In half an hour the physician arrived; and the light of the dull grey dawn presented a figure which certainly had something very appalling in it, for, in his haste, he had come away wearing a mask which was furnished with two large, green, globular glass eyes, to protect his face from the poisonous air and scorching heats of his laboratory. His high and wrinkled forehead lowered above it, and his long beard flowed below.
The wound was speedily bathed and salved; and lint, with a bandage, was applied.
"Thou seest, friend, that I find this new office of king's advocate no sinecure," said Redhall, with a fierce smile. "A thousand furies—how the wound smarts!"
"'Tis the unguentum armarium," replied the learned John, with medical composure; "one touch is sufficient to make such a wound as this shrink to the size of a pin-thrust, and two ought to efface it."
"I feel as if the dagger was still in my heart! Two touches cure, sayest thou?"
"Yea, my lord."
"I pray they may do so."
"They must, Sir Adam, if thou followest rigidly my prescriptions, which are here," and from his pouch he produced various phials marked with those cabalistic figures which are still so much in vogue among apothecaries. These he drew up in line, with their labels hanging like shields before them. "Here is my Elixir of Life, which the care of many a long year hath yet failed to perfect, for the lack of a certain herb which groweth in Arabia Petræa, and is the real arbor vitæ—the tree of life of the patriarchs; but still, its restorative and strengthening properties are wondrous! Here are my mercurial balm and the essence of acorns, which last giveth to the bones the strength of the oak tree, and to the nerves and sinews the toughness and tenacity of the ivy. A spoonful of each are taken night and morning, dissolved in a little warm water; and doubt not, Sir Adam, that this day week will behold you a strong man, and well—yea, with redoubled energies, like those whom the Cassida of the pagan Romans restored to life."
And with these words the physician retired, leaving Redhall to writhe and struggle, in solitude, with his mental and bodily agonies—the former outdoing the latter by a thousand-fold.
Our learned astrologer enjoyed a great reputation in Edinburgh, and doubtless would have enjoyed a still greater in the present day, if we may judge of the success of southern quacks and quackeries; as they, like everything that is English, enjoy a vast popularity among the Scottish vulgar.