you--like Mr. John licked the doctor's
son. Gosh! there goes Pole's wagon."

Lamb fell to thought of how to get that whisky. The ingenuity of the man
who craves alcohol or morphia is sometimes surprising even to the most
experienced doctor. The immorality of the means of attainment is never
considered. If, as with Lamb, a lie or worse be needed, there is a
certain satisfaction in having outwitted nurse and doctor.

On the day after the two clergymen had heard John's final opinion of
Lamb, the bed-fast man received his daily visit from his spiritual
physician, and the clergyman met at the house door the doctor of the
body. "I suppose," said McGregor, "that you and I as concerns this
infernal rascal are under orders from Penhallow and his wife. I at least
have the satisfaction of being paid--"

"Oh, I am paid, Doctor," the clergyman smiled.

"Of course, any one and every one who serves that very efficient and
positive saint, Mrs. Penhallow, is paid. She's too terrifyingly good. It
must be--well, inconvenient at times. Now she wants this animal looked
after because of Mrs. Lamb; and the squire has some sort of absurd belief
that because the same breasts that nursed him nursed our patient, he must
befriend the fellow--and he does. Truth is, Rivers, that man's father was
a sodden drunkard but, I am told, not otherwise bad. It's a pretty sure
doom for the child. This man's body has damned his soul, and now the soul
is paying it back in kind."

"The damnation will be settled elsewhere," said Rivers gravely. "You are
pleading for him when you say he had a father who drank."

"Well, yes, yes. That is true, but I do confoundedly mistrust him. He
never remembers a kindness and never forgets the smallest injury. But
when Mrs. Penhallow puts a hand on your arm and you look at her, you just
go and do what she wants done. Oh, me too! Let's get out of this
unreasonable sun and see this fellow."

Billy was chasing blue-bottle flies on the window panes, and the patient
in bed was lying still, flushed, with red eyes. He was slowly recovering
from an attack of delirium tremens and reassembling his scattered wits.

"Well," said McGregor, "better, I see. Bugs gone?"

"Yes, sir; but if I had a little, just a nip of whisky to taper off on,
I'd be all right."

"Not a drop, Peter."

"I'll die if I don't get it."

"Then die sober."

Peter made no reply. McGregor felt his pulse, made his usual careful
examination, and said at last,