"
"I do; but why?--Hearken. You are one on whom I look with the least
loathing, and I care not, if, contrary to my wont, I waste a few words
in compassion to your infatuated blindness. If I cannot send disease
into families, and murrain among the herds, can I attain the same end
so well as by prolonging the lives of those who can serve the purpose of
destruction as effectually?--If Alice of Bower had died in winter, would
young Ruthwin have been slain for her love the last spring?--Who
thought of penning their cattle beneath the tower when the Red Reiver of
Westburnflat was deemed to be on his death-bed?--My draughts, my skill,
recovered him. And, now, who dare leave his herd upon the lea without a
watch, or go to bed without unchaining the sleuth-hound?"
"I own," answered Earnscliff; "you did little good to society by the
last of these cures. But, to balance the evil, there is my friend
Hobbie, honest Hobbie of the Heugh-foot, your skill relieved him last
winter in a fever that might have cost him his life.
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