Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/853

Rh her inn. The lady at once penned a note, entreating the learned leech to visit her husband; and the hostess carried this to Peele and urged him to visit the patient.

George was taken aback, he had not meant his words to be taken au grand sérieux, and he tried to get out of the visit, but a servant from the great house arrived to conduct him to it, and Peele went with him. On his arrival he was gratefully received by the squire's wife, who conducted him to her husband's room. George felt his pulse and temples, and shook his head: "He is far spent," said he, "but under Heaven, I will do him some good, if nature be not quite extinct." He then asked to be shown into the garden, where he cut a handful of every flower and herb and shrub the garden contained, brought them into the house in the lappet of his cloak, boiled them in ale, strained them, boiled them again; and when he had all the juice out of them, made a hot draught and bade the patient drink a cupful, and ordered the wife to administer the same to the squire morning, noon, and night, and to keep the sick man warm. Then when he took his leave the lady pressed into his hand a couple of brace of angels, or about forty shillings. Away went Le Médecin malgré lui to Oxford, where he roystered so long as the money lasted. Then he had to return to London and by the same way, and was not a little shy of showing in Wycombe, for he did not know but that some of the herbs he had boiled and administered might be poisonous, and have killed the gentleman. So, as he approached the place, he inquired of a country bumpkin how the gentleman was. The fellow told him, that his good landlord, Heaven be praised, had been cured by a wonderful doctor who had come that way by chance.

"Art thou sure of this?" quoth George, "Yes,