Coristine called the mother, poured some St. Jacob’s Oil into the palm of her hand, and bade her rub down her son’s back at the small.  “Rub hard!” he said; and she rubbed it in.  Three or four more doses followed, till the back was a fine healthy colour.

“How does that work, Ben?”

“It smarts some, but I can wriggle my back a bit.”

Then the doctor poured some whiskey out of his flask in the same way and it was applied.

“Do you think you can turn round now?” he asked; and, at once, the patient revolved, lying in a more convenient and seemly position.

“Bring the hot clothes, Mrs. Toner, and lay them on the bruised part, as hot as he can stand it.  The patient growled a little when the clothes were abdominally applied, one after the other, but they warmed him up, and even, as he said, ‘haylped his back.’”

“Now, Ben, when did you take whiskey last?”

“I ain’t had nary a drop the hull of this blessed day.”

“Is that true?”

“Gawspel truth, doctor, so haylp me.”

“If you don’t promise me to quit drinking, I can do nothing for you.”

“But he will promise, doctor; won’t you now, Benny dear?” eagerly asked the mother.

“Yaas!” groaned the sufferer, with a new hot cloth on him; “yaas; I guess I’ll have to.”

Then, the perfidious doctor emptied his flask into a glass, and poured in enough oil to disguise its taste.  Adding a little water, he gave the dose as medicine to the unconscious victim, who took it off manfully, and naturally felt almost himself again.

“Have you plenty coal-oil in the house, Mrs. Toner?” enquired the family physician; and the widow replied that she had.  “Rub the afflicted parts with it, till they will absorb no more; then let him sleep till morning, when he can get up and go about light work.  But, mind, there’s to be no lifting of heavy weights for three days, and no whiskey at all.”

With these words, Coristine received the woman’s warm expressions of gratitude, and departed.

Tommy had gone, so the lawyer had to go back to the Inn alone, and in the dark.  He turned the barn, before which one bundle of grindstones still lay, the one, apparently, that had floored Ben.  Then he made his way along a path bordered with dewy grass, that did not seem quite familiar, so that he rejoiced when he arrived at the road and the bridge.  But, both road and bridge were new to him, and there was no Maple Inn.  He now saw that he had taken the wrong turning at the barn, and was preparing to retrace his steps, when a sound of approaching wheels and loud voices arrested him.  On came the waggons, three in number, the horses urged to their utmost by drunken drivers, in whom he recognized the men that he and Wilkinson had met before they took the road to the Inn.  Coristine was standing on the road close by the bridge as they drove up, but, as the man with the first team aimed a blow at him with