(groundsel) is just as good, if not better;
for grunsel is under the dominion of Venus.
I shan't tell you what I think of it, 'cause
you might think I was a exaggerating, or
that I was a drawin' on my fancy, which I
assure you I never does in the matter of any
plant, big or little, common or uncommon.
Culpeper was in love wi' grunsel, I do
believe. He says, 'This herb is Venus's
masterpiece, or mistress piece, and is as
gallant and universal a remedy for all
diseases coming of heat, in whatever part
of the body they may be, as any that the
sun shines upon. It is very safe and
friendly to the body of man; yet causeth
vomiting if the stomach be affected, if
not, purging, which it doth with more
gentleness than might be expected.' Old
Culpeper didn't like the doctors, they
got the guineas out of people in his time,
as they do in ours, a vast deal too easily.
'Lay by your learned Latin receipts,' he
says; 'about so many grains of senna, and
scammony, and colocynth, and crocus
metallora, and grunsel alone in a syrup, or
distilled water, shall do the deed for you in
all hot diseases, speedily and safely. Nor
is this all; it is excellent for jaundice, the
cholic, sciatica, and the gravel.' In short,"
added Jack, "it's about the best physic as
goes."

I plucked a nettle as Jack concluded,
with a gloved hand, and asked him, "Has
this vile thing any virtue?"

"Vile thing," he responded indignantly.
"Why vile? it is one of the best plants
as grows; a prime gift of God to poor
ungrateful human kind. Call a nettle vile!
But you don't mean it, I know you don't!
Bless your heart, the nettle is good for
scores of diseases. Mars is the lord of it;
for the nettle like Mars is fiery. Nettle
broth is good for shortness of breath,
and the asthma; look into Culpeper and
see if it isn't good also for pleurisy and
sore throat; good for the gravel; good for
worms in children; and as I've heerd say,
and believe, good for the sting of adders and
pisonous; and the bite of mad dogs.
Nettles! why you can make beer of 'em,
and very good beer too."

I think Jack would have gone on for an
hour or more about the nettles had I not
stopped to pluck a daisy as Jack finished
his laudation, and offering it to him, asked
if there were any medicinal properties in
that, and under what planet he supposed
daisies to be born?

"Suppose them to be born?" he replied,
"I know them to bo born under Venus.
Culpeper says so. That's enough for me.
As for the virtues of the daisy, it has lots
an' lots. Its juice distilled is good for the
liver complaint. For ulcers in the gums,
the lips, or the tongue, it is the best thing
in the world. But look to Culpeper if you
want to know more; all I say is, that its leaves
and flowers as well as its juice, is good for
inflammations and swellings, and ease the
pains of gout, rheumatism, and sciatica. I
gather cart-loads of daisies every year and
sells 'em; and many a poor old hedger and
ditcher, or his poor old wife, troubled with
the rheumatics can get as good a remedy
for their ailment for a pennorth of daisies,
as they could have got from the queen's
own doctor, if they had paid him a guinea
fifty times over. And how kind and
bountiful God Almighty is," said Jack, with a
feeling of real piety, surging up in his
simple heart, "to make all the good things
of this world so common. Fresh air now!
what a good physic and medicine is that!
And free to the poorest creature as crawls,
if he will only crawl out from his hole and
condescend to breathe it. And sunshine!
What is so good as sunshine? I have often
thought to myself that if I had the value
in my pocket of one day of sunshine in
harvest time, that I should be the richest
man in all the universal world! Not that
I wants to be the richest man in the world,
or rich at all for that matter. For if I
was rich, could I eat my dinner with a
better appetite than I do now? And sleep
better o' nights? And have more pleasure
in my long walks? Not that I objects to
a little bit of money, mind ye, by no
means. But when I hears of people
scrapin', and scrapin', and scrapin' up
money, and cheatin' other people so as they
may scrape deeper and pile up higher, and
never enjoyin' themselves a bit, or even
so much as laughin' except when they have
diddled somebody, I thinks as money may
be bought too dear, and that them's the
happiest folks, who takes a little pleasure
as they goes, doesn't cheat nobody, and
thinks more of the sunshine out o' doors,
at least once in a way, than they does of a
good bargain."

"Well, Jack," I said, "you enjoy yourself,
any how. You always seem happy, and I
know you are strong."

"Well," he replied, "it's a grand thing
to enjoy your business, if it be a innocent
one. And mine is innocent, and I likes it.
Lord love ye! I would not be a tailor, a
carpenter, a shoemaker, or a shopkeeper,
for all the money the queen could offer me.