Old excellent he was at a boneache. At the first chop with his
wood-knife would he fish for a man’s heart, and fetch it out as easily
as a plum from the bottom of a porridge-pot. He would crack necks as
fast as a cook cracks eggs; a fiddler cannot turn his pin so soon as he
would turn a man off the ladder. Bravely did he drum on this Cutwolf’s
bones, not breaking them outright, but, like a saddler knocking in of tacks,
jarring on them quaveringly with his hammer a great while together. No
joint about him but with a hatchet he had for the nonce he disjointed half,
and then with boiling lead soldered up the wounds from bleeding; his tongue
he pulled out, lest he should blaspheme in his torment; venomous stinging
worms he thrust into his ears, to keep his head ravingly occupied; with
cankers scruzed to pieces he rubbed his mouth and his gums; no limb of
his but was lingeringly splintered in shivers. In this horror left they him on
the wheel as in hell, where, yet living, he might behold his flesh legacied
amongst the fowls of the air.