“Howsomever,” continued Ned, “he was cured by Dr. Maiden of Stratford, who give him lots of physic to provoke his stomach, and make him eat hearty; and by taking his feeds well,--warm mashes at first, and then hard meat, in course of time he filled up. Nobody hardly believed it, though, when they see him about on his legs again--myself for one--but he always said he would overcome it, and he was as good as his word. If that an’t game, I don’t know what is.” “No more do I,” said the man with the Havannah. “I don’t know the philosophy on it,” resumed Ned, “but it’s a remark of mine about recovering, if a man says he will, he will,--and if he says he won’t, he won’t--you may book that for certain. Mayhap a good pluck helps the wounds in healing kindly,--but so it is, for I’ve observed it. You’ll see one man with hardly a scratch on his face, and says he, I’m done for--and he turns out quite correct--while another as is cut to ribbons will say--never mind,--I’m good for another round, and so he proves, particularly if he’s one of your small farmers. I’ll give you a reason why.” “Now then,” said the smoker. “My reason is,” replied Ned, “that they’re all as hard as nails--regular pebbles for game. They take more thrashing than their own corn, and that’s saying something. They’re all fortitude, and nothing else. Talk about punishment! nothing comes amiss to ’em, from butt-ends of whips and brickbats down to bludgeons loaded with lead. You can’t hurt their feelings. They’re jist like badgers, the more you welt ’em the more they grin, and when it’s over, maybe a turn-up at a cattle fair, or a stop by footpads, they’ll go home to their missises all over blood and wounds as cool and comfortable as cowcumbers, with holes in their heads enough to scarify a whole hospital of army surgeons.” “The very thing Scott has characterised,” I ventured to observe, “in the person of honest Dandie.” “Begging your pardon, Sir,” said Ned, “I know Farmer Scott very well, and he’s anything but a dandy. I was just a going to bring forward, as one of the trumps, a regular out-and-outer. We become friends through an axident. It was a darkish night, you see, and him a little lushy or so, making a bit of a swerve in his going towards the middle of the road, before you could cry Snacks! I was over him with the old Regulator.” “Good God!” exclaimed my left-hand companion on the roof. “Was not the poor fellow hurt?” “Why, not much for HIM,” answered Ned, with a very decided emphasis on the pronoun. “Though it would have been a quietus for nine men out of ten, and, as the Jews say, Take your pick of the basket. But he looked queer at first, and shook himself, and made a wryish face, like a man that hadn’t got the exact bit of the joint he preferred.”