ENDYMION LEER PRESCRIBES FOR RANULPH
Master Nathaniel awoke the following morning with a less leaden heart
than the circumstances would seem to warrant. In the person of Ranulph
an appalling disgrace had come upon him, and there could be no doubt
but that Ranulph's life and reason were both in danger. But mingling
with his anxiety was the pleasant sense of a new possession--this
love for his son that he had suddenly discovered in his heart, and it
aroused in him all the pride and the pleasure that a new pony would
have done when he was a boy.
Besides, there was that foolish feeling of his that reality was not
solid, and that facts were only plastic toys; or, rather, that they
were poisonous plants, which you need not pluck unless you choose. And,
even if you do pluck them, you can always fling them from you and leave
them to wither on the ground.
He would have liked to vent his rage on Willy Wisp. But during the
previous winter Willy had mysteriously disappeared. And though a whole
month's wages had been owing to him, he had never been seen or heard of
since.
However, in spite of his attitude to facts, the sense of responsibility
that had been born with this new love for Ranulph forced him to take
some action in the matter, and he decided to call in Endymion Leer.
Endymion Leer had arrived in Lud-in-the-Mist some thirty years ago, no
one knew from where.
He was a physician, and his practice soon became one of the biggest in
the town, but was mainly confined to the tradespeople and the poorer
part of the population, for the leading families were conservative,
and always a little suspicious of strangers. Besides, they considered
him apt to be disrespectful, and his humour had a quality that made
them vaguely uncomfortable. For instance, he would sometimes startle a
polite company by exclaiming half to himself, "Life and death! Life and
death! They are the dyes in which I work. Are my hands stained?" And,
with his curious dry chuckle, he would hold them out for inspection.
However, so great was his skill and learning that even the people who
disliked him most were forced to consult him in really serious cases.
Among the humbler classes his was a name to conjure with, for he was
always ready to adapt his fees to the purses of his patients, and
where the purses were empty he gave his services free. For he took a
genuine pleasure in the exercise of his craft for its own sake. One
of the stories told about him was that one night he had been summoned
from his bed to a farm-house that lay several miles beyond the walls
of the town, to find when he got there that his patient was only a
little black pig, the sole survivor of a valuable litter. But he took
the discovery in good part, and settled down for the night to tend the
little animal; and by morning he was able to declare it out of danger.
When, on his return to Lud-in-the-Mist, he had been twitted for having
wasted so much time on such an unworthy object, he had answered that
a pig was thrall to the same master as a Mayor, and that it needed as
much skill to cure the one as the other; adding that a good fiddler
enjoys fiddling for its own sake, and that it is all the same to him
whether he plays at a yokel's wedding or a merchant's funeral.
He did not confine his interests to medicine. Though not himself by
birth a Dorimarite, there was little concerning the ancient customs of
his adopted country that he did not know; and some years ago he had
been asked by the Senate to write the official history of the Guild
Hall, which, before the revolution, had been the palace of the Dukes,
and was the finest monument in Lud-in-the-Mist. To this task he had for
some time devoted his scanty leisure.
The Senators had no severer critic than Endymion Leer, and he was
the originator of most of the jokes at their expense that circulated
in Lud-in-the-Mist. But to Master Nathaniel Chanticleer he seemed to
have a personal antipathy; and on the rare occasions when they met his
manner was almost insolent.
It was possible that this dislike was due to the fact that Ranulph when
he was a tiny boy had seriously offended him; for pointing his fat
little finger at him he had shouted in his shrill baby voice:
"Before the cry of Chanticleer
Gibbers away Endymion Leer."
When his mother had scolded him for his rudeness, he said that he had
been taught the rhyme by a funny old man he had seen in his dreams.
Endymion Leer had gone deadly white--with rage, Dame Marigold supposed;
and during several years he never referred to Ranulph except in a voice
of suppressed spite.
But that was years ago, and it was to be presumed that he had at last
forgotten what had, after all, been nothing but a piece of childish
impudence.
The idea of confiding to this upstart the disgraceful thing that had
happened to a Chanticleer was very painful to Master Nathaniel. But if
anyone could cure Ranulph it was Endymion Leer, so Master Nathaniel
pocketed his pride and asked him to come and see him.
As Master Nathaniel paced up and down his pipe-room (as his private
den was called) waiting for the doctor, the full horror of what had
happened swept over him. Ranulph had committed the unmentionable
crime--he had eaten fairy fruit. If it ever became known--and these
sort of things always did become known--the boy would be ruined
socially for ever. And, in any case, his health would probably be
seriously affected for years to come. Up and down like a see-saw went
the two aspects of the case in his anxious mind ... a Chanticleer had
eaten fairy fruit; little Ranulph was in danger.
Then the page announced Endymion Leer.
He was a little rotund man of about sixty, with a snub nose, a freckled
face, and with one eye blue and the other brown.
As Master Nathaniel met his shrewd, slightly contemptuous glance he had
an uncomfortable feeling which he had often before experienced in his
presence, namely that the little man could read his thoughts. So he did
not beat about the bush, but told him straight away why he had called
him in.
Endymion Leer gave a low whistle. Then he shot at Master Nathaniel
a look that was almost menacing and said sharply, "Who gave him the
stuff?"
Master Nathaniel told him it was a lad who had once been in his service
called Willy Wisp.
"Willy Wisp?" cried the doctor hoarsely. "Willy Wisp?"
"Yes, Willy Wisp ... confound him for a double-dyed villain," said
Master Nathaniel fiercely. And then added in some surprise, "Do you
know him?"
"Know him? Yes, I know him. Who doesn't know Willy Wisp?" said the
doctor. "You see not being a merchant or a Senator," he added with a
sneer, "I can mix with whom I choose. Willy Wisp with his pranks was
the plague of the town while he was in it, and his Worship the Mayor
wasn't altogether blessed by the townsfolk for keeping such a rascally
servant."
"Well, anyway, when I next meet him I'll thrash him within an inch of
his life," cried Master Nathaniel violently; and Endymion Leer looked
at him with a queer little smile.
"And now you'd better take me to see your son and heir," he said, after
a pause.
"Do you ... do you think you'll be able to cure him?" Master Nathaniel
asked hoarsely, as he led the way to the parlour.
"I never answer that kind of question before I've seen the patient, and
not always then," answered Endymion Leer.
Ranulph was lying on a couch in the parlour, and Dame Marigold was
sitting embroidering, her face pale and a little defiant. She was still
feeling every inch a Vigil and full of resentment against the two
Chanticleers, father and son, for having involved her in this horrible
business.
Poor Master Nathaniel stood by, faint with apprehension, while Endymion
Leer examined Ranulph's tongue, felt his pulse and, at the same time,
asked him minute questions as to his symptoms.
Finally he turned to Master Nathaniel and said, "I want to be left
alone with him. He will talk to me more easily without you and your
dame. Doctors should always see their patients alone."
But Ranulph gave a piercing shriek of terror. "No, no, no!" he cried.
"Father! Father! Don't leave me with him."
And then he fainted.
Master Nathaniel began to lose his head, and to buzz and bang again
like a cockchafer. But Endymion Leer remained perfectly calm. And
the man who remains calm inevitably takes command of a situation.
Master Nathaniel found himself gently but firmly pushed out of his own
parlour, and the door locked in his face. Dame Marigold had followed
him, and there was nothing for them to do but to await the doctor's
good pleasure in the pipe-room.
"By the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I'm going back!" cried Master Nathaniel
wildly. "I don't trust that fellow, I'm not going to leave Ranulph
alone with him, I'm going back."
"Oh, nonsense, Nat!" cried Dame Marigold wearily. "Do please be calm.
One really must allow a doctor to have his way."
For about a quarter of an hour Master Nathaniel paced the room with
ill-concealed impatience.
The parlour was opposite the pipe-room, with only a narrow passage
between them, and as Master Nathaniel had opened the door of the
pipe-room, he soon was able to hear a murmur of voices proceeding from
the parlour. This was comforting, for it showed that Ranulph must have
come to.
Then, suddenly, his whole body seemed to stiffen, the pupils of his
eyes dilated, he went ashy white, and in a low terrified voice he
cried, "Marigold, do you hear?"
In the parlour somebody was singing. It was a pretty, plaintive air,
and if one listened carefully one could distinguish the words.
"And can the physician make sick men well,
And can the magician a fortune divine
Without lily, germander, and sops in wine?
With sweet-brier,
And bon-fire,
And strawberry-wire,
And columbine."
"Good gracious, Nat!" cried Dame Marigold, with a mocking look of
despair. "What on earth is the matter now?"
"Marigold! Marigold!" he cried hoarsely, seizing her wrists, "don't you
hear?"
"I hear a vulgar old song, if that's what you mean. I've known it all
my life. It is very kind and domesticated of Endymion Leer to turn
nursemaid and rock the cradle like this!"
But what Master Nathaniel had heard was the Note.
For a few seconds he stood motionless, the sweat breaking out on his
forehead. Then blind with rage, he dashed across the corridor. But he
had forgotten the parlour was locked, so he dashed out by the front
door and came bursting in by the window that opened on to the garden.
The two occupants of the parlour were evidently so absorbed in each
other that they had noticed neither Master Nathaniel's violent assault
on the door nor yet his entry by the window.
Ranulph was lying on the couch with a look on his face of extraordinary
peace and serenity, and there was Endymion Leer, crouching over him and
softly crooning the tune to which he had before been singing words.
Master Nathaniel, roaring like a bull, flung himself on the doctor,
and, dragging him to his feet, began to shake him as a terrier does a
rat, at the same time belabouring him with every insulting epithet he
could remember, including, of course, "Son of a Fairy."
As for Ranulph, he began to whimper, and complain that his father had
spoiled everything, for the doctor had been making him well.
The din caused terrified servants to come battering at the door,
and Dame Marigold came hurrying in by the garden window, and, pink
with shame, she began to drag at Master Nathaniel's coat, almost
hysterically imploring him to come to his senses.
But it was only to exhaustion that he finally yielded, and relaxed
his hold on his victim, who was purple in the face and gasping for
breath--so severe had been the shaking.
Dame Marigold cast a look of unutterable disgust at her panting,
triumphant husband, and overwhelmed the little doctor with apologies
and offers of restoratives. He sank down on a chair, unable for a few
seconds to get his breath, while Master Nathaniel stood glaring at
him, and poor Ranulph lay whimpering on the couch with a white scared
face. Then the victim of Master Nathaniel's fury got to his feet, gave
himself a little shake, took out his handkerchief and mopped his
forehead, and with a little chuckle and in a voice in which there was
no trace of resentment, remarked, "Well, a good shaking is a fine thing
for settling the humours. Your Worship has turned doctor! Thank you ...
thank you kindly for your physic."
But Master Nathaniel said in a stern voice, "What were you doing to my
son?"
"What was I doing to him? Why, I was giving him medicine. Songs were
medicines long before herbs."
"He was making me well," moaned Ranulph.
"What was that song?" demanded Master Nathaniel, in the same stern
voice.
"A very old song. Nurses sing it to children. You must have known it
all your life. What's it called again? You know it, Dame Marigold,
don't you? 'Columbine'--yes, that's it. 'Columbine.'"
The trees in the garden twinkled and murmured. The birds were
clamorous. From the distance came the chimes of the Guildhall clock,
and the parlour smelt of spring-flowers and pot-pourri.
Something seemed to relax in Master Nathaniel. He passed his hand over
his forehead, gave an impatient little shrug, and, laughing awkwardly,
said, "I ... I really don't quite know what took me. I've been anxious
about the boy, and I suppose it had upset me a little. I can only beg
your pardon, Leer."
"No need to apologize ... no need at all. No doctor worth his salt
takes offence with ... sick men," and the look he shot at Master
Nathaniel was both bright and strange.
Again Master Nathaniel frowned, and very stiffly he murmured "Thank
you."
"Well," went on the doctor in a matter-of-fact voice, "I should like to
have a little private talk with you about this young gentleman. May I?"
"Of course, of course, Dr. Leer," cried Dame Marigold hastily, for she
saw that her husband was hesitating. "He will be delighted, I am sure.
Though I think you're a very brave man to trust yourself to such a
monster. Nat, take Dr. Leer into the pipe-room."
And Master Nathaniel did so.
Once there the doctor's first words made him so happy as instantly to
drive away all traces of his recent fright and to make him even forget
to be ashamed of his abominable behaviour.
What the doctor said was, "Cheer up, your Worship! I don't for a moment
believe that boy of yours has eaten--what one mustn't mention."
"What? What?" cried Master Nathaniel joyfully. "By the Golden Apples of
the West! It's been a storm in a tea-cup then? The little rascal, what
a fright he gave us!"
Of course, he had known all the time that it could not be true! Facts
could never be as stubborn as that, and as cruel.
And this incorrigible optimist about facts was the same man who walked
in daily terror of the unknown. But perhaps the one state of mind was
the outcome of the other.
Then, as he remembered the poignancy of the scene between himself and
Ranulph last night and, as well, the convincingness of Ranulph's story,
his heart once more grew heavy.
"But ... but," he faltered, "what was the good of this cock and bull
story, then? What purpose did it serve? There's no doubt the boy's ill
in both mind and body, and why, in the name of the Milky Way, should
he go to the trouble of inventing a story about Willy Wisp's giving
him a taste of that damned stuff?" and he looked at Endymion Leer
appealingly, as much as to say, "Here are the facts. I give them to
you. Be merciful and give them a less ugly shape."
This Endymion Leer proceeded to do.
"How do we know it was ... 'that damned stuff'?" he asked. "We have
only Willy Wisp's word for it, and from what I know of that gentleman,
his word is about as reliable as ... as the wind in a frolic. All
Lud knows of his practical jokes ... he'd say anything to give one a
fright. No, no, believe me, he was just playing off one of his pranks
on Master Ranulph. I've had some experience in the real thing--I've
an extensive practice, you know, down at the wharf--and your son's
symptoms aren't the same. No, no, your son is no more likely to have
eaten fairy fruit--than you are."
Master Nathaniel smiled, and stretched his arms in an ecstasy of
relief. "Thank you, Leer, thank you," he said huskily. "The whole thing
was appalling that really I believe it almost turned my head. And
you are a very kind fellow not to bear me a grudge for my monstrous
mishandling of you in the parlour just now."
For the moment Master Nathaniel felt as if he really loved the queer,
sharp-tongued, little upstart.
"And now," he went on gleefully, "to show me that it is really
forgotten and forgiven, we must pledge each other in some wild-thyme
gin ... my cellar is rather noted for it, you know," and from a corner
cupboard he brought out two glasses and a decanter of the fragrant
green cordial, left over from the supper-party of the previous night.
For a few minutes they sat sipping in silent contentment.
Then Endymion Leer, as if speaking to himself, said dreamily, "Yes,
this is perhaps the solution. Why should we look for any other cure
when we have the wild-thyme distilled by our ancestors? Wild time? No,
time isn't wild ... time-gin, sloe-gin. It is very soothing."
Master Nathaniel grunted. He understood perfectly what Endymion Leer
meant, but he did not choose to show that he did. Any remark verging on
the poetical or philosophical always embarrassed him. Fortunately, such
remarks were rare in Lud-in-the-Mist.
So he put down his glass and said briskly, "Now then, Leer, let's go to
business. You've removed an enormous load from my mind, but, all the
same, the boy's not himself. What's the matter with him?"
Endymion Leer gave an odd little smile. And then he said, slowly and
deliberately, "Master Nathaniel, what is the matter with you?"
Master Nathaniel started violently.
"The matter with me?" he said coldly. "I have not asked you in to
consult you about my own health. We will, if you please, keep to that
of my son."
But he rather spoiled the dignified effect his words might have had by
gobbling like a turkey cock, and muttering under his breath, "Damn the
fellow and his impudence!" Endymion Leer chuckled.
"Well, I may have been mistaken," he said, "but I have sometimes had
the impression that our Worship the Mayor was, well, a whimsical
fellow, given to queer fancies. Do you know my name for your house? I
call it the Mayor's Nest. The Mayor's Nest!"
And he flung back his head and laughed heartily at his own joke, while
Master Nathaniel glared at him, speechless with rage.
"Now, your Worship," he went on in a more serious voice. "If I have
been indiscreet you must forgive me ... as I forgave you in the
parlour. You see, a doctor is obliged to keep his eyes open ... it
is not from what his patients tell him that he prescribes for them,
but from what he notices himself. To a doctor everything is a
symptom ... the way a man lights his pipe even. For instance, I once
had the honour of having your Worship as my partner at a game of cards.
You've forgotten probably--it was years ago at the Pyepowders. We lost
that game. Why? Because each time that you held the most valuable
card in the pack--the Lyre of Bones--you discarded it as if it had
burnt your fingers. Things like that set a doctor wondering, Master
Nathaniel. You are a man who is frightened about something."
Master Nathaniel slowly turned crimson. Now that the doctor mentioned
it, he remembered quite well that at one time he objected to holding
the Lyre of Bones. Its name caused him to connect it with the Note.
As we have seen, he was apt to regard innocent things as taboo. But to
think that somebody should have noticed it!
"This is a necessary preface to what I have got to say with regard to
your son," went on Endymion Leer. "You see, I want to make it clear
that, though one has never come within a mile of fairy fruit, one can
have all the symptoms of being an habitual consumer of it. Wait! Wait!
Hear me out!"
For Master Nathaniel, with a smothered exclamation, had sprung from his
chair.
"I am not saying that you have all these symptoms ... far from it. But
you know that there are spurious imitations of many diseases of the
body--conditions that imitate exactly all the symptoms of the disease,
and the doctors themselves are often taken in by them. You wish me
to confine my remarks to your son ... well, I consider that he is
suffering from a spurious surfeit of fairy fruit."
Though still angry, Master Nathaniel was feeling wonderfully relieved.
This explanation of his own condition that robbed it of all mystery
and, somehow, made it rational, seemed almost as good as a cure. So
he let the doctor go on with his disquisition without any further
interruption except the purely rhetorical ones of an occasional
protesting grunt.
"Now, I have studied somewhat closely the effects of fairy fruit,"
the doctor was saying. "These effects we regard as a malady. But, in
reality, they are more like a melody--a tune that one can't get out of
one's head," and he shot a very sly little look at Master Nathaniel,
out of his bright bird-like eyes.
"Yes," he went on in a thoughtful voice, "its effects, I think, can
best be described as a changing of the inner rhythm by which we live.
Have you ever noticed a little child of three or four walking hand in
hand with its father through the streets? It is almost as if the two
were walking in time to perfectly different tunes. Indeed, though they
hold each other's hand, they might be walking on different planets ...
each seeing and hearing entirely different things. And while the father
marches steadily on towards some predetermined goal, the child pulls
against his hand, laughs without cause, makes little bird-like swoops
at invisible objects. Now, anyone who has tasted fairy fruit (your
Worship will excuse my calling a spade a spade in this way, but in my
profession one can't be mealy-mouthed)--anyone, then, who has tasted
fairy fruit walks through life beside other people to a different tune
from theirs ... just like the little child beside its father. But one
can be born to a different tune ... and that, I believe, is the case
with Master Ranulph. Now, if he is ever to become a useful citizen,
though he need not lose his own tune, he must learn to walk in time to
other people's. He will not learn to do that here--at present. Master
Nathaniel, you are not good for your son."
Master Nathaniel moved uneasily in his chair, and in a stifled voice he
said, "What then do you recommend?"
"I should recommend his being taught another tune," said the doctor
briskly. "A different one from any he has heard before ... but one
to which other people walk as well as he. You must have captains and
mates, Master Nathaniel, with little houses down at the seaport town.
Is there no honest fellow among them with a sensible wife with whom
the lad could lodge for a month or two? Or stay," he went on, without
giving Master Nathaniel time to answer, "life on a farm would do as
well--better, perhaps. Sowing and reaping, quiet days, smells and
noises that are like old tunes, healing nights ... slow-time gin! By
the Harvest of Souls, Master Nathaniel, I'd rather any day, be a farmer
than a merchant ... waving corn is better than the sea, and waggons
are better than ships, and freighted with sweeter and more wholesome
merchandise than all your silks and spices; for in their cargo are
peace and a quiet mind. Yes. Master Ranulph must spend some months on a
farm, and I know the very place for him."
Master Nathaniel was more moved than he cared to show by the doctor's
words. They were like the cry of the cock, without its melancholy. But
he tried to make his voice dry and matter of fact, as he asked where
this marvellous farm might be.
"Oh, it's to the west," the doctor answered vaguely. "It belongs to
an old acquaintance of mine--the widow Gibberty. She's a fine, fresh,
bustling woman and knows everything a woman ought to know, and her
granddaughter, Hazel, is a nice, sensible, hard-working girl. I'm
sure...."
"Gibberty, did you say?" interrupted Master Nathaniel. He seemed to
have heard the name before.
"Yes. You may remember having heard her name in the law-courts--it
isn't a common one. She had a case many years ago. I think it was a
thieving labourer her late husband had thrashed and dismissed who sued
her for damages."
"And where exactly is this farm?"
"Well, it's about sixty miles away from Lud, just out of a village
called Swan-on-the-Dapple."
"Swan-on-the-Dapple? Then it's quite close to the Elfin Marches!" cried
Master Nathaniel indignantly.
"About ten miles away," replied Endymion Leer imperturbably. "But
what of that? Ten miles on a busy self-supporting farm is as great a
distance as a hundred would be at Lud. Still, under the circumstances,
I can understand your fighting shy of the west. I must think of some
other plan."
"I should think so indeed!" growled Master Nathaniel.
"However," continued the doctor, "you have really nothing to fear
from that quarter. He would, in reality, be much further moved from
temptation there than here. The smugglers, whoever they are, run great
risks to get the fruit into Lud, and they're not going to waste it on
rustics and farmhands."
"All the same," said Master Nathaniel doggedly, "I'm not going to have
him going so damnably near to ... a certain place."
"The place that does not exist in the eyes of the law, eh?" said
Endymion Leer with a smile.
Then he leaned forward in his chair, and gazed steadily at Master
Nathaniel. This time, his eyes were kind as well as piercing. "Master
Nathaniel, I'd like to reason with you a little," he said. "Reason I
know, is only a drug, and, as such, its effects are never permanent.
But, like the juice of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief."
He sat silent for a few seconds, as if choosing in advance the words
he meant to use. Then he began, "We have the misfortune of living in
a country that marches with the unknown; and that is apt to make the
fancy sick. Though we laugh at old songs and old yarns, nevertheless,
they are the yarn with which we weave our picture of the world."
He paused for a second to chuckle over his own pun, and then went on,
"But, for once, let us look things straight in the face, and call them
by their proper names. Fairyland, for instance ... no one has been
there within the memory of man. For generations it has been a forbidden
land. In consequence, curiosity, ignorance, and unbridled fancy have
put their heads together and concocted a country of golden trees
hanging with pearls and rubies, the inhabitants of which are immortal
and terrible through unearthly gifts--and so on. But--and in this I am
in no way subscribing to a certain antiquary of ill odour--there is
not a single homely thing that, looked at from a certain angle, does
not become fairy. Think of the Dapple, or the Dawl, when they roll
the sunset towards the east. Think of an autumn wood, or a hawthorn
in May. A hawthorn in May--there's a miracle for you! Who would ever
have dreamed that that gnarled stumpy old tree had the power to do
that? Well, all these things are familiar sights, but what should we
think if never having seen them we read a description of them, or saw
them for the first time? A golden river! Flaming trees! Trees that
suddenly break into flower! For all we know, it may be Dorimare that is
Fairyland to the people across the Debatable Hills."
Master Nathaniel was drinking in every word as if it was nectar. A
sense of safety was tingling in his veins like a generous wine ...
mounting to his head, even, a little bit, so unused was he to that
particular intoxicant.
Endymion Leer eyed him, with a little smile. "And now," he said,
"perhaps your Worship will let me talk a little of your own case. The
malady you suffer from should, I think, be called 'life-sickness.'
You are, so to speak, a bad sailor, and the motion of life makes you
brain-sick. There, beneath you, all round you, there surges and swells,
and ebbs and flows, that great, ungovernable, ruthless element that we
call life. And its motion gets into your blood, turns your head dizzy.
Get your sea legs, Master Nathaniel! By which I do not mean you must
cease feeling the motion ... go on feeling it, but learn to like it; or
if not to like it, at any rate to bear it with firm legs and a steady
head."
There were tears in Master Nathaniel's eyes and he smiled a little
sheepishly. At that moment his feet were certainly on terra firma; and
so convinced are we that each mood while it lasts will be the permanent
temper of our soul that for the moment he felt that he would never feel
"life-sickness" again.
"Thank you, Leer, thank you," he murmured. "I'd do a good deal for you,
in return for what you've just said."
"Very well, then," said the doctor briskly, "give me the pleasure of
curing your son. It's the greatest pleasure I have in life, curing
people. Let me arrange for him to go to this farm."
Master Nathaniel, in his present mood, was incapable of gainsaying
him. So it was arranged that Ranulph should shortly leave for
Swan-on-the-Dapple.
It was with a curious solemnity that, just before he took his leave,
Endymion Leer said, "Master Nathaniel, there is one thing I want you to
bear in mind--I have never in my life made a mistake in a prescription."
As Endymion Leer trotted away from the Chanticleers he chuckled to
himself and softly rubbed his hands. "I can't help being a physician
and giving balm," he muttered. "But it was monstrous good policy as
well. He would never have allowed the boy to go, otherwise."
Then he started, and stood stock-still, listening. From far away there
came a ghostly sound. It might have been the cry of a very distant
cock, or else it might have been the sound of faint, mocking laughter.