"Ay, did I, when that young dog was going over to the town; and he forgot it, then." "I only had the message, as I tell you, to-day." "An' me lying in tarmint all yes'day, and all night listening to the poachers out with their guns. Eh, but it's sorry work wi' them and the keepers, and not one on 'em man enough to leave a hare or a fezzan with a poor old woman who's hidden away many a lot of game for them in her time. Eh, but it's hard work, lying in my aggynies the long night through, and my neighbour coming to set up with me and nuss me, and going off to sleep, and snoring like a bad-ringed hog." "Ah, then your neighbour sat up with you last night, did she?" said Oldroyd. "Sat up with me? Snored up with me, and nearly drove me wild, my aggynies was that bad. Then she goes and sends Judy to tidy me up after braxfas, and a nice tidying up it was, with her all agog to get away and meet someone I'll be bound. I dunno who it be, but she's allus courting somers in the wood. Ah, I went courting once, but now it's all aggynies." "And so you're in great pain, are you, Mrs Wattley?" "Aggynies I tellee, aggynies." "Ah, it's rheumatism, old lady, rheumatism." "There man, as if I didn't know that. Think I've had these aggynies a-coming on at every change of the wind, and not know as it's rheumatiz, why, as I says to Miss Lucy Alling, there, as comes over from the big house a'side the common yonder, and brought me a few bits o' chicking, and sits herself down in that very chair, `I've had 'em too many years now, my dear, not to know as they're rheumatiz. I'll ask Doctor Oldroyd,' I says, `to give me some of they old iles as used to be got when I was younger than I am.' Fine things they was for the rheumatiz, but they don't seem to be able to get 'em now." Oldroyd moved uneasily in his seat, as he learned how lately Lucy had been there, and that she had occupied the very chair he was in. Then he hastily proceeded to cross-examine the poor old woman about her troubles, every answer he received going to prove that, for an old lady over ninety, Mrs Wattley was about as well preserved and healthy a specimen of humanity as it would be possible to find. "Ah, well," said Oldroyd at last, "I daresay I shall be able to give you a little comfort. You'll have to take some medicine, though." "Nay, nay, I want the iles, and I want 'em rubbed in," cried the old lady. "Nothing ever did me so much good as they iles; and I know what it all means--waiting three or four days afore I gets the medson to take." "Now, what is this," said Oldroyd, smiling; "I have brought it with me." As he spoke he took a bottle from the breast of his coat. "Then it's pyson, and you're going to give it to get rid of me, just a cause you parish doctors won't take the trouble to attend poor people. I know; you want to get rid of me, you do." "How can you talk like that? Have I ever neglected you?"