"And when I had your own bottle finished, Doctor, an ould man that was
passing by to the fair of Kinvarra told me that there was nothin' in the
world so good for a stiff arm as goose's grease or crane's lard,
rendered, rubbed in, and, says he, in a few days your arm will be as
limber as limber. So I went to the keeper at Inchguile, and he shot a
crane for me; but there wasn't so much lard in it as I thought there'd
be, because it was just after rearing a chitch."

"Well, we must try and get you a better one next time," said the Doctor,
nodding farewell to his loquacious patient, one of those non-paying ones
who look on a "dispensary ticket" as conveying an unlimited right of
discourse on the one hand and attention on the other. But the Doctor was
just now in a position of vantage, being seated on his car, on which he
slowly jogged out of sight, leaving the victim of rheumatism who had
stopped him still experimentally rubbing the joints of his arm.

It was the first of June by the calendar, but the outward signs of the
season were but slightly visible in that grey West Country, where stones
lay as the chief crop in the fields and innumerable walls took the place
of hedges, and a drizzling mist from the Atlantic hid all distant
outlines.

The Doctor had been all day face to face with such cheerless
surroundings, and was on his way homewards. But presently he stopped at
the entrance of a little "boreen," where a wrinkled, red-skirted dame
was standing sentry, leaning on a stout blackthorn stick. "Is it me
you're looking out for, Mrs. Capel?" he asked. "I hope Mary is no worse
to-day."