Alone and forgotten, absolutely free,
His happy time he spends, the works of God to see
In those wonderful herbs which here in plenty grow,
Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know,
And choicely sorts his simples got abroad,
And dreams of the All-Heal that is still on the road....
—Drayton (Polyolbion).
On that evening of the autumnal equinox Master Simon Rickart—the simpler or the student as he liked to call himself, the alchemist as many held him to be—alone, save for the company of his cat, in his laboratory at the foot of the keep, was luxuriating as usual in his work of research.
The black cat sat by the wood fire and watched the man.
As Master Simon moved to and fro, the topaz eyes followed him. When he spoke (which he constantly did to himself, under his voice and disjointedly, after the wont of some solitary old people) they became narrowed into slits of cunning intelligence. But when the observations were personally addressed to his Catship, Belphegor blinked in comfortable acknowledgment. “As wise as Master Simon himself,” the country folk vowed: and indeed, wherever the fame of the alchemist had spread through the country-side, so had that of the alchemist’s cat.