y, in came the doctor, partly drunk,
and in haste to get through his business.

"Ha, ha! I see," he cried; "bite of a horse, they tell me. Very
poisonous; must be burned away. Sally, the iron in the fire. If you have
a fire, this weather."

"Crave your pardon, good sir," I said; for poor little Ruth was fainting
again at his savage orders: "but my cousin's arm shall not be burned; it
is a great deal too pretty, and I have sucked all the poison out. Look,
sir, how clean and fresh it is."

"Bless my heart! And so it is! No need at all for cauterising. The
epidermis will close over, and the cutis and the pellis. John Ridd, you
ought to have studied medicine, with your healing powers. Half my virtue
lies in touch. A clean and wholesome body, sir; I have taught you the
Latin grammar. I leave you in excellent hands, my dear, and they wait
for me at shovel-board. Bread and water poultice cold, to be renewed,
_tribus horis_. John Ridd, I was at school with you, and you beat me very
lamentably, when I tried to fight with you. You remember me not? It is
likely enough: I am forced to take strong waters, John, from infirmity
of the liver. Attend to my directions; and I will call again in the
morning."

And in that melancholy plight, caring nothing for business, went one
of the cleverest fellows ever known at Tiverton. He could write Latin
verses a great deal faster than I could ever write English prose, and
nothing seemed too great for him. We thought that he would go to Oxford
and astonish every one, and write in the style of Buchanan; but he fell
all abroad very lamentably; and now, when I met him again, was come down
to push-pin and shovel-board, with a wager of spirits pending.

When Master Huckaback came home, he looked at me very sulkily; not only
because of my refusal to become a slave to the gold-digging, but also
because he regarded me as the cause of a savage broil between Simon
Carfax and the men who had cheated him as to his Gwenny. However, when
Uncle Ben saw Ruth, and knew what had befallen her, and she with tears
in her eyes declared that she owed her life to Cousin Ridd, the old man
became very gracious to me; for if he loved any one on earth, it was his
little granddaughter.

I could not stay very long, because, my horse being quite unfit to
travel from the injuries which his violence and vice had brought upon
him, there was nothing for me but to go on foot, as none of Uncle Ben's
horses could take me to Plo