Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/238

 230 some boughs off the tree he looked about for the hole that the doctor spoke of. A hole there was, and Farquhar sat to watch it; and what should come out but six serpents, brown and barred like adders. These he let go, and clapped the bottle to the hole's mouth to see would anything more come out. By-and-by a white snake came rolling through. Farquhar had him in the bottle in a minute, tied him down, and hurried back to England with him.

The doctor gave him siller enough to buy the Reay country, but asked him to stay and help him with the white snake. They lit a fire with the hazel-sticks, and put the snake into a pot to boil; the doctor then bid Farquhar watch it, and not let any one touch it, and not to let the steam escape (for fear, he said, folk might know what they were at). He wrapped paper round the pot-lid; but he had not made all straight, for when the water began to boil the steam began to come out at one place. Well, Farquhar saw this, and thought he would push the paper down round the thing; so he put his finger to the bit that was wet, and then his finger into his mouth, for it was wet with the bree. Lo! he knew everything, and the eyes of his mind were opened. "I will keep it quiet though," he said to himself. Presently the doctor came back, and took the pot from the fire. He lifted the lid, and, dipping his finger in the steam drops, sucked it. But the virtue had gone out of it, and it was no more than water to him. "Who has done this?" he cried, and saw in Farquhar's face that it was he. "Since you have taken the bree of it, take the flesh too," he said in a rage, and threw the pot at him (ma dohl us a sugh ith n' fheol).

Now Farquhar had become all wise, and he set up as a doctor, and there was no secret hid from him, and nothing that he could not cure. He went from place to place and healed them, so that they called him Farquhar the physician. Now he heard that the king was sick, so he went to the city of the king to know what would ail him. It was his knee, said all the folk, and he has many doctors, and pays them all greatly, and whiles they can give him relief, but not for long, and then it is worse than ever with him, and you can hear him roar and cry with the pain that is in his knee, and in the bone of it. One day Farquhar walked up and down before king's house (N'daol dubh,