And, oh! the decoctions, and the salves, and the ointments, and the plasters, and the poultices, and the liniments, and the electuaries, and the simples, and the compounds, that were made by the old women of Haxey, and all Axholme, by Toby Lackpenny's oracular direction! And then the exultant looks and honied words with which some would return thanks to Toby, and assure him all their tooth-ache, or head-ache, or elbow-ache, had vanished, like magic, by their diligent attention to his prescription; and then the reach and shrewdness he displayed in answering such as complained that his advice had not been of the service they had apprehended, namely, that they had not plucked the flower in the hour when its own planet presided,--or they had not boiled it before the Moon rose,--and she was in opposition to Jupiter, the lord of the plant wormwood,--or some other convincing reason why the device had not succeeded. Toby's advancement in the "astral science," also brought him an increasing number of customers,--though the naked condition of his elbows told the fact that this growing knowledge was somewhat profitless in a substantial sense. Nevertheless, every successive day strengthened his confidence that he would soon be "even with Booker, or Lilly, or Gadbury, or any of 'em that his grandfather used to talk about;"--for he had also been eager, in his day, to be able to prognosticate future events by tracing "the stars in their courses." And, now, as surely as the evening returned, Toby might be seen at his own door, seated on a low stool, drawing astrological diagrams on a fragment of slate, and placing the symbols of the planets and signs of the zodiac in due position in the "table of houses." The vagueness which Toby found to be so characteristic of what astrologers call the "rules of judgment" often brought the zealous student to a pause, as to the real utility of his pursuit; but the extreme credulousness of his constitution usually urged him to put an end to the dubious reasonings that often rose within him. Now and then, a sharp stroke from the village parson,--levelled, in full canonicals, from the pulpit of a Sunday forenoon,--with the marksman's stern eye fixed, meanwhile, on poor Toby,--made him stagger a little. It was a guilty act,--the clergyman asserted,--to rend away the natural veil which the Creator had drawn over man's discernment of futurity: it was a controversion of the order of His Providence: it was an attempt to seize upon the Almighty's own attributes, and wield a power that belonged solely to Himself. Such eloquent sentences bothered Toby still more, when the well-intentioned shepherd rounded them by exclaiming, as he beat the "----drum ecclesiastic With fist instead of a stick," that "star-gazers, and wizards, and enchanters, were, each and all, an abomination to the Lord!"