BOOK VII. TWO TEMPTATIONS.
71. CHAPTER LXXI.
(continued)
Mrs. Dollop looked round with the air of a landlady accustomed
to dominate her company. There was a chorus of adhesion from the
more courageous; but Mr. Limp, after taking a draught, placed his
fiat hands together and pressed them hard between his knees,
looking down at them with blear-eyed contemplation, as if the scorching
power of Mrs. Dollop's speech had quite dried up and nullified
his wits until they could be brought round again by further moisture.
"Why shouldn't they dig the man up and have the Crowner?"
said the dyer. "It's been done many and many's the time.
If there's been foul play they might find it out."
"Not they, Mr. Jonas!" said Mrs Dollop, emphatically."I know
what doctors are. They're a deal too cunning to be found out.
And this Doctor Lydgate that's been for cutting up everybody before
the breath was well out o' their body--it's plain enough what use
he wanted to make o' looking into respectable people's insides.
He knows drugs, you may be sure, as you can neither smell nor see,
neither before they're swallowed nor after. Why, I've seen drops
myself ordered by Doctor Gambit, as is our club doctor and a
good charikter, and has brought more live children into the world nor
ever another i' Middlemarch--I say I've seen drops myself as made
no difference whether they was in the glass or out, and yet have
griped you the next day. So I'll leave your own sense to judge.
Don't tell me! All I say is, it's a mercy they didn't take this Doctor
Lydgate on to our club. There's many a mother's child might ha'
rued it."
The heads of this discussion at "Dollop's" had been the common
theme among all classes in the town, had been carried to Lowick
Parsonage on one side and to Tipton Grange on the other, had come
fully to the ears of the Vincy family, and had been discussed with
sad reference to "poor Harriet" by all Mrs. Bulstrode's friends,
before Lydgate knew distinctly why people were looking strangely at him,
and before Bulstrode himself suspected the betrayal of his secrets.
He had not been accustomed to very cordial relations with his neighbors,
and hence he could not miss the signs of cordiality; moreover, he had
been taking journeys on business of various kinds, having now made
up his mind that he need not quit Middlemarch, and feeling able
consequently to determine on matters which he had before left in suspense.
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