"Look at me," said he.
The little man ceased from rubbing his head.
"I am not a doctor of physic," stated he, regretfully, "and, so I cannot pronounce upon a complaint with authority. But," and his face was screwed into an expression of much sagacity, "as you look like a normal youth, I would venture that the thing you suffer is the plague. It still visits hereabout, and we've had great misgivings of it all summer through. If you feel your vitals at all grasped by this ailment, I entreat you, sir, to keep from gunpowder and ardent spirits." And, as Anthony nodded and smiled, the little apothecary went on, earnestly: "The spirits, I grant you, have a place in materia medica, as a glowing, forceful agent; they contain the life principle of the subject from which they are drawn, and to be fortified in time of need with the life principle of anything whatsoever may be considered an advantage. But the gunpowder, sir, I cannot grant you. What serves it to rattle away with a fowling-piece at the bedside of a disabled person? You make a noise, and a stink, and nothing more."
"What," said Anthony, "makes you think I have the plague?"
"You do not look," said the little man, "like one with a complaint of long duration. As you are sick, I take it that it is with something that has seized you suddenly. And so it must be the plague. I would, if my advice were sought, recommend camphor—a very white substance, unctuous, pellucid, bitterly aromatic, with a grateful coolness, and a fragrance not unlike rosemary. This may be inhaled upon suitable occasions; I have known many persons to carry little bags of it slung under their noses in time of great fright, or small quantities may be taken, dissolved in spirits of wine."
"I am not ill," said Anthony, as he seated himself upon the edge of the counter. "I have never been so, not even in the days when I'd tramp, barefooted, away beyond Schuylkill, into the woods and fields, to search out worm-wood, Jerusalem oak and adder's-violet. It may be," he mused, "that I'd then met with broken bones or drowning in the streams, but I was carefully looked after by one who was my good friend. Though, indeed, friends slip from one," and Anthony pulled a deep sigh. "Even those who we thought would remember the longest sometimes have memories short enough."
The little apothecary rubbed his bald head and stared; then incredulity, amazement, conviction followed each other across his face. He put a hand upon Anthony's arm.
"It is not Anthony Stevens!" denied he. "Do not tell me it is Anthony Stevens; for if you do I shall not believe you."
"Who was it told you that false valerian could be found in the swamps near the second ford?" asked the young man. "What boy was it who could find more wax-myrtle than his teacher? Who was it once slept all the way home on a bag of bear's-bed in the bottom of the wagon because he thought if bears could——"
"Anthony!" The little apothecary had him by the hand. "Anthony!" The mild old eyes took in the strapping frame, so different from that of the boy he had once known—the well-poised head, the purposeful eyes and chin. "Yes, it's you. I know you when you laugh. Nothing could change that."