I saw it at
close hands. He who says I am ignorant of the plague, for
example, is altogether beside the bridge.'
'We grant it,' said Puck solemnly. 'But why talk of the plague
this rare night?'
'To prove my argument. This Oxfordshire plague, good
people, being generated among rivers and ditches, was of a
werish, watery nature. Therefore it was curable by drenching the
patient in cold water, and laying him in wet cloths; or at least, so I
cured some of them. Mark this. It bears on what shall come after.'
'Mark also, Nick,' said Puck, that we are not your College of
Physicians, but only a lad and a lass and a poor lubberkin. Therefore
be plain, old Hyssop on the Wall!'
'To be plain and in order with you, I was shot in the chest while
gathering of betony from a brookside near Thame, and was took
by the King's men before their Colonel, one Blagg or Bragge,
whom I warned honestly that I had spent the week past among
our plague-stricken. He flung me off into a cowshed, much like
this here, to die, as I supposed; but one of their priests crept in by
night and dressed my wound. He was a Sussex man like myself.'
'Who was that?' said Puck suddenly.
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