oven, and his hand is as cold as a frozen
turnip; make haste--fly! two steps for one!"

The servants dispersed right and left to their various appointments,
and some, directed by Mistress Vicza, seized Vendel by the arms and
legs, and carried him off, neck and crop, to his bedroom, where they
rolled him up in three feather-beds and half-a-dozen pillows, and made
him drink a quart of camomile and as much elder-tea; while Mistress
Vicza sat beside him with a hand-brush, which she applied unmercifully
if he attempted to move hand or foot from under the feather-beds.

This is the village cure for every complaint. The patient is boiled in
his own soup, and if he does not suffocate, or die of apoplexy, he is
sure to be cured.

Vendel-gazda was at first only shamming ill. He wished to be in peace
and quiet, and he wished to be made much of; but Mistress Vicza had
fairly outwitted him, and he ended by believing what he had himself
invented; he felt that it was either the heat or the cold, but some
sort of fever it certainly was. The hot tea which he had drunk, the
sack of linseed porridge which had been placed on his stomach, the
vesicatorium applied to his soles, the anxious faces about him, the
tiptoe tread, the odour of vinegar poured on heated iron to carry off
infection, the hands laid on his forehead, the whispered opinions, all
gave rise to those peculiar sensations experienced at the beginning of
an illness--a sort of congealment in the head, and a swarming
sensation throughout the whole system.

"Vicza!" whispered the patient from beneath the feather beds, from
which only his nose was seen rising like a main-mast; "Vicza, I am
thirsty!"

"The czerjo fu[72] will be here directly, my dear old man, and then
you can drink it; meanwhile, you may suck your lips a little."

[Footnote 72: Thousand-sweets, an herb.]

Alas! it was not czerjo-fu tea that Vendel wanted to drink, but he did
not dare to say so.

"See, here it is, hot and bitter, for my dear old man! wait, I will
pour some into the saucer--now, drink it, and you will be quite well;
but take care not to burn your mouth."

"Brrrrrphue!" exclaimed the self-made patient, shuddering, as he took
the first mouthful; "this must be poison!"

"Poison indeed! it is excellent physic. I will drink some myself;
there now--delightful! it will cure you perfectly--drink now, my old
man, drink it, quick! come now, drink it when I tell you."

In short, _nolens volens_, V