Chapter IX: Healing Herbs, Warning Texts

Here finds he on the oak rheum-purging Polypode;
And in some open place that to the sun doth lie
He Fumitory gets, and Eyebright for the eye;
The Yarrow wherewithal he stays the wound-made gore,
The healing Tutsan then, and Plantaine for a sore.
—DRAYTON (_Polyolbion_).

The lagging sun of autumn had travelled but a small part of its ascent, and the green inner courtyard of what was known as “the keep wing” of Bindon, so stilly enclosed by its three tall walls and the towering screen of the keep itself, was yet in shadow—not the cheerless, universal grey of a clouded sky, but the friendly, coloured shadiness that is the sunshine’s own doing.

Against the grey stone walls the spreading branches of the blush-rose trees that had yielded of yore so much sweetness to Ellinor’s childish grasp, clung, yellowing and now but thinly clad, yet not all dismantled, with here and there a wan flower or a brave rosebud to bear witness, like the gems of poor gentility, to past riches.

The scene, the special savour of wet grass, the fragrant breath of the dairy were of old familiar to Ellinor; but not so the bench placed upon the flags alongside the wall, with its row of dismal figures; not so the businesslike-looking table, whereat, behind a score of gallipots and phials, a basin of water and a basket full of leaves, stood Master Simon in his flowing gown. He was gravely investigating through his spectacles the finger which a boy whimperingly upheld for his inspection. The while, Barnaby, uncouthly busy, flitted to and fro between his master’s chair and the steps that led down to the laboratory.

Ellinor leant out of the window to gaze in surprise. Here, then, was the work which her father could only pursue in solitude! She now understood the nature of this branch of his studies: the student was testing upon the _corpus vile_ of the willing population the virtues of his simples! “Fortunately,” thought Ellinor, “such remedies can proverbially do but little harm and often do much good.” And she watched his doings with amused interest.

But Madam Tutterville could not look upon them in the same tolerant spirit. When she had numbered the congregation, she stood a moment with empurpled cheeks and rounded lips, inhaling a mighty breath of reprobation, preparatory to launching forth the “word in reason and out of reason” as soon as she saw her chance.

“Now, Thomas Lane,” said the unconscious Master Simon impressively, as he wrapped round the finger a rag smeared with green ointment, “if you do as I bid you the fairies won’t pinch your poor thumb any more; let me see it next Tuesday. Who is next?”

The buxom damsel, whom Ellinor had noted and who still held the corner of her apron to her eye, advanced and curtseyed.

“Deborah!” cried Madam Tutterville, recognising with horror one of her model village maids.

Master Simon shot a swift glance upwards from under his bushy brows; too well did he recognise the tones of his sister’s voice. Ellinor had not deemed him capable of looking so angry; and, unwilling to be associated with any hostile interference, she moved away quietly from her aunt’s side, left the room and proceeded to the courtyard itself. She was drawn thither also by another reason. There is the woman who shrinks from the sight of sores and wounds; and there is the woman whose sensitiveness takes the form of longing to lave and bind. She was of the latter.

When she reached the table the action had briskly begun between Madam Tutterville and her brother. The artillery on the lady’s side was characterised rather by rapidity of delivery than by accuracy of aim. The old man’s replies were few and short, but every shot told.

Deborah, distracted between awe of the wizard’s cunning and deference to a reproving yet liberal mistress, stood whimpering between the two fires of words, her apron making excursions from the sick to the sound eye. Some of the patients grinned, others looked alarmed.

“Are ye not afraid of the Judgment?” Madam Tutterville was saying, ever more fancifully biblical as her wrath rose higher. “So it’s your eye that’s sore, Deborah! I’m not surprised. Remember how Elijah the sorcerer was struck blind by Peter!”

Deborah wailed:

“Please, ma’am, it wasn’t Peter, it was the cat’s tail!”

“The cat’s tail, Deborah! There is no truth in thy bones!”

“Tut, tut!” here interposed Master Simon. “Who bid you go to the cat’s tail?—Sophia, life is short. You are wasting an hour of valuable existence. Go away!”

“’Tis the punishment of the deceitful man,” intoned Madam Tutterville from her window as from a pulpit, and emphatically pounded the sill. “‘By their figs ye shall know them!’ This cat’s tail work is the fruit of the tree of your black art, Simon Rickart, of your unholy necrology!”

The simpler’s voice cut in like a knife:

“Who bid you rub your sore eye with a cat’s tail?”

“Please, sir, please, ma’am, Peter hadn’t anything to say to it, indeed he hadn’t. But, please, ma’am, it was parson’s brindled cat, and Mrs. Rachael—that’s the cook at Madam’s, sir—she do tell me nothing be better for a sore eye than the wiping of it with a brindled cat’s tail. And please, ma’am, I held him while she did rub my sore eye.”

“Mrs. Rachael!”

This was none less than Sophia’s own estimable cook, who read her Bible as earnestly as Madam herself, and was the stoutest church woman (and the best cook) in the country; the model, in fact, of Madam Tutterville’s making.

Master Simon was deftly laving the inflamed eye. And into the silence allowed for this startling minute by his sister’s discomfiture he dropped a few sarcastic words:

“You are fond of texts, Sophia.—Here is one for you: ‘First cast the beam out of thine own eye.’ You have an admirable way of applying them, pray apply this: ‘Cast the sorcery out of thine own kitchen.’ Cats’ tails, indeed! Now, remember, child! (has anyone got a soft handkerchief) I am the only proper authorised magician in this county. If you want magic, come to me and leave Mrs. Rachael and her brindled receipts severely alone. You understand what I mean; I am Bindon’s sorcerer as much as parson is Bindon’s parson.”

Here he seized the silk handkerchief which Ellinor silently offered and began to fold it neatly on the table. Next, from his basket he selected certain bright-green leaves of smooth and cool texture. One of these he clapped over the flaming orb, and tied the silk handkerchief neatly across it.

“And with that upon your eye, my dear, you may defy,” he remarked, maliciously, “even the witch and her cat.—Let me see it next Friday.”

The poor lady at the window was by no means willing to admit defeat; but, nonplussed for the moment, she babbled more incoherently than usual in the endeavour to return the attack.

“The Devil can quote scripts from texture!”

“But give him his due, Sophia, give him his due: he can quote at least with accuracy! Ha, ha!—Now, Amos Mossmason, come forward! I thought you’d come to me at last! I have ready for thee a brew of the most superlative quality! You’re pretty bad, I see, but we shall have you dancing at the harvest-home. Here are seven little packets, one for every day in the week in a cup of water. The little plant, Amos, from which I have extracted this precious stuff, was known to Hippocrates as Chara Saxifraga (think of that!), and those wise and learned men, the Monks of Sermano—”

At this Madam Tutterville again lifted up her voice, and with such piercing insistence that it became impossible to ignore her.

“Now, indeed, has Satan revealed himself! Amos Mossmason, beware! Have nought to do with these Popish spells—it is thus the Scarlet Woman disseminates poison!”

At the word poison the patient hurriedly dropped the packets back on the table, and stared in dismay from the lady of the church to the gentleman of science.

Ellinor, keeping well in the shadow of the window-ledge, out of the range of her aunt’s vision, was startled in the midst of her amusement by an unexpected thunder in her father’s voice:

“Sophia,” he commanded, “go back to your home, open your Bible and seek among the Proverbs for the following text, to wit: ‘The legs of the lame are not equal, so is a parable in the mouth of fools.’ ... Thereupon meditate! You are a good creature, but weak in the brain, and you do not know your place among the people. Go!”

Madam Tutterville gave a small cry like that of a clucking hen suddenly seized by the throat. She staggered from the window and retired. To confound her by a text was indeed to seethe the kid in its mother’s milk.

“Amos,” said Master Simon, “don’t you be a fool too; take your powders and begone likewise, and let me hear of you next week. Now who will hold the bandage while I dress Ebenezer Tozer’s sore ear?”

“I will,” said Ellinor.

“So you are there?” said the father, without astonishment. “Why, you seem always to be at hand when wanted!”

And Ellinor smiled, well content.

Madam Tutterville sat on a stool in the dairy, fanning herself with her kerchief. She was in a sort of mental swoon, unable as yet to realise the fact that she and the church had been worsted before their own flock.

Presently, with deliberate step, emphasised by a rhythmic jingle of keys, the housekeeper of Bindon appeared in the doorway and looked in upon her in affected astonishment.

Mrs. Margery Nutmeg had a meek and suave countenance under a spotless high-cap unimpeachably goffered and tied under her chin. Her cheeks looked surprisingly fresh and smooth for her sixty-five years; her hair, banded across her placid forehead, was surprisingly black. Her eye moved slowly. She was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Her hands were folded at her waist. Anything more decent, more respectful, more completely attuned to her proper position, it would be impossible to imagine. Yet before this redoubtable woman, Bindon House and village shook; and in spite of valiant denunciations at a distance Madam Tutterville herself was rather disposed to conciliate than to rebuke her when they met.

There was indeed no one at the present moment whom she so little desired as witness to her discomposure. Quite deserted by her usual volubility, she had no word by which to retrieve the situation. It was almost an imploring eye that she rolled over the fluttering kerchief. She knew Margery Nutmeg.

“Ain’t you well, ma’am?” asked that dame, with dulcet tones of sympathy.

Madam Tutterville tried to smile, gave it up, panted and shook her head.

“Don’t you, ma’am,” implored Margery, after a moment’s unrelenting gaze, “don’t you, now, so agitate yourself. It’s not good for you, Miss Sophia, I beg pardon, I mean ma’am. It’s not indeed! And you so stout and short-necked! Eh, we’re all sorry for you: the way you’ve been treated, and before the villagers too! But, there, Master Rickart is a very learned gentleman! You ought to be more careful of yourself, ma’am, knowing what a loss you’d be to us all! It do go to my heart to hear your breath going that hard! Let me get you a glass of buttermilk—’tis a grand thing for thinning the blood.”

Madam Tutterville pushed away the officious hand and moved past the steady figure with an indignant ejaculation:

“Margery, you’re an impudent woman!”

She had not even the relief of a text upon her tongue. Her florid cheek had grown pale as she tottered out again through the now empty courtyard. Yes, it was a painfully broad shadow that went by her side. She longed for the comfort of her Horatio’s philosophic presence; for the respectful atmosphere of her own well-ordered household. But she dared not hurry: for there was no doubt of it, her breathing was short.