Oh, for a draught of power to steep
The soul of agony in sleep!
Bertha.
We have shown the secrets of the confessional; those of the sick
chamber are not hidden from us. The darkened apartment, where salves and
medicines showed that the leech had been busy in his craft, a tall thin
form lay on a bed, arrayed in a nightgown belted around him, with
pain on his brow, and a thousand stormy passions agitating his bosom.
Everything in the apartment indicated a man of opulence and of expense.
Henbane Dwining, the apothecary, who seemed to have the care of the
patient, stole with a crafty and catlike step from one corner of the
room to another, busying himself with mixing medicines and preparing
dressings. The sick man groaned once or twice, on which the leech,
advancing to his bedside, asked whether these sounds were a token of the
pain of his body or of the distress of his mind.
“Of both, thou poisoning varlet,” said Sir John Ramorny, “and of being
encumbered with thy accursed company.”
“If that is all, I can relieve your knighthood of one of these ills
by presently removing myself elsewhere. Thanks to the feuds of this
boisterous time, had I twenty hands, instead of these two poor servants
of my art (displaying his skinny palms), there is enough of employment
for them--well requited employment, too, where thanks and crowns contend
which shall best pay my services; while you, Sir John, wreak upon your
chirurgeon the anger you ought only to bear against the author of your
wound.”
“Villain, it is beneath me to reply to thee,” said the patient; “but
every word of thy malignant tongue is a dirk, inflicting wounds which
set all the medicines of Arabia at defiance.”
“Sir John, I understand you not; but if you give way to these
tempestuous fits of rage, it is impossible but fever and inflammation
must be the result.”
“Why then dost thou speak in a sense to chafe my blood? Why dost thou
name the supposition of thy worthless self having more hands than
nature gave thee, while I, a knight and gentleman, am mutilated like a
cripple?”
“Sir John,” replied the chirurgeon, “I am no divine, nor a mainly
obstinate believer in some things which divines tell us. Yet I may
remind you that you have been kindly dealt with; for if the blow which
has done you this injury had lighted on your neck, as it was aimed, it
would have swept your head from your shoulders, instead of amputating a
less considerable member.”
“I wish it had, Dwining--I wish it had lighted as it was addressed. I
should not then have seen a policy which had spun a web so fine as mine
burst through by the brute force of a drunken churl. I should not have
been reserved to see horses which I must not mount, lists which I must
no longer enter, splendours which I cannot hope to share, or battles
which I must not take part in. I should not, with a man’s passions for
power and for strife, be set to keep place among the women, despised by
them, too, as a miserable, impotent cripple, unable to aim at obtaining
the favour of the sex.”
“Supposing all this to be so, I will yet pray of your knighthood to
remark,” replied Dwining, still busying himself with arranging the
dressings of the wounds, “that your eyes, which you must have lost
with your head, may, being spared to you, present as rich a prospect of
pleasure as either ambition, or victory in the list or in the field, or
the love of woman itself, could have proposed to you.”
“My sense is too dull to catch thy meaning, leech,” replied Ramorny.
“What is this precious spectacle reserved to me in such a shipwreck?”
“The dearest that mankind knows,” replied Dwining; and then, in the
accent of a lover who utters the name of his beloved mistress, and
expresses his passion for her in the very tone of his voice, he added
the word “REVENGE!”
The patient had raised himself on his couch to listen with some anxiety
for the solution of the physician’s enigma. He laid himself down again
as he heard it explained, and after a short pause asked, “In what
Christian college learned you this morality, good Master Dwining?”
“In no Christian college,” answered his physician; “for, though it is
privately received in most, it is openly and manfully adopted in none.
But I have studied among the sages of Granada, where the fiery souled
Moor lifts high his deadly dagger as it drops with his enemy’s blood,
and avows the doctrine which the pallid Christian practises, though
coward-like he dare not name it.”
“Thou art then a more high souled villain than I deemed thee,” said
Ramorny.
“Let that pass,” answered Dwining. “The waters that are the stillest are
also the deepest; and the foe is most to be dreaded who never threatens
till he strikes. You knights and men at arms go straight to your purpose
with sword in hand. We who are clerks win our access with a noiseless
step and an indirect approach, but attain our object not less surely.”
“And I,” said the knight, “who have trod to my revenge with a mailed
foot, which made all echo around it, must now use such a slipper as
thine--ha?”
“He who lacks strength,” said the wily mediciner, “must attain his
purpose by skill.”
“And tell me sincerely, mediciner, wherefore thou wouldst read me these
devil’s lessons? Why wouldst thou thrust me faster or farther on to my
vengeance than I may seem to thee ready to go of my own accord? I am old
in the ways of the world, man; and I know that such as thou do not drop
words in vain, or thrust themselves upon the dangerous confidence of men
like me save with the prospect of advancing some purpose of their own.
What interest hast thou in the road, whether peaceful or bloody, which I
may pursue on these occurrents?”
“In plain dealing, sir knight, though it is what I seldom use,” answered
the leech, “my road to revenge is the same with yours.”
“With mine, man?” said Ramorny, with a tone of scornful surprise. “I
thought it had been high beyond thy reach. Thou aim at the same revenge
with Ramorny?”
“Ay, truly,” replied Dwining, “for the smithy churl under whose blow you
have suffered has often done me despite and injury. He has thwarted
me in counsel and despised me in action. His brutal and unhesitating
bluntness is a living reproach to the subtlety of my natural
disposition. I fear him, and I hate him.”
“And you hope to hind an active coadjutor in me?” said Ramorny, in the
same supercilious tone as before. “But know, the artisan fellow is too
low in degree to be to me either the object of hatred or of fear. Yet he
shall not escape. We hate not the reptile that has stung us, though we
might shake it off the wound, and tread upon it. I know the ruffian of
old as a stout man at arms, and a pretender, as I have heard, to the
favour of the scornful puppet whose beauties, forsooth, spurred us to
our wise and hopeful attempt. Fiends that direct this nether world,
by what malice have ye decided that the hand which has couched a lance
against the bosom of a prince should be struck off like a sapling by
the blow of a churl, and during the turmoil of a midnight riot? Well,
mediciner, thus far our courses hold together, and I bid thee well
believe that I will crush for thee this reptile mechanic. But do not
thou think to escape me when that part of my revenge is done which will
be most easily and speedily accomplished.”
“Not, it may be, altogether so easily accomplished,” said the
apothecary; “for if your knighthood will credit me, there will be
found small ease or security in dealing with him. He is the strongest,
boldest, and most skilful swordsman in Perth and all the country around
it.”
“Fear nothing; he shall be met with had he the strength of Sampson. But
then, mark me! Hope not thou to escape my vengeance, unless thou become
my passive agent in the scene which is to follow. Mark me, I say
once more. I have studied at no Moorish college, and lack some of
thy unbounded appetite for revenge, but yet I will have my share of
vengeance. Listen to me, mediciner, while I shall thus far unfold
myself; but beware of treachery, for, powerful as thy fiend is, thou
hast taken lessons from a meaner devil than mine. Hearken--the master
whom I have served through vice and virtue, with too much zeal for my
own character, perhaps, but with unshaken fidelity to him--the very man,
to soothe whose frantic folly I have incurred this irreparable loss, is,
at the prayer of his doating father, about to sacrifice me, by turning
me out of his favour, and leaving me at the mercy of the hypocritical
relative with whom he seeks a precarious reconciliation at my expense.
If he perseveres in this most ungrateful purpose, thy fiercest Moors,
were their complexion swarthy as the smoke of hell, shall blush to see
their revenge outdone. But I will give him one more chance for honour
and safety before my wrath shall descend on him in unrelenting and
unmitigated fury. There, then, thus far thou hast my confidence. Close
hands on our bargain. Close hands, did I say? Where is the hand that
should be the pledge and representative of Ramorny’s plighted word?
Is it nailed on the public pillory, or flung as offal to the houseless
dogs, who are even now snarling over it? Lay thy finger on the mutilated
stump, then, and swear to be a faithful actor in my revenge, as I shall
be in yours. How now, sir leech look you pale--you, who say to death,
stand back or advance, can you tremble to think of him or to hear him
named? I have not mentioned your fee, for one who loves revenge for
itself requires no deeper bribe; yet, if broad lands and large sums of
gold can increase thy zeal in a brave cause, believe me, these shall not
be lacking.”
“They tell for something in my humble wishes,” said Dwining: “the poor
man in this bustling world is thrust down like a dwarf in a crowd, and
so trodden under foot; the rich and powerful rise like giants above the
press, and are at ease, while all is turmoil around them.”
“Then shalt thou arise above the press, mediciner, as high as gold
can raise thee. This purse is weighty, yet it is but an earnest of thy
guerdon.”
“And this Smith, my noble benefactor,” said the leech, as he pouched the
gratuity--“this Henry of the Wynd, or what ever is his name--would not
the news that he hath paid the penalty of his action assuage the pain of
thy knighthood’s wound better than the balm of Mecca with which I have
salved it?”
“He is beneath the thoughts of Ramorny; and I have no more resentment
against him than I have ill will at the senseless weapon which he
swayed. But it is just thy hate should be vented upon him. Where is he
chiefly to be met with?”
“That also I have considered,” said Dwining. “To make the attempt by day
in his own house were too open and dangerous, for he hath five servants
who work with him at the stithy, four of them strong knaves, and all
loving to their master. By night were scarce less desperate, for he hath
his doors strongly secured with bolt of oak and bar of iron, and ere the
fastenings of his house could be forced, the neighbourhood would rise to
his rescue, especially as they are still alarmed by the practice on St.
Valentine’s Even.”
“Oh, ay, true, mediciner,” said Ramorny, “for deceit is thy nature even
with me: thou knewest my hand and signet, as thou said’st, when that
hand was found cast out on the street, like the disgusting refuse of
a shambles--why, having such knowledge, went’st thou with these
jolterheaded citizens to consult that Patrick Charteris, whose spurs
should be hacked off from his heels for the communion which he holds
with paltry burghers, and whom thou brought’st here with the fools to do
dishonour to the lifeless hand, which, had it held its wonted place, he
was not worthy to have touched in peace or faced in war?”
“My noble patron, as soon as I had reason to know you had been the
sufferer, I urged them with all my powers of persuasion to desist from
prosecuting the feud; but the swaggering smith, and one or two other hot
heads, cried out for vengeance. Your knighthood must know this fellow
calls himself bachelor to the Fair Maiden of Perth, and stands upon his
honour to follow up her father’s quarrel; but I have forestalled his
market in that quarter, and that is something in earnest of revenge.”
“How mean you by that, sir leech?” said the patient.
“Your knighthood shall conceive,” said the mediciner, “that this smith
doth not live within compass, but is an outlier and a galliard. I met
him myself on St. Valentine’s Day, shortly after the affray between the
townsfolk and the followers of Douglas. Yes, I met him sneaking through
the lanes and bye passages with a common minstrel wench, with her messan
and her viol on his one arm and her buxom self hanging upon the other.
What thinks your honour? Is not this a trim squire, to cross a prince’s
love with the fairest girl in Perth, strike off the hand of a knight and
baron, and become gentleman usher to a strolling glee woman, all in the
course of the same four and twenty hours?”
“Marry, I think the better of him that he has so much of a gentleman’s
humour, clown though he be,” said Ramorny. “I would he had been a
precisian instead of a galliard, and I should have had better heart to
aid thy revenge. And such revenge!--revenge on a smith--in the quarrel
of a pitiful manufacturer of rotten cheverons! Pah! And yet it shall
be taken in full. Thou hast commenced it, I warrant me, by thine own
manoeuvres.”
“In a small degree only,” said the apothecary. “I took care that two or
three of the most notorious gossips in Curfew street, who liked not to
hear Catharine called the Fair Maid of Perth, should be possessed
of this story of her faithful Valentine. They opened on the scent so
keenly, that, rather than doubt had fallen on the tale, they would have
vouched for it as if their own eyes had seen it. The lover came to
her father’s within an hour after, and your worship may think what a
reception he had from the angry glover, for the damsel herself would not
be looked upon. And thus your honour sees I had a foretaste of revenge.
But I trust to receive the full draught from the hands of your lordship,
with whom I am in a brotherly league, which--”
“Brotherly!” said the knight, contemptuously. “But be it so, the priests
say we are all of one common earth. I cannot tell, there seems to me
some difference; but the better mould shall keep faith with the baser,
and thou shalt have thy revenge. Call thou my page hither.”
A young man made his appearance from the anteroom upon the physician’s
summons.
“Eviot,” said the knight, “does Bonthron wait? and is he sober?”
“He is as sober as sleep can make him after a deep drink,” answered the
page.
“Then fetch him hither, and do thou shut the door.”
A heavy step presently approached the apartment, and a man entered,
whose deficiency of height seemed made up in breadth of shoulders and
strength of arm.
“There is a man thou must deal upon, Bonthron,” said the knight. The man
smoothed his rugged features and grinned a smile of satisfaction.
“That mediciner will show thee the party. Take such advantage of time,
place, and circumstance as will ensure the result; and mind you come not
by the worst, for the man is the fighting Smith of the Wynd.”
“It Will be a tough job,” growled the assassin; “for if I miss my blow,
I may esteem myself but a dead man. All Perth rings with the smith’s
skill and strength.”
“Take two assistants with thee,” said the knight.
“Not I,” said Bonthron. “If you double anything, let it be the reward.”
“Account it doubled,” said his master; “but see thy work be thoroughly
executed.”
“Trust me for that, sir knight: seldom have I failed.”
“Use this sage man’s directions,” said the wounded knight, pointing to
the physician. “And hark thee, await his coming forth, and drink not
till the business be done.”
“I will not,” answered the dark satellite; “my own life depends on my
blow being steady and sure. I know whom I have to deal with.”
“Vanish, then, till he summons you, and have axe and dagger in
readiness.”
Bonthron nodded and withdrew.
“Will your knighthood venture to entrust such an act to a single hand?”
said the mediciner, when the assassin had left the room. “May I pray you
to remember that yonder party did, two nights since, baffle six armed
men?”
“Question me not, sir mediciner: a man like Bonthron, who knows time and
place, is worth a score of confused revellers. Call Eviot; thou shalt
first exert thy powers of healing, and do not doubt that thou shalt,
in the farther work, be aided by one who will match thee in the art of
sudden and unexpected destruction.”
The page Eviot again appeared at the mediciner’s summons, and at his
master’s sign assisted the chirurgeon in removing the dressings from
Sir John Ramorny’s wounded arm. Dwining viewed the naked stump with
a species of professional satisfaction, enhanced, no doubt, by the
malignant pleasure which his evil disposition took in the pain and
distress of his fellow creatures. The knight just turned his eye on the
ghastly spectacle, and uttered, under the pressure of bodily pain or
mental agony, a groan which he would fain have repressed.
“You groan, sir,” said the leech, in his soft, insinuating tone of
voice, but with a sneer of enjoyment, mixed with scorn, curling upon
his lip, which his habitual dissimulation could not altogether
disguise--“you groan; but be comforted. This Henry Smith knows his
business: his sword is as true to its aim as his hammer to the anvil.
Had a common swordsman struck this fatal blow, he had harmed the bone
and damaged the muscles, so that even my art might not have been able
to repair them. But Henry Smith’s cut is clean, and as sure as that with
which my own scalpel could have made the amputation. In a few days you
will be able, with care and attention to the ordinances of medicine, to
stir abroad.”
“But my hand--the loss of my hand--”
“It may be kept secret for a time,” said the mediciner. “I have
possessed two or three tattling fools, in deep confidence, that the hand
which was found was that of your knighthood’s groom, Black Quentin, and
your knighthood knows that he has parted for Fife, in such sort as to
make it generally believed.”
“I know well enough,” said Ramorny, “that the rumour may stifle the
truth for a short time. But what avails this brief delay?”
“It may be concealed till your knighthood retires for a time from the
court, and then, when new accidents have darkened the recollection
of the present stir, it may be imputed to a wound received from the
shivering of a spear, or from a crossbow bolt. Your slave will find a
suitable device, and stand for the truth of it.”
“The thought maddens me,” said Ramorny, with another groan of mental and
bodily agony; “yet I see no better remedy.”
“There is none other,” said the leech, to whose evil nature his patron’s
distress was delicious nourishment. “In the mean while, it is believed
you are confined by the consequences of some bruises, aiding the sense
of displeasure at the Prince’s having consented to dismiss you from his
household at the remonstrance of Albany, which is publicly known.”
“Villain, thou rack’st me!” exclaimed the patient.
“Upon the whole, therefore,” said Dwining, “your knighthood has escaped
well, and, saving the lack of your hand, a mischance beyond remedy,
you ought rather to rejoice than complain; for no barber chirurgeon in
France or England could have more ably performed the operation than this
churl with one downright blow.”
“I understand my obligation fully,” said Ramorny, struggling with his
anger, and affecting composure; “and if Bonthron pays him not with a
blow equally downright, and rendering the aid of the leech unnecessary,
say that John of Ramorny cannot requite an obligation.”
“That is spoke like yourself, noble knight!” answered the mediciner.
“And let me further say, that the operator’s skill must have been
vain, and the hemorrhage must have drained your life veins, but for the
bandages, the cautery, and the styptics applied by the good monks, and
the poor services of your humble vassal, Henbane Dwining.”
“Peace,” exclaimed the patient, “with thy ill omened voice and worse
omened name! Methinks, as thou mentionest the tortures I have undergone,
my tingling nerves stretch and contract themselves as if they still
actuated the fingers that once could clutch a dagger.”
“That,” explained the leech, “may it please your knighthood, is a
phenomenon well known to our profession. There have been those among
the ancient sages who have thought that there still remained a sympathy
between the severed nerves and those belonging to the amputated
limb; and that the several fingers are seen to quiver and strain, as
corresponding with the impulse which proceeds from their sympathy with
the energies of the living system. Could we recover the hand from the
Cross, or from the custody of the Black Douglas, I would be pleased to
observe this wonderful operation of occult sympathies. But, I fear me,
one might as safely go to wrest the joint from the talons of an hungry
eagle.”
“And thou mayst as safely break thy malignant jests on a wounded lion as
on John of Ramorny,” said the knight, raising himself in uncontrollable
indignation. “Caitiff, proceed to thy duty; and remember, that if my
hand can no longer clasp a dagger, I can command an hundred.”
“The sight of one drawn and brandished in anger were sufficient,” said
Dwining, “to consume the vital powers of your chirurgeon. But who then,”
he added in a tone partly insinuating, partly jeering--“who would then
relieve the fiery and scorching pain which my patron now suffers, and
which renders him exasperated even with his poor servant for quoting the
rules of healing, so contemptible, doubtless, compared with the power of
inflicting wounds?”
Then, as daring no longer to trifle with the mood of his dangerous
patient, the leech addressed himself seriously to salving the wound,
and applied a fragrant balm, the odour of which was diffused through the
apartment, while it communicated a refreshing coolness, instead of the
burning heat--a change so gratifying to the fevered patient, that, as
he had before groaned with agony, he could not now help sighing for
pleasure, as he sank back on his couch to enjoy the ease which the
dressing bestowed.
“Your knightly lordship now knows who is your friend,” said Dwining;
“had you yielded to a rash impulse, and said, ‘Slay me this worthless
quacksalver,’ where, within the four seas of Britain, would you have
found the man to have ministered to you as much comfort?”
“Forget my threats, good leech,” said Ramorny, “and beware how you tempt
me. Such as I brook not jests upon our agony. See thou keep thy scoffs,
to pass upon misers [that is, miserable persons, as used in Spenser and
other writers of his time, though the sense is now restricted to those
who are covetous] in the hospital.”
Dwining ventured to say no more, but poured some drops from a phial
which he took from his pocket into a small cup of wine allayed with
water.
“This draught,” said the man of art, “is medicated to produce a sleep
which must not be interrupted.”
“For how long will it last?” asked the knight.
“The period of its operation is uncertain--perhaps till morning.”
“Perhaps for ever,” said the patient. “Sir mediciner, taste me that
liquor presently, else it passes not my lips.”
The leech obeyed him, with a scornful smile. “I would drink the whole
with readiness; but the juice of this Indian gum will bring sleep on the
healthy man as well as upon the patient, and the business of the leech
requires me to be a watcher.”
“I crave your pardon, sir leech,” said Ramorny, looking downwards, as if
ashamed to have manifested suspicion.
“There is no room for pardon where offence must not be taken,” answered
the mediciner. “An insect must thank a giant that he does not tread on
him. Yet, noble knight, insects have their power of harming as well as
physicians. What would it have cost me, save a moment’s trouble, so to
have drugged that balm, as should have made your arm rot to the shoulder
joint, and your life blood curdle in your veins to a corrupted jelly?
What is there that prevented me to use means yet more subtle, and to
taint your room with essences, before which the light of life twinkles
more and more dimly, till it expires, like a torch amidst the foul
vapours of some subterranean dungeon? You little estimate my power, if
you know not that these and yet deeper modes of destruction stand
at command of my art. But a physician slays not the patient by whose
generosity he lives, and far less will he the breath of whose nostrils
is the hope of revenge destroy the vowed ally who is to favour his
pursuit of it. Yet one word; should a necessity occur for rousing
yourself--for who in Scotland can promise himself eight hours’
uninterrupted repose?--then smell at the strong essence contained in
this pouncet box. And now, farewell, sir knight; and if you cannot think
of me as a man of nice conscience, acknowledge me at least as one of
reason and of judgment.”
So saying, the mediciner left the room, his usual mean and shuffling
gait elevating itself into something more noble, as conscious of a
victory over his imperious patient.
Sir John Ramorny remained sunk in unpleasing reflections until he began
to experience the incipient effects of his soporific draught. He then
roused himself for an instant, and summoned his page.
“Eviot! what ho! Eviot! I have done ill to unbosom myself so far to this
poisonous quacksalver. Eviot!”
The page entered.
“Is the mediciner gone forth?”
“Yes, so please your knighthood.”
“Alone or accompanied?”
“Bonthron spoke apart with him, and followed him almost immediately--by
your lordship’s command, as I understood him.”
“Lackaday, yes! he goes to seek some medicaments; he will return anon.
If he be intoxicated, see he comes not near my chamber, and permit him
not to enter into converse with any one. He raves when drink has touched
his brain. He was a rare fellow before a Southron bill laid his brain
pan bare; but since that time he talks gibberish whenever the cup has
crossed his lips. Said the leech aught to you, Eviot?”
“Nothing, save to reiterate his commands that your honour be not
disturbed.”
“Which thou must surely obey,” said the knight. “I feel the summons to
rest, of which I have been deprived since this unhappy wound. At least,
if I have slept it has been but for a snatch. Aid me to take off my
gown, Eviot.”
“May God and the saints send you good rest, my lord,” said the page,
retiring after he had rendered his wounded master the assistance
required.
As Eviot left the room, the knight, whose brain was becoming more and
more confused, muttered over the page’s departing salutation.
“God--saints--I have slept sound under such a benison. But now, methinks
if I awake not to the accomplishment of my proud hopes of power and
revenge, the best wish for me is, that the slumbers which now fall
around my head were the forerunners of that sleep which shall return
my borrowed powers to their original nonexistence--I can argue it no
farther.”
Thus speaking, he fell into a profound sleep.