Chapter XII: Master Posset

I am thy friend, thy best of friends;
No bud in constant heats can blow--
The green fruit withers in the drought,
But ripens where the waters flow.
_Mackay._

The morrow came with its sunshine; but the two fair faces which had been wont to shed even a more cheering influence over the couch of the wounded youth were no longer there. Hour after hour passed, yet they did not come; and Fawside recalled with anxiety the too evident sounds or signs of a rapid departure on the preceding evening.

So passed the day. Dumb Antoine alone appeared; but from his grimaces nothing could be gathered. Night came on, and with it sleep, but a sleep disturbed by more than one dream of a fair face, with dark-blue eyes and lashes black and long, deep thoughtful glances and alluring smiles.

At last there came a sound that roused the dreamer; a ray of light flashed through the parted arras from another room.

"She comes!" was the first thought of Florence. "At this hour, impossible!" was the second.

There was a light step. Dawn was just breaking; but the good folks of that age were ever afoot betimes. At last the arras was parted boldly, and Master Posset, bearing a lamp, with his long silvery beard glittering over the front of his black serge gown, which hung in wavy folds to his feet, approached, bearing on a silver salver the patient's usual breakfast of weak hippocras, with maccaroon biscuits. He felt the youth's pulse, looked anxiously at his eyes and wounds, pronounced him infinitely better, and added that he "might on this day leave his couch."

"And the ladies?" asked Florence, unable to restrain his curiosity longer.

"What ladies?" queried the discreet Master Posset.

"Those who for so many days have watched my pillow like sisters--the hazel-eyed and the blue-eyed--for, alas! I know not their names. Where were they all yesterday, and where are they to-day?"

"Gone!"

"_Gone!_" faintly echoed Florence;--"but whither?"

"To Stirling."

"But why to Stirling?" asked Florence impetuously.

"Because they have business with the Lord Regent."

"I will follow them. My doublet--my boots and hose. Good Master Posset, your hand. Ah! great Heaven! how my head swims, and the room runs round as if each corner was in pursuit of the other!" exclaimed Florence, who sprang from bed, and would have fallen had not the attentive leech caught him in his arms.

"We must creep before we walk; and you must walk, sir, before you can ride a horse."

"When may I sit in my saddle?"

"In three days, perhaps."

"In three days I shall be in Stirling!" said the other impetuously.

"You had better go home," said Posset bluntly. "'Tis the advice of a sincere friend, who would not have you ride to Stirling on a bootless errand."

"Why bootless, Master Possett, when I tell you that I love, dearly love, one of those who have so abruptly forsaken me."

Master Posset's face, at least so much of it as his voluminous beard and moustache permitted one to see, underwent various expressions at this sudden announcement---astonishment and perplexity, alarm, and then merriment.

"Fair sir," said he, laughing and shrugging his shoulders (a habit he had probably acquired from M. Rabelais), "you forget yourself."

"Wherefore, forsooth? Are they so high in rank above a landed baron?"

"In Scotland few are higher."

"Do not say these discouraging things, but tell me their names; for the hundredth time I implore you."

"I dare not."

"If I used threats, what would you say?"

"As my friend Rabelais said to a French knight at Lyons, when similarly threatened."

"And what said your devil of a Rabelais?"

"That threats ill became a sick man, when used to his friend; and worse still from one of your junior years, to a man in whose beard so few black hairs can be reckoned as in mine."

"Most true--forgive me; but when once free of this house, I shall soon solve the mystery. A woman so lovely as the younger lady must be well known, and must have many lovers."

"Doubtless."

"Thou art a most discreet apothecary, Master Posset--yea, a most wonderful apothecary!" said Fawside, gnawing the end of his moustache, and continuing to attire himself during this conversation; "and you really think she has _many_?"

"Yes; yet from her strength of character, I am assured she is a woman who in her lifetime will have but _one_ love."

"One; come, that is encouraging!"

"Though little more than a girl in years, she is a woman in heart, in soul, and in mind. Do you understand me?"

"Yes--truss me those ribbons--thanks, Master Posset--I understand you, but only so far that if I am not the love referred to, I shall pass my sword through the body of the other who may occupy that position. Her faintest smile is worth a hundred golden crowns!"

"A sentiment worthy of Rabelais; but as your friend, Florence Fawside--one your senior in life and experience by many years--cease to speak or think of her thus."

"Why, if I love her?" demanded the young man, with a mixture of sadness and that impetuosity which formed one of the chief elements of his character.

"Because there are (as I call Heaven to witness!) barriers between you----"

"Grace me guide! mean you to say she is married?"

"No; but still there are barriers insuperable to the success of such a love."

"To the brave?" asked Florence proudly.

"Yea, to the bravest."

"God alone knoweth what you all mean by this cruel enigma; but in three days I will set forth to solve it--to solve it or to die!"

The old doctor smiled at the young man's energy, and kindly offered the assistance of his arm to enable him to walk about the chamber, after obtaining from him his parole of honour, that without permission duly accorded he would not attempt to leave it or penetrate into other parts of the mansion.

The evening of the third day had faded into night, and night was passing into morning, when Master Posset appeared and said,--"Come, sir, horses are in waiting; we leave this immediately."

"In the dark?" asked Florence, with surprise.

"'Tis within an hour of dawn."

"A fresh mystery!--for whence--Stirling?"----"No."

"Whither then?"

"Fawside Tower--have you no ties there?"

"My mother--yes, my mother," said Florence, with a gush of tenderness in his heart, as he hastily dressed; "but once to embrace her, and then for Stirling--ho!"

"You may spare yourself the toil of such a journey; for I assure you, on the word of an honest man, that in less than three days perhaps those you seek will be again in Edinburgh."

To this the sole reply of Florence, was to kiss the opal ring, the secret of which he had as yet failed to discover.

"You must permit me to muffle your eyes."

"Wherefore, Master Posset? this precaution savours of mistrust, and becomes an insult."

"Laird of Fawside, I insist upon it; and she whose orders we must both obey also insists upon it."

"She--who?"

"The giver of the opal ring," whispered the doctor.

"Lead on--I obey," replied the young man, suddenly reduced to docility; "all things must end--and so this mystery."

Posset tied a handkerchief over the eyes of Florence, and taking his hand led him from the chamber, wherein he had suffered so much, and which he had now occupied for more than thirteen or fourteen days. He became conscious of the change of atmosphere as they proceeded from a corridor down a cold, stone staircase, and from thence to a street, evidently one of those steep, but paved closes of the ancient city, as they continued to ascend for some little distance. Then an iron gate in an archway (to judge by the echo) was opened and shut; then they walked about a hundred yards further, before Posset removed the muffling and permitted Fawside to gaze around him. On one side towered the lofty and fantastic mansions of the Landmarket[*] rising on arcades of oak and stone. Near him the quaint church of St. Giles reared its many-carved pinnacles and beautiful spire. Within its lofty aisles scarcely a taper was twinkling now; for already the careless prebendaries were finding other uses for their money than spending it in wax for its forty altars. Even the great brazen shrine in the chancel was dark; the money gifted so vainly by the pious and valiant men of old, to light God's altar until the day of doom--for so they phrased it--had been pounced upon by Lollard bailies for other purposes, and thirteen years later were to behold the shrine itself fall under the axe and hammer of the iconoclast, with the expulsion of the faith and its priesthood.

[*] An abbreviation of _In_land-market.

The wide and lofty thoroughfare was dark. Here and there an occasional ray shot from some of the grated windows, pouring a stream of light athwart the obscurity, which the stacks of peat, heather, and timber, already referred to as standing before almost every door, according to common use and wont, made more confusing to a wayfarer. Fawside recognized the spot where Kilmaurs and his pursuers on that eventful night first overtook him, where he received his first wound, and where he made his first resolute stand against them, before he was beaten further up the street.

On a signal from Master Posset, a groom leading two saddled horses came from under the stone arcade of a lofty mansion, then occupied by Robert Logan of Coatfield, who in 1520 was provost of Edinburgh, and was the first official of that rank who had halberds carried before him. This groom, whom Fawside suspected to be no other than the Frenchman Antoine, lifted his bonnet respectfully and withdrew.

"Fawside, the white or grey nag is yours," said the physician; "mount, and let us be gone, for the morning draws on apace, and my time is precious."

Almost trembling with eagerness, if not with weakness, Florence leaped into the saddle of the white horse, which was a beautiful animal, as he could easily perceive by the amplitude of its mane and tail, by the action of its proud head and slender fore-legs; and as he vaulted to his seat, without even using a stirrup, he felt all his wounds twinge, as if they would burst forth anew, for they were merely skinned over.

In ten minutes more they had left the city, after tossing a gratuity (a few _hardies, i.e._ liards of Guienne, worth three halfpence each in Scotland, where they were then current) to the warder at the Watergate, and were galloping by the eastern road towards the tower of Fawside. The stars were still shining brightly, and their light was reflected in the glassy bosom of the estuary that opened on the north and east, beyond a vast extent of desert beach and open moor. The steep and ancient bridge of Musselburgh was soon reached, and then Master Posset drew his bridle, saying,--

"Here, Fawside, I must bid you farewell."

"Farewell! you who have treated me so kindly, so generously--farewell, when we are within three Scots miles of my mother's hearth! Nay, nay, good Master Posset, this can never be."

"It must--I repeat. Entreaties and invitations are alike needless. I obey but the instructions of those I serve, and they are dames who brook no trifling."

"Bethink you, dear sir, of the danger of being abroad at this early and untimeous hour, when broken men, Egyptians and all manner of thieves, beset every highway and hover in every thicket."

The physician smiled, and, opening the breast of his furred cassock, showed beneath it a fine shirt of mail, which was flexible, and fitted him closely as a kid glove. "I _have_ thought cf all that," said he, "and I have, moreover, my dagger and a pair of wheel-lock petronels at my saddle-bow. So now, adieu."

"But my fees to you, and this horse, Master Posset----"

"You will find it a beautiful grey, though he looks milky-white under the stars."

"To whom am I to return it?"

"To none--it is a free gift to you."

"To me--a gift," said Florence with astonishment; "from whom?"

"The lady----"

"Who--which lady?"

"The taller, with the hazel eyes and blonde hair; and you must accept; for 'twere ungallant to refuse."

"All this but bewilders and perplexes me the more. Would it had been the gift of the other! Ah, Master Posset, I have but one dread."

"Come," said the physician, laughing, "that is fortunate--lovers usually have many."

"One ever present dread, common to every lover--that she does not love me in return, but may be playing with my affection to prove the power of her own charms."

"Take courage--you have seen no rival."

"No; yet she must have many admirers of her beauty, and more aspirants to her hand and wealth; and one of these might soon become a formidable rival."

"Then you have your sword."

"In such a case a poor resource."

"But one that never fails," responded the warlike apothecary, turning his horse; and, after reiterating their adieux, they separated, and in a short space Florence Fawside found himself cantering up the steep crowned by the church of St. Michael, and thence by a narrow bridle-road that led up the hill-side to his mother's tower.

Fourteen nights had elapsed since last we saw her sitting lonely by her hearth; and now she had long since learned to weep for her only son as for one who was numbered with the dead.