I came to cure this
unhappy Lady--and I profess she well deserves the trouble, for, say
what they will of her, she hath a most winning manner, a sweet voice,
a gracious smile, and a most majestic wave of her hand. If she was not
poisoned, say, my dear Master Roland, was that fault of mine, I being
ready to cure her if she had?--and now I am denied the permission to
accept my well-earned honorarium--O Galen! O Hippocrates! is the
graduate's cap and doctor's scarlet brought to this pass! _Frustra
fatigamus remediis aegros!_"
He wiped his eyes, stepped on the gunwale, and the boat pushed off
from the shore, and went merrily across the lake, which was dimpled by
the summer wind. [Footnote: A romancer, to use a Scottish phrase,
wants but a hair to make a tether of. The whole detail of the
steward's supposed conspiracy against the life of Mary, is grounded
upon an expression in one of her letters, which affirms, that Jasper
Dryfesdale, one of the Laird of Lochleven's servants, had threatened
to murder William Douglas, (for his share in the Queen's escape,) and
averred that he would plant a dagger in Mary's own heart.--CHALMER'S
_Life of Queen Mary_, vol. i. p. 278.]
Chapter the Thirty-Third.
Death distant?--No, alas! he's ever with us,
And shakes the dart at us in all our actings:
He lurks within our cup, while we're in health;
Sits by our sick-bed, mocks our medicines;
We cannot walk, or sit, or ride, or travel,
But Death is by to seize us when he lists.
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