Chapter the Twenty-Sixth.
Room for the master of the ring, ye swains, Divide your crowded ranks--before him march The rural minstrelsy, the rattling drum, The clamorous war-pipe, and far-echoing horn. _Rural Sports_.--SOMERVILLE.
No long space intervened ere Roland Graeme was able to discover amongthe crowd of revellers, who gambolled upon the open space which extendsbetwixt the village and the lake, a person of so great importance as Dr.Luke Lundin, upon whom devolved officially the charge of representingthe lord of the land, and who was attended for support of his authorityby a piper, a drummer, and four sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds,garnished with party-coloured ribbons; myrmidons who, early as the daywas, had already broken more than one head in the awful names of theLaird of Lochleven and his chamberlain.
[Footnote: At Scottish fairs, the bailie, or magistrate, deputed by thelord in whose name the meeting is held, attends the fair with hisguard, decides trifling disputes, and punishes on the spot any pettydelinquencies. His attendants are usually armed with halberds, andsometimes, at least, escorted by music. Thus, in the "Life and Death ofHabbie Simpson," we are told of that famous minstrel,--
"At fairs he play'd before the spear-men, And gaily graithed in their gear-men;-- Steel bonnets, jacks, and swords shone clear then, Like ony bead; Now wha shall play before sic weir-men, Since Habbie's dead! ]
As soon as this dignitary was informed that the castle skiff hadarrived, with a gallant, dressed like a lord's son at the least, whodesired presently to speak to him, he adjusted his ruff and his blackcoat, turned round his girdle till the garnished hilt of his long rapierbecame visible, and walked with due solemnity towards the beach. Solemnindeed he was entitled to be, even on less important occasions, for hehad been bred to the venerable study of medicine, as those acquaintedwith the science very soon discovered from the aphorisms whichornamented his discourse. His success had not been equal to hispretensions; but as he was a native of the neighbouring kingdom of Fife,and bore distant relation to, or dependence upon, the ancient family ofLundin of that Ilk, who were bound in close friendship with the houseof Lochleven, he had, through their interest, got planted comfortablyenough in his present station upon the banks of that beautiful lake.The profits of his chamberlainship being moderate, especially in thoseunsettled times, he had eked it out a little with some practice in hisoriginal profession; and it was said that the inhabitants of the villageand barony of Kinross were not more effectually thirled (which maybe translated enthralled) to the baron's mill, than they were to themedical monopoly of the chamberlain. Wo betide the family of the richboor, who presumed to depart this life without a passport from Dr. LukeLundin! for if his representatives had aught to settle with the baron,as it seldom happened otherwise, they were sure to find a cold friendin the chamberlain. He was considerate enough, however, gratuitouslyto help the poor out of their ailments, and sometimes out of all theirother distresses at the same time.
Formal, in a double proportion, both as a physician and as a person inoffice, and proud of the scraps of learning which rendered his languagealmost universally unintelligible, Dr. Luke Lundin approached the beach,and hailed the page as he advanced towards him.--"The freshness of themorning upon you, fair sir--You are sent, I warrant me, to see if weobserve here the regimen which her good ladyship hath prescribed, foreschewing all superstitious observances and idle anilities in theseour revels. I am aware that her good ladyship would willingly havealtogether abolished and abrogated them--But as I had the honour toquote to her from the works of the learned Hercules of Saxony, _omniscuratio est vel canonica vel coacta_,--that is, fair sir, (for silk andvelvet have seldom their Latin _ad unguem_,) every cure must be wroughteither by art and induction of rule, or by constraint; and the wisephysician chooseth the former. Which argument her ladyship being pleasedto allow well of, I have made it my business so to blend instruction andcaution with delight--_fiat mixtio_, as we say--that I can answerthat the vulgar mind will be defecated and purged of anile and Popishfooleries by the medicament adhibited, so that the _primae vice_ beingcleansed, Master Henderson, or any other able pastor, may at will throwin tonics, and effectuate a perfect moral cure, _tuto, cito, jucunde_."
"I have no charge, Dr. Lundin," replied the page--
"Call me not doctor," said the chamberlain, "since I have laid asidemy furred gown and bonnet, and retired me into this temporality ofchamberlainship."
"Oh, sir," said the page, who was no stranger by report to the characterof this original, "the cowl makes not the monk, neither the cord thefriar--we have all heard of the cures wrought by Dr. Lundin."
"Toys, young sir--trifles," answered the leech with grave disclamationof superior skill; "the hit-or-miss practice of a poor retiredgentleman, in a short cloak and doublet--Marry, Heaven sent itsblessing--and this I must say, better fashioned mediciners havebrought fewer patients through--_lunga roba corta scienzia_, saith theItalian--ha, fair sir, you have the language?"
Roland Graeme did not think it necessary to expound to this learnedTheban whether he understood him or no; but, leaving that matteruncertain, he told him he came in quest of certain packages which shouldhave arrived at Kinross, and been placed under the chamberlain's chargethe evening before.
"Body o' me!" said Doctor Lundin, "I fear our common carrier, JohnAuchtermuchty, hath met with some mischance, that he came not up lastnight with his wains--bad land this to journey in, my master; and thefool will travel by night too, although, (besides all maladies from your_tussis_ to your _pestis_, which walk abroad in the night-air,) he maywell fall in with half a dozen swash-bucklers, who will ease him at onceof his baggage and his earthly complaints. I must send forth to inquireafter him, since he hath stuff of the honourable household on hand--and,by our Lady, he hath stuff of mine too--certain drugs sent me fromthe city for composition of my alexipharmics--this gear must be lookedto.--Hodge," said he, addressing one of his redoubted body-guard,"do thou and Toby Telford take the mickle brown aver and the blackcut-tailed mare, and make out towards the Kerry-craigs, and see whattidings you can have of Auchtermuchty and his wains--I trust it is onlythe medicine of the pottle-pot, (being the only _medicamentum_ whichthe beast useth,) which hath caused him to tarry on the road. Takethe ribbons from your halberds, ye knaves, and get on your jacks,plate-sleeves, and knapskulls, that your presence may work some terrorif you meet with opposers." He then added, turning to Roland Graeme, "Iwarrant me, we shall have news of the wains in brief season. Meantimeit will please you to look upon the sports; but first to enter mypoor lodging and take your morning's cup. For what saith the school ofSalerno?
_Poculum, mane haustum, Restaurat naturam exhaustam."_
"Your learning is too profound for me," replied the page; "and so wouldyour draught be likewise, I fear."
"Not a whit, fair sir--a cordial cup of sack, impregnated with wormwood,is the best anti-pestilential draught; and, to speak truth, thepestilential miasmata are now very rife in the atmosphere. We live ina happy time, young man," continued he, in a tone of grave irony, "andhave many blessings unknown to our fathers--Here are two sovereignsin the land, a regnant and a claimant--that is enough of one goodthing--but if any one wants more, he may find a king in every peel-housein the country; so if we lack government, it is not for want ofgovernors. Then have we a civil war to phlebotomize us every year, andto prevent our population from starving for want of food--and for thesame purpose we have the Plague proposing us a visit, the best of allrecipes for thinning a land, and converting younger brothers into elderones. Well, each man in his vocation. You young fellows of the sworddesire to wrestle, fence, or so forth, with some expert adversary; andfor my part, I love to match myself for life or death against that samePlague."
As they proceeded up the street of the little village towards theDoctor's lodgings, his attention was successively occupied by thevarious personages whom he met, and pointed out to the notice of hiscompanion.
"Do you see that fellow wi
th the red bonnet, the blue jerkin, and thegreat rough baton in his hand?--I believe that clown hath the strengthof a tower--he has lived fifty years in the world, and never encouragedthe liberal sciences by buying one penny-worth of medicaments.--But seeyou that man with the _facies hippocratica_?" said he, pointing outa thin peasant, with swelled legs, and a most cadaverous countenance;"that I call one of the worthiest men in the barony--he breakfasts,luncheons, dines, and sups by my advice, and not without my medicine;and, for his own single part, will go farther to clear out a moderatestock of pharmaceutics, than half the country besides.--How do you,my honest friend?" said he to the party in question, with a tone ofcondolence.
"Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary," answered the patient;"it neighboured ill with the two spoonfuls of pease-porridge and thekirnmilk."
"Pease-porridge and kirnmilk! Have you been under medicine these tenyears, and keep your diet so ill?--the next morning take the electuaryby itself, and touch nothing for six hours."--The poor object bowed, andlimped off.
The next whom the Doctor deigned to take notice of, was a lame fellow,by whom the honour was altogether undeserved, for at sight of themediciner, he began to shuffle away in the crowd as fast as hisinfirmities would permit.
"There is an ungrateful hound for you," said Doctor Lundin; "I curedhim of the gout in his feet, and now he talks of the chargeableness ofmedicine, and makes the first use of his restored legs to fly from hisphysician. His _podagra_ hath become a _chiragra_, as honest Martialhath it--the gout has got into his fingers, and he cannot draw hispurse. Old saying and true,
Praemia cum poscit medicus, Sathan est.
We are angels when we come to cure--devils when we ask payment--but Iwill administer a purgation to his purse I warrant him. There is hisbrother too, a sordid chuff.--So ho, there! Saunders Darlet! you havebeen ill, I hear?"
"Just got the turn, as I was thinking to send to your honour, and I ambrawly now again--it was nae great thing that ailed me."
"Hark you, sirrah," said the Doctor, "I trust you remember you are owingto the laird four stones of barleymeal, and a bow of oats; and I wouldhave you send no more such kain-fowls as you sent last season, thatlooked as wretchedly as patients just dismissed from a plague-hospital;and there is hard money owing besides."
"I was thinking, sir," said the man, _more Scotico_, that is, returningno direct answer on the subject on which he was addressed, "my best waywould be to come down to your honour, and take your advice yet, in casemy trouble should come back."
"Do so, then, knave," replied Lundin, "and remember what Ecclesiasticussaith--'Give place to the physician-let him not go from thee, for thouhast need of him.'"
His exhortation was interrupted by an apparition, which seemed to strikethe doctor with as much horror and surprise, as his own visage inflictedupon sundry of those persons whom he had addressed.
The figure which produced this effect on the Esculapius of the village,was that of a tall old woman, who wore a high-crowned hat and muffler.The first of these habiliments added apparently to her stature, andthe other served to conceal the lower part of her face, and as the hatitself was slouched, little could be seen besides two brown cheek-bones,and the eyes of swarthy fire, that gleamed from under two shaggy grayeyebrows. She was dressed in a long dark-coloured robe of unusualfashion, bordered at the skirts, and on the stomacher, with a sort ofwhite trimming resembling the Jewish phylacteries, on which were wroughtthe characters of some unknown language. She held in her hand a walkingstaff of black ebony.
"By the soul of Celsus," said Doctor Luke Lundin, "it is old MotherNicneven herself--she hath come to beard me within mine own bounds, andin the very execution of mine office! Have at thy coat, Old Woman, asthe song says--Hob Anster, let her presently be seized and committed tothe tolbooth; and if there are any zealous brethren here who would givethe hag her deserts, and duck her, as a witch, in the loch, I pray letthem in no way be hindered."
But the myrmidons of Dr. Lundin showed in this case no alacrity to dohis bidding. Hob Anster even ventured to remonstrate in the name ofhimself and his brethren. "To be sure he was to do his honour's bidding;and for a' that folks said about the skill and witcheries of MotherNicneven, he would put his trust in God, and his hand on her collar,without dreadour. But she was no common spaewife, this Mother Nicneven,like Jean Jopp that lived in the Bricrie-baulk. She had lords and lairdsthat would ruffle for her. There was Moncrieff of Tippermalloch, thatwas Popish, and the laird of Carslogie, a kend Queen's man, were in thefair, with wha kend how mony swords and bucklers at their back; and theywould be sure to make a break-out if the officers meddled with the auldPopish witch-wife, who was sae weel friended; mair especially as thelaird's best men, such as were not in the castle, were in Edinburgh withhim, and he doubted his honour the Doctor would find ower few to make agood backing, if blades were bare."
The doctor listened unwillingly to this prudential counsel, and was onlycomforted by the faithful promise of his satellite, that "the oldwoman should," as he expressed it, "be ta'en canny the next time shetrespassed on the bounds."
"And in that event," said the Doctor to his companion, "fire and fagotshall be the best of her welcome."
This he spoke in hearing of the dame herself, who even then, and inpassing the Doctor, shot towards him from under her gray eyebrows a lookof the most insulting and contemptuous superiority.
"This way," continued the physician, "this way," marshalling his guestinto his lodging,--"take care you stumble not over a retort, for it ishazardous for the ignorant to walk in the ways of art."
The page found all reason for the caution; for besides stuffed birds,and lizards, and snakes bottled up, and bundles of simples made up, andother parcels spread out to dry, and all the confusion, not to mentionthe mingled and sickening smells, incidental to a druggist's stock intrade, he had also to avoid heaps of charcoal crucibles, bolt-heads,stoves, and the other furniture of a chemical laboratory.
Amongst his other philosophical qualities, Doctor Lundin failed not tobe a confused sloven, and his old dame housekeeper, whose life, as shesaid, was spent in "redding him up," had trotted off to the mart ofgaiety with other and younger folks. Much chattering and janglingtherefore there was among jars, and bottles, and vials, ere the Doctorproduced the salutiferous potion which he recommended so strongly, anda search equally long and noisy followed, among broken cans and crackedpipkins, ere he could bring forth a cup out of which to drink it. Bothmatters being at length achieved, the Doctor set the example to hisguest, by quaffing off a cup of the cordial, and smacking his lips withapprobation as it descended his gullet.--Roland, in turn, submitted toswallow the potion which his host so earnestly recommended, but whichhe found so insufferably bitter, that he became eager to escape from thelaboratory in search of a draught of fair water to expel the taste. Inspite of his efforts, he was nevertheless detained by the garrulity ofhis host, till he gave him some account of Mother Nicneven.
"I care not to speak of her," said the Doctor, "in the open air, andamong the throng of people; not for fright, like yon cowardly dogAnster, but because I would give no occasion for a fray, having noleisure to look to stabs, slashes, and broken bones. Men call the oldhag a prophetess--I do scarce believe she could foretell when a broodof chickens will chip the shell--Men say she reads the heavens--my blackbitch knows as much of them when she sits baying the moon--Men pretendthe ancient wretch is a sorceress, a witch, and, what not--_Inter nos_,I will never contradict a rumour which may bring her to the stake whichshe so justly deserves; but neither will I believe that the tales ofwitches which they din into our ears are aught but knavery, cozenage,and old women's fables."
"In the name of Heaven, what is she then," said the page, "that you makesuch a stir about her?"
"She is one of those cursed old women," replied the Doctor, "who takecurrently and impudently upon themselves to act as advisers and curersof the sick, on the strength of some trash of herbs, some rhyme ofspells, some julap or diet, drink or cordial."
"Nay, go no farther," said the page; "if they brew cordials, evil betheir lot and all their partakers!"
"You say well, young man," said Dr. Lundin; "for mine own part, I knowno such pests to the commonwealth as these old incarnate devils, whohaunt the chambers of the brain-sick patients, that are mad enough tosuffer them to interfere with, disturb, and let, the regular process ofa learned and artificial cure, with their sirups, and their julaps, anddiascordium, and mithridate, and my Lady What-shall-call'um's powder,and worthy Dame Trashem's pill; and thus make widows and orphans, andcheat the regular and well-studied physician, in order to get thename of wise women and skeely neighbours, and so forth. But no moreon't--Mother Nicneven [Footnote: This was the name given to the grandMother Witch, the very Hecate of Scottish popular superstition. Her namewas bestowed, in one or two instances, upon sorceresses, who were heldto resemble her by their superior skill in "Hell's black grammar."] andI will meet one day, and she shall know there is danger in dealing withthe Doctor."
"It is a true word, and many have found it," said the page; "but underyour favour, I would fain walk abroad for a little, and see thesesports."
"It is well moved," said the Doctor, "and I too should be showing myselfabroad. Moreover the play waits us, young man-to-day, _totus mundusagit histrionem_."--And they sallied forth accordingly into the mirthfulscene.