THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL--THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM DURING the next week Morel's temper was almost unbearable.

Like all miners, he was a great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough, he would often pay for himself.
"You mun get me a drop o' laxy vitral," he said.

"It's a winder as we canna ha'e a sup i' th' 'ouse." So Mrs.Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first medicine.

And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea.

He had hanging in the attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury.
Usually there was a jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob, from which he drank largely.
"Grand!" he said, smacking his lips after wormwood.