And blunt and abrupt as was
his general manner, he was kind and gentle in a sick-room; only nervous
disorders, the pet diseases of Mr. Simon Saunders, he could not abide.
He made short work with them; frightened them away as one does by
children when they have the hiccough; or if the malady were pertinacious
and would not go, he fairly turned off the patient. Once or twice,
indeed, on such occasions, the patient got the start, and turned him
off; Mrs. Emery, for instance, the lady's maid at New Place, most
delicate and mincing of waiting-gentlewomen, motioned him from her
presence; and Miss Deane, daughter of Martha Deane, haberdasher,
who, after completing her education at a boarding-school, kept a closet
full of millinery in a little den behind her mamma's shop, and was by
many degrees the finest lady in Hazelby, was so provoked at being told
by him that nothing ailed her, that, to prove her weakly condition, she
pushed him by main force out of doors.
With these exceptions Mr. Hallett was the delight of the whole town, as
well as of all the farm-houses within six miles round. He just suited
the rich yeomanry, cured their diseases, and partook of their feasts;
was constant at christenings, and a man of prime importance at weddings.
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