The lord of Bindon raised his hat and passed on whilst his guest remained standing.
CHAPTER XI
A PARLOUR OF PERFUME
O magic sleep! O comfortable bird
That broodest o’er the troubled sea of the mind,
Till it is hushed and smooth!...
—Keats (Endymion).
The atmosphere of Master Simon’s laboratory was much the same, winter or summer. No extreme of heat or cold could penetrate this crypt, deep set as it was in the foundations of the keep; and, though against the long narrow windows, cut into the wall on the level of the moat, one could see the slender spikes of reed and rushy grass perpetually trembling in the airs, there was but little direct sunshine. Sometimes, however, downward thrusts, like spears, when Sol was high; or again when he was about to sink a level shaft, rose-red in winter, amber glowing in summer, would come driving in through the vaulted spaces, high above Master Simon’s head and show to the eye that cared to notice, how dim and vapour-heavy was all the room below.
The two fires then came not amiss. Despite the flame on the open hearth and the glow of the little furnace, Lady Lochore, as she entered, shivered after the hot sunshine.
“How dark it is with you!” she cried. “And what strange odours! Ha! It smells of poison here!”
“To treat the unknown as unwholesome is the animal instinct,” said the chemist, didactically, with a glance of contempt. “How differently does it affect the intellectual being! Fortunately it is in man’s power to extract good or bad from everything. Listen! Every one of those little apparatus simmering over yonder is yielding up juices for healing. Did I choose, child—there might indeed be death in those retorts; just as there is death in fire and water, in air and in sun. These things are our servants, and we use them. Poison! How you women prate of poison! Timorous souls!”