A surgeon does not present himself often at a sick bed, and he is not able to make the moment-by-moment observations available to the physician: the changes in colour and respiration that signal that the wolf death is creeping up the stairs. The surgeon’s patients die violently under his hands, or he judges them beyond his aid and he disdains to practice on them, for there’s no point in mutilation without hope of cure. One would relieve the pain of any human creature, but what is the point in attempting to part a woman from her rotted breast unless she is hale and fit and likely to live to say thank you and pay her bill? Come: let’s be practical.
But the dead are not practical. They are no use except for cutting up. They answer no questions that are put to them. They lie and stiffen, in their perfect self-containment. They defy understanding. Hunter’s mind dwells on that split second when everything that is, is lost beyond recall. When life and hope go separate ways.
Pybus and Claffey burst in, disturbing the Giant in his first dew-like sleep. “Wake up Charlie—we have been to a tumult.”
“Not again.”
“It was a rare tumult—we rioted against anatomies. It’s one who cuts up persons after they’re dead and pulls out their hearts and eats them.”
“Their hearts alone?”
“They like to follow after the carts when it’s hanging day, and they pay over money so they may get the body and then the men—”
“And then the men—”
“—and then the men get all in a big mob and try to knock down the hangman—”
“—steal him away, the dead body—”
“—rub his neck till he’s back to life—”
“—rub neck and chest.”
“Or give him a decent burial.”
“But still if they can’t get enough hanged, they go into the graveyards, these anatomies, and dig them.”
“Eat their liver and boil their guts for tripe.”
“Yes, yes,” the Giant said. “So you rioted a little while, and then you—”
“There was a man in a carriage, and we took out his horses, cheering, and we ourselves went between the shafts and pulled him, with some Englishmen.”
“Who was this man?”
“We don’t know his name. He was the government. One of the horses that was unyoked was led away by a man from Limerick, Fancy Boy Craddock he called himself.”
“He was not the government, that we pulled along. He was against the government. That was the government, when we broke their windows.”
“Oh, was it.”
“Sometimes, when the anatomy is just going to make the first cut, the corpse sits up and seizes him by the throat. Sometimes the blackguard dies of it, he drops down with shock.”
“Does this happen often?” the Giant asked.
“Oh, two or three times in the year.”
“You wouldn’t think he’d be quite so shocked, then.”
John Hunter is at home now, and hears a great knocking at his back door, and hollers, “Howison, man, shift yerself.”
Two men, heaving with effort, dumping their burden on the flags, cursing quietly, fetching out a knife, and hacking at the rope; one sack off, hauled over the head, and he sees a livid, blotched face-
Swarming up beyond Howison, whose mouth is already opening to argue, Hunter thunders, “I have seen this corpse before.”
“True,” says the salesman, fawning. “All respect to your eye, Mr. John Hunter, you have seen this corpse before. But I’ve brought it back at a nicer price.”
It is left to Howison to boot the fellow out of the premises, the fellow and his confederate and his rapidly depreciating asset.
John Hunter sighs. He wants company, Howison discerns. Weary and wary both, he steps up the stairs. Hunter is brooding amongst his books—of which he has a few, though he says corpses are my library. “Here,” he says, “did I ever show you this curiosity? Never mind the text, man, feel the binding. It’s the skin of William Thorburn, that slew Kitty Flinch, the Wrexham Belle. It cost no little trouble in the flaying of him.”
He sees Howison’s face, and a mild contempt there. “Do you not believe me?” The pitch of his voice has shot up; his pulse rate risen; heat at his temples.
“That the flaying was difficult? Oh yes, it would be a job for an operator with a delicate touch. I mean just that I have heard other gentlemen say they have the same book on their shelves, so you must wonder of what extent was Thorburn, to furnish so many libraries?”
“So I am cheated, am I?” Master yourself, John, he says to himself. Easy, John. “Ah well, it is a trifle. It is no matter.” He slides the volume back in, beside the
Howison pricks up his ears. “Eighteen inches round the thigh, at the age of nine months and two weeks.”
“Over three feet—they allege—at the age of a year. A most famous prodigy. Pity he died.”
“Passed away at eighteen months.” Out of respect for the deceased, Howison removes his hat and holds it to
