Читать книгу The Marvellous Adventures and Rare Conceits of Master Tyll Owlglass - Robert Henderson Mackenzie Kenneth - Страница 20

How that Owlglass became a drawer of teeth and cured all by a wondrous pill

As Owlglass was going along the road, he met upon the highway, a man whose face was overcome with misery. Owlglass thereat gazed upon him for a season, and after some time spake unto him these words: “Worthy fellow! thou dost seem so wrapped in melancholic humour, would’st tell me what aileth thee?” “Everything in the wide world,” the other made answer: “for I have no money, which is the joy of all worldly business; for it maketh learned, maketh noble, maketh lovely, and merry. Also, maketh it an end of hunger and thirst which now sorely assail me.” Then Owlglass bethought himself for a while, and presently took up from the next field some clay, whereof he made little pills, which he then wrapped in pieces of paper, and said to his comrade: “Be of good cheer, friend! Soon will we have money. Lo, in yonder city, the towers of which we can now see, are there fools in number great. Enter thou in before me, and there go forward till thou seest the best inn in the town, and therein do thou stay. At dinner stay thou as long as thou canst and be merry; yet after a while do thou cry out in great agony, as if thou hadst the tooth-ache. Then will I not be far from thee; and when I come in, be thou ready, and make answer to everything I say: ‘Yea.’ But do not thou let it be perceived that thou knowest me.”

Then did the twain go forward into the town, and as Owlglass had commanded, so all things came to pass. Owlglass told the people that he was a dentist of great skill, and they called him to the man who was ill. Then took he from his pocket the pills which he had made of the clay, and laid one in the man’s mouth. “Art not thou well now”? said he unto him. “Yea, truly,” answered the other, “all the pain is gone.” Then all the people in the inn came round the doctor in great multitude, and demanded that he should sell unto them his pills. And Owlglass sold what he had for a great sum of money, and an he had had clay enough he could have sold many more. Then shared he the gain with his comrade, and they departed hastily from that place.