“Hold! hold! reverend sir,” exclaimed the penitent culprit, “I am disabled already in every finger, and in every joint. I will roll myself into the ditch, reverend sir.”
“Stir not, rascal,” returned the divine, “stir not so much as the quietest leaf above you, or my bamboo rebounds on your body, like hail in a thunder-storm. Confess, speedily, villain; are you a simple thief, or would you have manufactured me into a subject for the benefit of science? Ay, miscreant caitiff, you would have made me a subject for science, would you? You are a school-master abroad, are you? You are marching with a detachment of the march of mind, are you? You are a member of the Steam Intellect Society, are you? You swear by the learned friend, do you?”
“Oh, no! reverend sir,” answered the criminal, “I am innocent of all these offences, whatever they are, reverend sir. The only friend I had in the world is lying dead beside me, reverend sir.”
The reverend gentleman paused a moment, and leaned on his bamboo. The culprit, bruised as he was, sprang on his legs, and went off in double quick time. The Doctor gave him chase, and had nearly brought him within arm’s length, when the fellow turned at right angles, and sprang clean over a deep dry ditch. The divine, following with equal ardour, and less dexterity, went down over head and ears into a thicket of nettles. Emerging with much discomposure, he proceeded to the village, and roused the constable; but the constable found, on reaching the scene of action, that the dead man was gone, as well as his living accomplice.
“Oh, the monster!” exclaimed the Reverend Doctor Folliott, “he has made a subject for science of the only friend he had in the world.” “Ay, my dear,” he resumed, the next morning at breakfast, “if my old reading, and my early gymnastics (for, as the great Hermann says, before I was demulced by the Muses, I was _ferocis ingenii puer_, _et ad arma quam ad literas paratior_), had not imbued me indelibly with some of the holy rage of _Frère Jean des Entommeures_, I should be, at this moment, lying on the table of some flinty-hearted anatomist, who would have sliced and disjointed me as unscrupulously as I do these remnants of the capon and chine, wherewith you consoled yourself yesterday for my absence at dinner. Phew! I have a noble thirst upon me, which I will quench with floods of tea.”