It was noon of the same day.
In a bedroom of "The Silver Lion" the rugged Denys sat anxious, watching his young friend.
And he lay raging with fever, delirious at intervals, and one word for ever on his lips:
"Margaret!—Margaret!—Margaret!"
CHAPTER XXVI
IT was the afternoon of the next day. Gerard was no longer light-headed, but very irritable, and full of fancies; and in one of these he begged Denys to get him a lemon to suck. Denys, who from a rough soldier had been turned by tender friendship into a kind of grandfather, got up hastily, and bidding him set his mind at ease, "lemons he should have in the twinkling of a quart pot," went and ransacked the shops for them.
They were not so common in the North as they are now, and he was absent a long while, and Gerard getting very impatient, when at last the door opened. But it was not Denys. Entered softly an imposing figure; an old gentleman in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-coloured hose, and pointed shoes, with a sword by his side in a morocco scabbard, a ruff round his neck not only starched severely, but treacherously stiffened in furrows by rebatoes, or a little hidden framework of wood; and on his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border; on his chin and bosom a majestic white beard. Gerard was in no doubt as to the vocation of his visitor, for, the sword excepted, this was as familiar to him as the full dress of a physician. Moreover a boy followed at his heels with a basket, where phials, lint and surgical tools rather courted than shunned observation. The old gentleman came softly to the bedside, and said mildly and sotto voce, "How is't with thee, my son?"
Gerard answered gratefully that his wound gave him little pain now; but his throat was parched, and his head heavy.
"A wound? they told me not of that. Let me see it. Ay, ay, a good clean bite. The mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me": and the good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped he had conjured; his jackal.