It was almost a cry; it had a ring of hidden bitterness in it. Then, after a slight pause, she resumed her snipping and became once more, as she had announced, practical.
“Well, now you shall be told why I am here. And first, please understand that I combine with my duties of housekeeper to the lord of Bindon, those of ’prentice or familiar to the alchemist—simpler—sorcerer; in short, to Master Simon, my father. Now, as you know,” she pursued, assuming a mock orating tone, “my said father spends now all his days and most of his night in extracting divers salts, distilling essences, elixirs, what not—remedies for which the village folk flock to him with enthusiasm, and which being, praise Heaven, harmless enough, are applied to their ills with varying success but entire satisfaction to themselves. These remedies are mostly grown in this garden.”
She began to move down the path which led from bed to bed and which no foot but that of the simpler himself, of the dumb boy Barnaby, or her own having hitherto trod, was so narrow and encroached upon by the wild luxuriance of the herbs and shrubs that she was fain to walk in front of him and to speak over her shoulder. And even then, beneath their feet, many a broken and crushed simple gave forth its spicy ghost.
Her face presented itself to him in different aspects every moment. Now he caught but a rim of pearly cheek; now a clear cut profile; now nearly the whole delicate oval narrowed as she turned it towards him over her shoulder, the white chin more pointed. Meanwhile she spoke on gaily, with only here and there a pause to consider, to select and cull.
“I need not tell you, who have known my father so many more years than I myself, that while he makes use of the good old simple writers, Master Gerard, Master Robert Turner, Master Parkinson and the rest, he scoffs at what he calls their superstition. But I, having relieved him from the task of gathering, find it my pleasure to follow the quaint old directions in their least particular. And when Master Gerard, for instance, says, ‘This herb loseth its power unless it be gathered under the rays of the moon in her first quarter’ why then, cousin David,” she laughed, “under the rays of the moon in her first quarter I gather it. Who knows if I do not please thereby some honest ghost? Who knows if there be not in very truth some hidden virtue in the hour? You will have divined that the hour of sunrise is, on the same authority, the only fit season for the culling of certain other precious plants. And so I am here to cull betony and ditander in the dew. (Betony, you must know, sir, is of all simples, except vervaine, the most excellent, so that it is an old say: ‘If you be ill, sell your coat and buy betony.’)”
Here she pushed her way through a bed where thyme had grown breast high. She came back again presently, flushed and be-pearled, merry with the breath of the spices clinging to her garments, and with as much betony as one hand could hold together. This she added to the basket’s burden.
On ran her tongue the while:
“Ah,” catching herself up abruptly and retracing her way by a step, “the ditander is also blossoming, I see. Father will be glad to see it. It is sovereign against the wounds of arrows ‘shot from guns, and also for the healing of poisoned hurts.’ You would never guess,” she added, “that the juice of this modest little plant is so powerful that, Master Gerard avers, ‘the mere smell of it will drive away venomous beasts and doth astonish them!’” Her laugh rang out, clear as crystal. “You are not convinced, cousin. I would I could see more speculation in that eye! What if I were to tell you that the thing grows under the influence of Mars—would it awaken more interest?”
His grave lip was faintly lifted to a smile.
“It might account at least for its virtue against wounds of arrows,” said he.