y poor bones are stiff, and indeed the
fire is too hot for a body to kneel over with these short straws. St.
John the Baptist, but the young man is adroit!"

For, while he stated his difficulty, Gerard removed it. He untied in a
moment the knot on his breast, took his hat off, put a stone into each
corner of it, then, wrapping his hand in the tail of his jerkin, whipped
the flask off the fire, wedged it in between the stones, and put the
hat under the old man's nose with a merry smile. The other tremulously
inserted the pipe of rye-straw and sucked. Lo and behold, his wan, drawn
face was seen to light up more and more, till it quite glowed; and as
soon as he had drawn a long breath:

"Hippocrates and Galen!" he cried, "'tis a soupe au vin--the restorative
of restoratives. Blessed be the nation that invented it, and the woman
that made it, and the young man who brings it to fainting folk. Have a
suck, my girl, while I relate to our young host the history and virtues
of this his sovereign compound. This corroborative, young sir, was
unknown to the ancients: we find it neither in their treatises of
medicine, nor in those popular narratives, which reveal many of their
remedies, both in chirurgery and medicine proper. Hector, in the Ilias,
if my memory does not play me false--

(Margaret. "Alas! he's off.")

----was invited by one of the ladies of the poem to drink a draught of
wine; but he declined, on the plea that he was just going into battle,
and must not take aught to weaken his powers. Now, if the soupe au vin
had been known in Troy, it is clear that in declining vinum merum upon
that score, he would have added in the hexameter, 'But a soupe au vin,
madam, I will degust, and gratefully.' Not only would this have been but
common civility--a virtue no perfect commander is wanting in--but not
to have done it would have proved him a shallow and improvident person,
unfit to be trusted with the conduct of a war; for men going into a
battle need sustenance and all possible support, as is proved by this,
that foolish generals, bringing hungry soldiers to blows with full ones,
have been defeated, in all ages, by inferior numbers. The Romans lost
a great battle in the north of Italy to Hannibal, the Carthaginian, by
this neglect alone. Now, this divine elixir gives in one moment force to
the limbs and ardour to the spirits; and taken into Hector's body at
the nick of time, would, by the aid of Phoebus, Venus, and the blessed