Lud-In-The-Mist

Chapter IV
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 tasted 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 once 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.