your way home and tell him that the devil will have him in a fortnight."
A few days beyond the fortnight the old gentleman actually died.
A Dartmoor small farmer came to him one day, suffering from congestion of the lungs. "You go home, and to bed at once," said Dr. Budd; "and here's a draught for you to take internally, and here are some leeches to apply externally."
"Please, your honour, to write it down," said John.
"Can you read?"
"Yes, I reckon, but my Mary can't."
So Dr. Budd wrote the instructions.
A week or fortnight later the patient called again. He was recovered.
"Well," said the Doctor, "you took my prescriptions?"
"Aye, I reckon I did—and drashy things they were."
"You put the leeches on?"
"I reckon I put 'em in, sir. I read what you'd wrote and we understood you to say that they was to be fried, so my Mary, her put the pan on th' vire, and a pat o' butter and a shred o' onion, and fried 'em, live as they were. But they was cruel nasty, like bits of leather. But Lord! for mussy's sake, Doctor, don't ax me to ate any more o' them things. I'd rayther take a whole box o' pills all to wance."
A gentleman called on him one day just before Budd sat down to dinner, and brought with him his brother suffering from lock-jaw.
"I'm not going to be interfered with at my dinner for you or the King," said Budd; then to his servant, "Here, George, lay two plates for these gentlemen, the one who can't speak place opposite me at the bottom of the table, and for the other gentleman in the middle on my left."
