The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XXII.

  In pottingry he wrocht great pyne; He murdreit mony in medecyne.

  DUNBAR.

  When, after an entertainment the prolonging of which was like torture tothe wounded knight, the Earl of Crawford at length took horse, to goto his distant quarters in the Castle of Dupplin, where he resided asa guest, the Knight of Ramorny retired into his sleeping apartment,agonized by pains of body and anxiety of mind. Here he found HenbaneDwining, on whom it was his hard fate to depend for consolation in bothrespects. The physician, with his affectation of extreme humility, hopedhe saw his exalted patient merry and happy.

  "Merry as a mad dog," said Ramorny, "and happy as the wretch whom thecur hath bitten, and who begins to feel the approach of the raveningmadness! That ruthless boy, Crawford, saw my agony, and spared not asingle carouse. I must do him justice, forsooth! If I had done justiceto him and to the world, I had thrown him out of window and cut shorta career which, if he grew up as he has begun, will prove a source ofmisery to all Scotland, but especially to Tayside. Take heed as thouundoest the ligatures, chirurgeon, the touch of a fly's wing on that rawglowing stump were like a dagger to me."

  "Fear not, my noble patron," said the leech, with a chuckling laughof enjoyment, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise under a tone ofaffected sensibility. "We will apply some fresh balsam, and--he, he,he!--relieve your knightly honour of the irritation which you sustain sofirmly."

  "Firmly, man!" said Ramorny, grinning with pain; "I sustain it as Iwould the scorching flames of purgatory. The bone seems made of red hotiron; thy greasy ointment will hiss as it drops upon the wound. And yetit is December's ice, compared to the fever fit of my mind!"

  "We will first use our emollients upon the body, my noble patron," saidDwining; "and then, with your knighthood's permission; your servant willtry his art on the troubled mind; though I fain hope even the mentalpain also may in some degree depend on the irritation of the wound, andthat, abated as I trust the corporeal pangs will soon be, perhaps thestormy feelings of the mind may subside of themselves."

  "Henbane Dwining," said the patient, as he felt the pain of his woundassuaged, "thou art a precious and invaluable leech, but some thingsare beyond thy power. Thou canst stupify my bodily cause of this ragingagony, but thou canst not teach me to bear the score of the boy whom Ihave brought up--whom I loved, Dwining--for I did love him--dearly lovehim! The worst of my ill deeds have been to flatter his vices; and hegrudged me a word of his mouth, when a word would have allayed thiscumber! He smiled, too--I saw him smile--when yon paltry provost,the companion and patron of wretched burghers, defied me, whom thisheartless prince knew to be unable to bear arms. Ere I forget or forgiveit, thou thyself shalt preach up the pardoning of injuries! And thenthe care for tomorrow! Think'st thou, Henbane Dwining, that, in veryreality, the Wounds of the slaughtered corpse will gape and shed tearsof fresh blood at the murderer's approach?"

  "I cannot tell, my lord, save by report," said Dwining, "which avouchesthe fact."

  "The brute Bonthron," said Ramorny, "is startled at the apprehension ofsuch a thing, and speaking of being rather willing to stand the combat.What think'st thou? He is a fellow of steel."

  "It is the armourer's trade to deal with steel," replied Dwining.

  "Were Bonthron to fall, it would little grieve me," said Ramorny;"though I should miss an useful hand."

  "I well believe your lordship will not sorrow as for that you lost inCurfew Street. Excuse my pleasantry, he, he! But what are the usefulproperties of this fellow Bonthron?"

  "Those of a bulldog," answered the knight, "he worries without barking."

  "You have no fear of his confessing?" said the physician.

  "Who can tell what the dread of approaching death may do?" replied thepatient. "He has already shown a timorousness entirely alien from hisordinary sullenness of nature; he, that would scarce wash his handsafter he had slain a man, is now afraid to see a dead body bleed."

  "Well," said the leech, "I must do something for him if I can, since itwas to further my revenge that he struck yonder downright blow, thoughby ill luck it lighted not where it was intended."

  "And whose fault was that, timid villain," said Ramorny, "save thineown, who marked a rascal deer for a buck of the first head?"

  "Benedicite, noble sir," replied the mediciner; "would you have me, whoknow little save of chamber practice, be as skilful of woodcraft asyour noble self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade atmidnight? I misdoubted me little when I saw the figure run past us tothe smith's habitation in the wynd, habited like a morrice dancer; andyet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man, for methought heseemed less of stature. But when he came out again, after so much timeas to change his dress, and swaggered onward with buff coat and steelcap, whistling after the armourer's wonted fashion, I do own I wasmistaken super totam materiem, and loosed your knighthood's bulldog uponhim, who did his devoir most duly, though he pulled down the wrong deer.Therefore, unless the accursed smith kill our poor friend stone dead onthe spot, I am determined, if art may do it, that the ban dog Bonthronshall not miscarry."

  "It will put thine art to the test, man of medicine," said Ramorny; "forknow that, having the worst of the combat, if our champion be not killedstone dead in the lists, he will be drawn forth of them by the heels,and without further ceremony knitted up to the gallows, as convicted ofthe murder; and when he hath swung there like a loose tassel for anhour or so, I think thou wilt hardly take it in hand to cure his brokenneck."

  "I am of a different opinion, may it please your knighthood," answeredDwining, gently. "I will carry him off from the very foot of the gallowsinto the land of faery, like King Arthur, or Sir Huon of Bordeaux, orUgero the Dane; or I will, if I please, suffer him to dangle on thegibbet for a certain number of minutes, or hours, and then whisk himaway from the sight of all, with as much ease as the wind wafts away thewithered leaf."

  "This is idle boasting, sir leech," replied Ramorny. "The whole mob ofPerth will attend him to the gallows, each more eager than another tosee the retainer of a nobleman die, for the slaughter of a cuckoldlycitizen. There will be a thousand of them round the gibbet's foot."

  "And were there ten thousand," said Dwining, "shall I, who am a highclerk, and have studied in Spain, and Araby itself, not be able todeceive the eyes of this hoggish herd of citizens, when the pettiestjuggler that ever dealt in legerdemain can gull even the sharpobservation of your most intelligent knighthood? I tell you, I will putthe change on them as if I were in possession of Keddie's ring."

  "If thou speakest truth," answered the knight, "and I think thou darestnot palter with me on such a theme, thou must have the aid of Satan, andI will have nought to do with him. I disown and defy him."

  Dwining indulged in his internal chuckling laugh when he heard hispatron testify his defiance of the foul fiend, and saw him second it bycrossing himself. He composed himself, however, upon observing Ramorny'saspect become very stern, and said, with tolerable gravity, though alittle interrupted by the effort necessary to suppress his mirthfulmood:

  "Confederacy, most devout sir--confederacy is the soul of jugglery.But--he, he, he!--I have not the honour to be--he, he!--an ally of thegentleman of whom you speak--in whose existence I am--he, he!--novery profound believer, though your knightship, doubtless, hath betteropportunities of acquaintance."

  "Proceed, rascal, and without that sneer, which thou mayst otherwisedearly pay for."

  "I will, most undaunted," replied Dwining. "Know that I have myconfederate too, else my skill were little worth."

  "And who may that be, pray you?"

  "Stephen Smotherwell, if it like your honour, lockman of this Fair City.I marvel your knighthood knows him not."

  "And I marvel thy knaveship knows him not on professional acquaintance,"replied Ramorny; "but I see thy nose is unslit, thy ears yet uncropped,and if thy shoulders are scarred or branded, thou art wise for using ahigh collared jerkin."

  "He,
he! your honour is pleasant," said the mediciner. "It is not bypersonal circumstances that I have acquired the intimacy of StephenSmotherwell, but on account of a certain traffic betwixt us, in whichan't please you, I exchange certain sums of silver for the bodies,heads, and limbs of those who die by aid of friend Stephen."

  "Wretch!" exclaimed the knight with horror, "is it to compose charms andforward works of witchcraft that you trade for these miserable relics ofmortality?"

  "He, he, he! No, an it please your knighthood," answered the mediciner,much amused with the ignorance of his patron; "but we, who are knightsof the scalpel, are accustomed to practise careful carving of the limbsof defunct persons, which we call dissection, whereby we discover, byexamination of a dead member, how to deal with one belonging to a livingman, which hath become diseased through injury or otherwise. Ah! if yourhonour saw my poor laboratory, I could show you heads and hands, feetand lungs, which have been long supposed to be rotting in the mould.The skull of Wallace, stolen from London Bridge; the head of SirSimon Fraser [the famous ancestor of the Lovats, slain at Halidon Hill(executed in London in 1306)], that never feared man; the lovely skullof the fair Katie Logie [(should be Margaret Logie), the beautifulmistress of David II]. Oh, had I but had the fortune to have preservedthe chivalrous hand of mine honoured patron!"

  Out upon thee, slave! Thinkest thou to disgust me with thy catalogue ofhorrors? Tell me at once where thy discourse drives. How can thy trafficwith the hangdog executioner be of avail to serve me, or to help myservant Bonthron?"

  "Nay, I do not recommend it to your knighthood, save in an extremity,"replied Dwining. "But we will suppose the battle fought and our cockbeaten. Now we must first possess him with the certainty that, if unableto gain the day, we will at least save him from the hangman, provided heconfess nothing which can prejudice your knighthood's honour."

  "Ha! ay, a thought strikes me," said Ramorny. "We can do more than this,we can place a word in Bonthron's mouth that will be troublesome enoughto him whom I am bound to curse for being the cause of my misfortune.Let us to the ban dog's kennel, and explain to him what is to be donein every view of the question. If we can persuade him to stand the bierordeal, it may be a mere bugbear, and in that case we are safe. If hetake the combat, he is fierce as a baited bear, and may, perchance,master his opponent; then we are more than safe, we are avenged. IfBonthron himself is vanquished, we will put thy device in exercise; andif thou canst manage it cleanly; we may dictate his confession, take theadvantage of it, as I will show thee on further conference, and make agiant stride towards satisfaction for my wrongs. Still there remainsone hazard. Suppose our mastiff mortally wounded in the lists, who shallprevent his growling out some species of confession different from whatwe would recommend?"

  "Marry, that can his mediciner," said Dwining. "Let me wait on him, andhave the opportunity to lay but a finger on his wound, and trust me heshall betray no confidence."

  "Why, there's a willing fiend, that needs neither pushing norprompting!" said Ramorny.

  "As I trust I shall need neither in your knighthood's service."

  "We will go indoctrinate our agent," continued the knight. "We shallfind him pliant; for, hound as he is, he knows those who feed from thosewho browbeat him; and he holds a late royal master of mine in deep hatefor some injurious treatment and base terms which he received at hishand. I must also farther concert with thee the particulars ofthy practice, for saving the ban dog from the hands of the herd ofcitizens."

  We leave this worthy pair of friends to their secret practices, of whichwe shall afterwards see the results. They were, although of differentqualities, as well matched for device and execution of criminal projectsas the greyhound is to destroy the game which the slowhound raises, orthe slowhound to track the prey which the gazehound discovers by theeye. Pride and selfishness were the characteristics of both; but, fromthe difference of rank, education, and talents, they had assumed themost different appearance in the two individuals.

  Nothing could less resemble the high blown ambition of the favouritecourtier, the successful gallant, and the bold warrior than thesubmissive, unassuming mediciner, who seemed even to court and delightin insult; whilst, in his secret soul, he felt himself possessed of asuperiority of knowledge, a power both of science and of mind, whichplaced the rude nobles of the day infinitely beneath him. So consciouswas Henbane Dwining of this elevation, that, like a keeper of wildbeasts, he sometimes adventured, for his own amusement, to rouse thestormy passions of such men as Ramorny, trusting, with his humblemanner, to elude the turmoil he had excited, as an Indian boy willlaunch his light canoe, secure from its very fragility, upon a brokensurf, in which the boat of an argosy would be assuredly dashed topieces. That the feudal baron should despise the humble practitionerin medicine was a matter of course; but Ramorny felt not the less theinfluence which Dwining exercised over him, and was in the encounterof their wits often mastered by him, as the most eccentric efforts ofa fiery horse are overcome by a boy of twelve years old, if he has beenbred to the arts of the manege. But the contempt of Dwining for Ramornywas far less qualified. He regarded the knight, in comparison withhimself, as scarcely rising above the brute creation; capable, indeed,of working destruction, as the bull with his horns or the wolf with hisfangs, but mastered by mean prejudices, and a slave to priest craft, inwhich phrase Dwining included religion of every kind. On the whole, heconsidered Ramorny as one whom nature had assigned to him as a serf, tomine for the gold which he worshipped, and the avaricious love ofwhich was his greatest failing, though by no means his worst vice. Hevindicated this sordid tendency in his own eyes by persuading himselfthat it had its source in the love of power.

  "Henbane Dwining," he said, as he gazed in delight upon the hoards whichhe had secretly amassed, and which he visited from time to time, "is nosilly miser that doats on those pieces for their golden lustre: it isthe power with which they endow the possessor which makes him thus adorethem. What is there that these put not within your command? Do you lovebeauty, and are mean, deformed, infirm, and old? Here is a lure thefairest hawk of them all will stoop to. Are you feeble, weak, subjectto the oppression of the powerful? Here is that will arm in your defencethose more mighty than the petty tyrant whom you fear. Are you splendidin your wishes, and desire the outward show of opulence? This dark chestcontains many a wide range of hill and dale, many a fair forest fullof game, the allegiance of a thousand vassals. Wish you for favour incourts, temporal or spiritual? The smiles of kings, the pardon of popesand priests for old crimes, and the indulgence which encourages priestridden fools to venture on new ones--all these holy incentives to vicemay be purchased for gold. Revenge itself, which the gods are said toreserve to themselves, doubtless because they envy humanity so sweet amorsel--revenge itself is to be bought by it. But it is also to be wonby superior skill, and that is the nobler mode of reaching it. I willspare, then, my treasure for other uses, and accomplish my revengegratis; or rather I will add the luxury of augmented wealth to thetriumph of requited wrongs."

  Thus thought Dwining, as, returned from his visit to Sir John Ramorny,he added the gold he had received for his various services to the massof his treasure; and, having gloated over the whole for a minute or two,turned the key on his concealed treasure house, and walked forth on hisvisits to his patients, yielding the wall to every man whom he met andbowing and doffing his bonnet to the poorest burgher that owned a pettybooth, nay, to the artificers who gained their precarious bread by thelabour of their welked hands.

  "Caitiffs," was the thought of his heart while he did suchobeisance--"base, sodden witted mechanics! did you know what thiskey could disclose, what foul weather from heaven would prevent yourunbonneting? what putrid kennel in your wretched hamlet would bedisgusting enough to make you scruple to fall down and worship the ownerof such wealth? But I will make you feel my power, though it suits myhonour to hide the source of it. I will be an incubus to your city,since you have rejected me as a magistrate. Like the night mare, I willhag ride ye
, yet remain invisible myself. This miserable Ramorny, too,he who, in losing his hand, has, like a poor artisan, lost the onlyvaluable part of his frame, he heaps insulting language on me, as ifanything which he can say had power to chafe a constant mind like mine!Yet, while he calls me rogue, villain, and slave, he acts as wisely asif he should amuse himself by pulling hairs out of my head while my handhad hold of his heart strings. Every insult I can pay back instantlyby a pang of bodily pain or mental agony, and--he, he!--I run no longaccounts with his knighthood, that must be allowed."

  While the mediciner was thus indulging his diabolical musing, andpassing, in his creeping manner, along the street, the cry of femaleswas heard behind him.

  "Ay, there he is, Our Lady be praised!--there is the most helpful man inPerth," said one voice.

  "They may speak of knights and kings for redressing wrongs, as theycall it; but give me worthy Master Dwining the potter carrier, cummers,"replied another.

  At the same moment, the leech was surrounded and taken hold of by thespeakers, good women of the Fair City.

  "How now, what's the matter?" said Dwining, "whose cow has calved?"

  "There is no calving in the case," said one of the women, "but a poorfatherless wean dying; so come awa' wi' you, for our trust is constantin you, as Bruce said to Donald of the Isles."

  "Opiferque per orbem dicor," said Henbane Dwining. "What is the childdying of?"

  "The croup--the croup," screamed one of the gossips; "the innocent isrouping like a corbie."

  "Cynanche trachealis--that disease makes brief work. Show me the houseinstantly," continued the mediciner, who was in the habit of exercisinghis profession liberally, not withstanding his natural avarice, andhumanely, in spite of his natural malignity. As we can suspect him of nobetter principle, his motive most probably may have been vanity and thelove of his art.

  He would nevertheless have declined giving his attendance in the presentcase had he known whither the kind gossips were conducting him, in timesufficient to frame an apology. But, ere he guessed where he was going,the leech was hurried into the house of the late Oliver Proudfute, fromwhich he heard the chant of the women as they swathed and dressed thecorpse of the umquhile bonnet maker for the ceremony of next morning, ofwhich chant the following verses may be received as a modern imitation:

  Viewless essence, thin and bare, Well nigh melted into air, Still with fondness hovering near The earthly form thou once didst wear,

  Pause upon thy pinion's flight; Be thy course to left or right, Be thou doom'd to soar or sink, Pause upon the awful brink.

  To avenge the deed expelling Thee untimely from thy dwelling, Mystic force thou shalt retain O'er the blood and o'er the brain.

  When the form thou shalt espy That darken'd on thy closing eye, When the footstep thou shalt hear That thrill'd upon thy dying ear,

  Then strange sympathies shall wake, The flesh shall thrill, the nerves shall quake, The wounds renew their clotter'd flood, And every drop cry blood for blood!

  Hardened as he was, the physician felt reluctance to pass the thresholdof the man to whose death he had been so directly, though, so far as theindividual was concerned, mistakingly, accessory.

  "Let me pass on, women," he said, "my art can only help the living--thedead are past our power."

  "Nay, but your patient is upstairs--the youngest orphan"--Dwining wascompelled to go into the house. But he was surprised when, the instanthe stepped over the threshold, the gossips, who were busied with thedead body, stinted suddenly in their song, while one said to the others:

  "In God's name, who entered? That was a large gout of blood."

  "Not so," said another voice, "it is a drop of the liquid balm."

  "Nay, cummer, it was blood. Again I say, who entered the house evennow?"

  One looked out from the apartment into the little entrance, whereDwining, under pretence of not distinctly seeing the trap ladder bywhich he was to ascend into the upper part of this house of lamentation,was delaying his progress purposely, disconcerted with what had reachedhim of the conversation.

  "Nay, it is only worthy Master Henbane Dwining," answered one of thesibyls.

  "Only Master Dwining," replied the one who had first spoken, in a toneof acquiescence--"our best helper in need! Then it must have been balmsure enough."

  "Nay," said the other, "it may have been blood nevertheless; forthe leech, look you, when the body was found, was commanded by themagistrates to probe the wound with his instruments, and how could thepoor dead corpse know that that was done with good purpose?"

  "Ay, truly, cummer; and as poor Oliver often mistook friends for enemieswhile he was in life, his judgment cannot be thought to have mendednow."

  Dwining heard no more, being now forced upstairs into a species ofgarret, where Magdalen sat on her widowed bed, clasping to her bosomher infant, which, already black in the face and uttering the gasping,crowing sound which gives the popular name to the complaint, seemed onthe point of rendering up its brief existence. A Dominican monk sat nearthe bed, holding the other child in his arms, and seeming from time totime to speak a word or two of spiritual consolation, or interminglesome observation on the child's disorder.

  The mediciner cast upon the good father a single glance, filledWith that ineffable disdain which men of science entertain againstinterlopers. His own aid was instant and efficacious: he snatched thechild from the despairing mother, stripped its throat, and openeda vein, which, as it bled freely, relieved the little patientinstantaneously. In a brief space every dangerous symptom disappeared,and Dwining, having bound up the vein, replaced the infant in the armsof the half distracted mother.

  The poor woman's distress for her husband's loss, which had beensuspended during the extremity of the child's danger, now returned onMagdalen with the force of an augmented torrent, which has borne downthe dam dike that for a while interrupted its waves.

  "Oh, learned sir," she said, "you see a poor woman of her that you onceknew a richer. But the hands that restored this bairn to my arms mustnot leave this house empty. Generous, kind Master Dwining, accept ofhis beads; they are made of ebony and silver. He aye liked to have histhings as handsome as any gentleman, and liker he was in all his ways toa gentleman than any one of his standing, and even so came of it."

  With these words, in a mute passion of grief she pressed to her breastand to her lips the chaplet of her deceased husband, and proceeded tothrust it into Dwining's hands.

  "Take it," she said, "for the love of one who loved you well. Ah, heused ever to say, if ever man could be brought back from the brink ofthe grave, it must be by Master Dwining's guidance. And his ain bairnis brought back this blessed day, and he is lying there stark and stiff,and kens naething of its health and sickness! Oh, woe is me, and walawa!But take the beads, and think on his puir soul, as you put them throughyour fingers, he will be freed from purgatory the sooner that goodpeople pray to assoilzie him."

  "Take back your beads, cummer; I know no legerdemain, can do noconjuring tricks," said the mediciner, who, more moved than perhaps hisrugged nature had anticipated, endeavoured to avoid receiving the illomened gift. But his last words gave offence to the churchman, whosepresence he had not recollected when he uttered them.

  "How now, sir leech!" said the Dominican, "do you call prayers for thedead juggling tricks? I know that Chaucer, the English maker, says ofyou mediciners, that your study is but little on the Bible. Our mother,the church, hath nodded of late, but her eyes are now opened to discernfriends from foes; and be well assured--"

  "Nay, reverend father," said Dwining, "you take me at too greatadvantage. I said I could do no miracles, and was about to add that,as the church certainly could work such conclusions, those rich beadsshould be deposited in your hands, to be applied as they may bestbenefit the soul of the deceased."

  He dropped the beads into the Dominican's hand, and escaped from thehouse of mourning.

  "This
was a strangely timed visit," he said to himself, when he got safeout of doors. "I hold such things cheap as any can; yet, though it isbut a silly fancy, I am glad I saved the squalling child's life. ButI must to my friend Smotherwell, whom I have no doubt to bring to mypurpose in the matter of Bonthron; and thus on this occasion I shallsave two lives, and have destroyed only one."