I don't recollect the
word in English; in Gaelic it is 'tigh neonachais.'"
"Museum?" said I.
"Ah, that's it," said she.
"He can't have much practice," I said, "if he goes racing and chasing
over the country that way, like a run-away engine."
"He don't want it, Sir," she replied, "he is very well off. He says he
is one of the richest men in the country, for he don't spend half his
income, and that any man who does that is wealthy. He says he ain't a
doctor. Whether he is or not, I don't know; but he makes wonderful
cures. Nothing in the world makes him so angry as when anybody sends
for him that can afford a doctor, for he don't take pay. Now, this
morning he stormed, and raved, and stamped, and foamed at the mouth,
as if he was mad; he fairly swore, a thing I never heard him do
before; and he seized the hammer that he chips off stones with, and
threatened the man so who come for him, that he stood with the door in
his hand, while he begged him to go.
"'Oh, Sir,' said he, 'the Squire will die if you don't go.'
"'Let him die, then,' he replied, 'and be hanged. What is it to me? It
serves him right. Why didn't he send for Doctor Smith, and pay him?
Does he think I am a going to rob that man of his living? Be off, Sir,
off with you. Tell him I can't come, and won't come, and do you go for
a magistrate to make his will.'
"As soon as the man quitted the house, his fit left him.
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