198 THE HUNTING FIELD 



whitey brown walking pestilence, combining the 

 odour of tobacco, aloes, sulphur, oil, turpentine, 

 opium, what Bullwaist calls harbs (herbs), a definition 

 that he applies to all medical ingredients that he is 

 not particularly acquainted with. Harbs and brandy 

 are grand specifics in Bullwaist's pharmacopoeia. 



Bullwaist's corduroy breeches and gaiters partake 

 of the general nastiness of his apparel, and two great 

 slits across the middle of each shoe give him the air 

 of being troubled with the gout, or perhaps corns, a 

 sort of retribution for the many his bad shoeing has 

 entailed upon horses. A careless twisted red cotton 

 kerchief chafes against his unshaven chin, and an old 

 shallow -crowned, broad -leafed, napless black hat, 

 protects his dirty bald head from the winds, and 

 keeps the lank uncombed grey locks of the sides 

 down upon his greasy coat collar. Altogether, 

 Bullwaist has a most unwholesome sort of look ; yet 

 this is the sort of man that deals in drugs and potions, 

 and is consulted about the ailments and accidents of 

 cattle and horses; and, strange to say, many of the 

 country people prefer these ignorant quacks, these 

 blockheads, these horse torturers, to regularly 

 educated men. They have heard of some wonderful 

 cure, some extraordinary operation bordering on a 

 miracle, performed by them, that banishes the recol- 

 lection of all their bungling failures, and of all their 

 broken promises. Some, indeed, carry the principle 

 out with regard to themselves, and many a lout would 

 rather be operated upon by a bone-setter than by a 

 Listen, a Cooper, or a Brodie. It is wonderful the 

 influence some of these quacks obtain over the minds 

 of country people ; nay, even over parties from whom 

 better things might be expected. In a village, not 

 fifty miles from London, carriage-fulls of people used 

 to resort, week after week, to a man fully as ignorant 

 and as brutal as Bullwaist; nay, we believe, more 

 ignorant, for Bullwaist can make a sort of writing, 



