mount guard during my absence.

Preferring not to notice the peculiarity of my assistant's manner, as it
might involve awkward explanations, I closed the door of his prison with
an authoritative bang, that shook the slate outside it, and strode with
hasty steps down the village street. There was no occasion for hurry,
the business I had on hand was not of a kind to demand it, and had been
pending a reasonable time; nor would any more haste on my part be lively
to advance it much, but would rather verify the old proverb, of 'less
speed.' I therefore walked fast purely as a matter of principle, in the
hope, that the village dames, who I knew were watching my progress from
behind the green paper curtains of their 'sittin' room' windows, might
possibly judge from my speed, that I had been called to a patient at
last. Vain hope! idle precaution! every one of those astute matrons knew
at least as well as myself the errand upon which I was bound, and far
better than I, as I own in all humility, the state of health in the
neighborhood, which precluded all possibility of any professional
exertion on my part.

And here I may remark, literally _en passant_, that the town in which I
had chosen to locate was salubrious to a painful and unnatural degree,
the very last place in the world for a young physician in ordinary
circumstances to seek his fortune, but my circumstances were
peculiar--it was not so much fortune that I sought--in short, I had my
reasons--and a large practice would have greatly interfered with my more
serious occupation. Still, I do not deny that a slight modicum of
professional business, just to fill up the intervening time and save
appearances, would not have been amiss, and I had been in fact rather
anxiously looking for some symptoms of the sort for a considerable time,
without any result at all. The inhabitants all took Hall's 'Journal of
Health;' they cherished Buchan's 'Domestic Medicine,' they studied the
'Handbook of Hygiene;' they were learned in the works of Fowler. Cold
water was cheap and plentiful, they used it externally and
internally--exercise was fashionable and inevitable, where every lady
was her own help, and every gentleman his own woodsawyer; food was just
dear enough to make surfeits undesirable, and medicine was so unpopular
that nobody before me ever ventured to open a drug store; the old ladies
dispensed a few herbs privately, and that was the end of it. People did
not seem to die; if