The Fair Maid of Perth Part 38

"I thank your Highness," he said, with a smile, "for your cautious and limited testimony in my behalf. He was wise who wrote, 'Put not your faith in princes.'"

"If you have no other evidence of your innocence, Sir John Ramorny,"

said the King, "we may not, in respect to your followers, refuse to the injured widow and orphans, the complainers, the grant of a proof by ordeal of bier right, unless any of them should prefer that of combat.

For yourself, you are, by the Prince's evidence, freed from the attaint."

"My liege," answered Sir John, "I can take warrant upon myself for the innocence of my household and followers."

"Why, so a monk or a woman might speak," said Sir Patrick Charteris. "In knightly language, wilt thou, Sir John de Ramorny, do battle with me in the behalf of thy followers?"

"The provost of Perth had not obtained time to name the word combat,"

said Ramorny, "ere I would have accepted it. But I am not at present fit to hold a lance."

"I am glad of it, under your favour, Sir John. There will be the less bloodshed," said the King. "You must therefore produce your followers according to your steward's household book, in the great church of St. John, that, in presence of all whom it may concern, they may purge themselves of this accusation. See that every man of them do appear at the time of high ma.s.s, otherwise your honour may be sorely tainted."

"They shall attend to a man," said Sir John Ramorny.

Then bowing low to the King, he directed himself to the young Duke of Rothsay, and, making a deep obeisance, spoke so as to be heard by him alone. "You have used me generously, my lord! One word of your lips could have ended this controversy, and you have refused to speak it."

"On my life," whispered the Prince, "I spake as far as the extreme verge of truth and conscience would permit. I think thou couldst not expect I should frame lies for thee; and after all, John, in my broken recollections of that night, I do bethink me of a butcherly looking mute, with a curtal axe, much like such a one as may have done yonder night job. Ha! have I touched you, sir knight?"

Ramorny made no answer, but turned as precipitately as if some one had pressed suddenly on his wounded arm, and regained his lodgings with the Earl of Crawford; to whom, though disposed for anything rather than revelry, he was obliged to offer a splendid collation, to acknowledge in some degree his sense of the countenance which the young n.o.ble had afforded him.

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 to the wounded knight, the Earl of Crawford at length took horse, to go to his distant quarters in the Castle of Dupplin, where he resided as a guest, the Knight of Ramorny retired into his sleeping apartment, agonized by pains of body and anxiety of mind. Here he found Henbane Dwining, on whom it was his hard fate to depend for consolation in both respects. The physician, with his affectation of extreme humility, hoped he saw his exalted patient merry and happy.

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

"Fear not, my n.o.ble patron," said the leech, with a chuckling laugh of enjoyment, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise under a tone of affected sensibility. "We will apply some fresh balsam, and--he, he, he!--relieve your knightly honour of the irritation which you sustain so firmly."

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

"We will first use our emollients upon the body, my n.o.ble patron," said Dwining; "and then, with your knighthood's permission; your servant will try his art on the troubled mind; though I fain hope even the mental pain also may in some degree depend on the irritation of the wound, and that, abated as I trust the corporeal pangs will soon be, perhaps the stormy feelings of the mind may subside of themselves."

"Henbane Dwining," said the patient, as he felt the pain of his wound a.s.suaged, "thou art a precious and invaluable leech, but some things are beyond thy power. Thou canst stupify my bodily cause of this raging agony, but thou canst not teach me to bear the score of the boy whom I have brought up--whom I loved, Dwining--for I did love him--dearly love him! The worst of my ill deeds have been to flatter his vices; and he grudged me a word of his mouth, when a word would have allayed this c.u.mber! He smiled, too--I saw him smile--when yon paltry provost, the companion and patron of wretched burghers, defied me, whom this heartless prince knew to be unable to bear arms. Ere I forget or forgive it, thou thyself shalt preach up the pardoning of injuries! And then the care for tomorrow! Think'st thou, Henbane Dwining, that, in very reality, the Wounds of the slaughtered corpse will gape and shed tears of fresh blood at the murderer's approach?"

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

"The brute Bonthron," said Ramorny, "is startled at the apprehension of such 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 lords.h.i.+p will not sorrow as for that you lost in Curfew Street. Excuse my pleasantry, he, he! But what are the useful properties 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 the patient. "He has already shown a timorousness entirely alien from his ordinary sullenness of nature; he, that would scarce wash his hands after 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 it was to further my revenge that he struck yonder downright blow, though by ill luck it lighted not where it was intended."

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

"Benedicite, n.o.ble sir," replied the mediciner; "would you have me, who know little save of chamber practice, be as skilful of woodcraft as your n.o.ble self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade at midnight? I mis...o...b..ed me little when I saw the figure run past us to the smith's habitation in the wynd, habited like a morrice dancer; and yet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man, for methought he seemed less of stature. But when he came out again, after so much time as to change his dress, and swaggered onward with buff coat and steel cap, whistling after the armourer's wonted fas.h.i.+on, I do own I was mistaken super totam materiem, and loosed your knighthood's bulldog upon him, who did his devoir most duly, though he pulled down the wrong deer.

Therefore, unless the accursed smith kill our poor friend stone dead on the spot, I am determined, if art may do it, that the ban dog Bonthron shall not miscarry."

"It will put thine art to the test, man of medicine," said Ramorny; "for know that, having the worst of the combat, if our champion be not killed stone 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 of the murder; and when he hath swung there like a loose ta.s.sel for an hour or so, I think thou wilt hardly take it in hand to cure his broken neck."

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

"This is idle boasting, sir leech," replied Ramorny. "The whole mob of Perth will attend him to the gallows, each more eager than another to see the retainer of a n.o.bleman die, for the slaughter of a cuckoldly citizen. There will be a thousand of them round the gibbet's foot."

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

"If thou speakest truth," answered the knight, "and I think thou darest not palter with me on such a theme, thou must have the aid of Satan, and I will have nought to do with him. I disown and defy him."

Dwining indulged in his internal chuckling laugh when he heard his patron testify his defiance of the foul fiend, and saw him second it by crossing himself. He composed himself, however, upon observing Ramorny's aspect become very stern, and said, with tolerable gravity, though a little interrupted by the effort necessary to suppress his mirthful mood:

"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 the gentleman of whom you speak--in whose existence I am--he, he!--no very profound believer, though your knights.h.i.+p, doubtless, hath better opportunities of acquaintance."

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

"I will, most undaunted," replied Dwining. "Know that I have my confederate 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 knaves.h.i.+p 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 a high collared jerkin."

"He, he! your honour is pleasant," said the mediciner. "It is not by personal circ.u.mstances that I have acquired the intimacy of Stephen Smotherwell, but on account of a certain traffic betwixt us, in which an'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 and forward works of witchcraft that you trade for these miserable relics of mortality?"

"He, he, he! No, an it please your knighthood," answered the mediciner, much amused with the ignorance of his patron; "but we, who are knights of the scalpel, are accustomed to practise careful carving of the limbs of defunct persons, which we call dissection, whereby we discover, by examination of a dead member, how to deal with one belonging to a living man, which hath become diseased through injury or otherwise. Ah! if your honour saw my poor laboratory, I could show you heads and hands, feet and lungs, which have been long supposed to be rotting in the mould.