An Instance of the Fingerpost Read Online Free PDF Page A

full height, and, of course, bumped my head against the low ceiling. The girl suppressed a giggle, which made me the more angry.
    ‘Let me tell you one thing,’ I said with barely suppressed fury, ‘I have treated your mother to the best of my ability, even though I was not obliged to. I will come back later to give her a sleeping draught and to air the wound. This I do knowing that I will receive nothing in return but your contempt, although I cannot see that I have deserved it or that you have any right to speak to me in such a fashion.’
    She curtseyed. ‘Thank you, kind sir. And as for payment, I’m sure you will be satisfied. You said we can deal with that later, and I have no doubt we will.’
    With that I walked out of the house and back into the street, shaking my head and wondering what den of lunatics I had tumbled into so carelessly.

Chapter Three
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    I HOPE THAT this account explains the first two stages of my progress: my coming to England and then to Oxford, and my acquisition of the patient whose treatment was to cause me such grief. The girl herself – what can I say? She was touched by doom already; her end was written, and the devil was reaching out his hand to drag her down. The man of skill can see this, can read a face like an open book and discern what the future holds in store. Sarah Blundy’s face was deep scored already with the evil that had gripped her soul and would shortly destroy her. So I told myself after, and it may be true. But at that time I saw nothing more than a girl as insolent as she was pretty, and as careless of her obligations to her superiors as she was mindful of her duty to her family.
    I need now to explain my further progress, which was just as accidental although ultimately more cruel in its effects: the more so because it seemed, for a while, as though fortune had begun to smile on me once more. I had been left with the task of paying off the debts she had so impertinently run up for me at the apothecary’s, and I knew that you annoy apothecaries at your peril if you are concerned with experimental knowledge. Omit to pay, and they are quite likely to refuse you in the future, and not only them but all their fellows for miles around, so closely do they stick together. In the circumstances, that would be the final straw. Even if it was my last penny I could not afford to enter the society of English philosophy as a man of bad credit.
    So I asked the way to this Mr Crosse’s shop, and walked half-way along the High Street once more, opening the wooden door in the shop front and going into the warmth of the interior. It was a handsome place, nicely laid out as all English shops are, with fine cedarwood counters and beautiful brass balances of the mostup-to-date variety. Even the aromas of the herbs and spices and drugs welcomed me as I moved strategically across the polished oak floor until I stood with my back against the fine carved mantelpiece and the roaring fire in the grate.
    The owner, a portly man in his fifties who looked decidedly at ease with life, was dealing with a customer who seemed in no hurry, leaning nonchalantly on the table, chattering quite idly. He was perhaps a year or two older than myself, with a lively, active face and bright, if cynical, eyes below heavy, arching brows. In dress he was in a sombre garb that steered between the extremes of puritanical drabness and the extravagance of fashion. It was, in other words, well cut but of a tedious brown.
    For all that he had an easy manner, this customer seemed very self-conscious, and I discerned that Mr Crosse was amusing himself at the man’s expense.
    ‘Keep you warm in winter, as well,’ the apothecary was saying with a broad grin.
    The customer wrinkled up his face in pain.
    ‘Course, when spring comes you’ll have to put netting over, in case the birds start nesting in it,’ he went on, clutching his sides in merriment.
    ‘Come now, Crosse, that’s enough,’ protested the man, then