, and was pouring it down my wife's throat. I couldn't hold her mouth open myself as well as mind the kettle, so I just called in my mate Thomas, to help and hold her up, and open her mouth for the kettle spout." The life of the village doctor is a hard one. Never certain of a meal, and never certain of a sound, undisturbed sleep, he has to take his victuals and his rest by snatches, but then he inhales the fresh, pure air, and that maintains him in health. He has to keep his