"I'll sell you mine with pleasure--those I used as a student."
"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Jude gratefully, but in gasps, for the
amazing speed of the physician's walk kept him in a dog-trot which
was giving him a stitch in the side.
"I think you'd better drop behind, my young man. Now I'll tell you
what I'll do. I'll get you the grammars, and give you a first
lesson, if you'll remember, at every house in the village, to
recommend Physician Vilbert's golden ointment, life-drops, and female
pills."
"Where will you be with the grammars?"
"I shall be passing here this day fortnight at precisely this hour of
five-and-twenty minutes past seven. My movements are as truly timed
as those of the planets in their courses."
"Here I'll be to meet you," said Jude.
"With orders for my medicines?"
"Yes, Physician."
Jude then dropped behind, waited a few minutes to recover breath,
and went home with a consciousness of having struck a blow for
Christminster.
Through the intervening fortnight he ran about and smiled outwardly
at his inward thoughts, as if they were people meeting and nodding to
him--smiled with that singularly beautiful irradiation which is seen
to spread on young faces at the inception of some glorious idea, as
if a supernatural lamp were held inside their transparent natures,
giving rise to the flattering fancy that heaven lies about them then.
He honestly performed his promise to the man of many cures, in whom
he now sincerely believed, walking miles hither and thither among
the surrounding hamlets as the Physician's agent in advance. On the
evening appointed he stood motionless on the plateau, at the place
where he had parted from Vilbert, and there awaited his approach.
The road-physician was fairly up to time; but, to the surprise of
Jude on striking into his pace, which the pedestrian did not diminish
by a single unit of force, the latter seemed hardly to recognize his
young companion, though with the lapse of the fortnight the evenings
had grown light. Jude thought it might perhaps be owing to his
wearing another hat, and he saluted the physician with dignity.
"Well, my boy?" said the latter abstractedly.
"I've come," said Jude.
"You? who are you? Oh yes--to be sure! Got any orders, lad?"
"Yes." And Jude told him the names and addresses of the cottagers
who were willing to test the virtues of the world-renowned pills and
salve. The quack mentally registered these with great care.