Page:Hardings luck - nesbit.djvu/112

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80
WHICH WAS THE DREAM?

side and felt his pulse, the doctor had to own that Dickie was almost well.

"We have wrought a cure, Goody," he said; "thou and I, we have wrought a cure. Now kitchen physic it is that he needs—good broth and gruel and panada, and wine, the Rhenish and the French, and the juice of the orange and the lemon, or, failing those, fresh apple-juice squeezed from the fruit when you shall have brayed it in a mortar. Ha, my cure pleases thee? Well, smell to it, then. 'Tis many a day since thou hadst the heart to."

He reached the gold nob of his cane to Dickie's nose, and Dickie was surprised to find that it smelt sweet and strong, something like grocers' shops and something like a chemist's. There were little holes in the gold knob, such as you see in the tops of pepper castors, and the scent seemed to come through them.

"What is it?" Dickie asked.

"He has forgotten everything," said the nurse quickly; "'tis the good doctor's pomander, with spices and perfumes in it to avert contagion."

"As it warms in the hand the perfumes give forth," said the doctor. "Now the fever is past there must be a fumiigatory. Make a good brew, Goody, make a good brew—amber and nitre and wormwood—vinegar and quinces and myrrh—with wormwood, camphor, and the fresh flowers of the camomile. And musk—forget not musk—a strong thing against contagion. Let the vapour of it pass to and fro through the chamber, burn the herbs from the floor and all