Priscilla, idly turning the pages of the “Gerard” which Ellinor had left out of her hand on the sundial, stood silent, shooting glances by turns at Harcourt and Herrick. The former, standing with folded arms behind Ellinor, the latter, lying stretched on the hot soil at her feet, seemed too thoroughly content with their posts to be lured from them. But at Ellinor’s exclamation, the little circle had been stirred.
“Poison?” echoed Master Simon in his turn. “Tush! Ellinor, I am ashamed of you! By this time you should know better. Is not every medicine, nay, every distilled spirit, poison in certain degrees? And how about Opium? How about Digitalis, Aconite and Laurel, Mercury and Antimony? Pooh! What need of names?”
“Even in love a poison lies!” murmured Herrick, and looked up languishingly at Ellinor’s unseeing face.
“No doubt,” said Harcourt, in a most indifferent voice, “so wise a philosopher as Master Simon always locks up his poisons!”
“Child,” pursued the old man, “I tell you, this herb which was lost to the world, but which you yourself found again, planted and nurtured, is destined to be the greatest boon mankind has yet known! The older students had some hints of its powers, some glimmering of its uses. But it wanted the resources of modern methods of modern chemistry to develop them. I have now reduced its essence to the most convenient form. A drop, one drop a day—ah, ladies and gentlemen, farewell to all your miseries!”
“Is it not wonderful!” cried Lady Lochore. She clasped her hands and looked keenly at the old man; and he, anxious to improve the occasion upon so earnest a believer and so interesting a case for experiment, now gave her his undivided attention.
Ellinor, with a sigh of impatience, rose, and, taking up her basket, proceeded to her neglected work of plant gathering, here and there consulting a pencilled list that was pinned to the handle. Herrick was promptly at her side.
“What are you going to make of those?” he asked, plucking in his turn a leaf from every plant that her scissors had visited.
“A febrifuge for an old woman in the village. It is promised for to-night.”
“And if I do—I have half a mind to come into your den and let you give it to me yourself—what effect could one drop have on me?” Lady Lochore was saying. And the old man answered: