The alchemist vented on his assistant the impatience he had concealed from the Prince.
"Am I never to hear the last of this marriage?" he cried. "I would the maid was wedded and gone, then maybe we should have a little peace in Leipsic."
"But it is a wicked thing," cried Hans, "to marry a Princess of the true faith to a Popish noble—a friend of King Philip, a friend of the Bishop of Arras—one who hates the Reformed Religion. I have some right to talk, master, for my father fought under the Elector Maurice against the late Emperor. Who thought then that the only child of the Elector would wed with the minion of the Emperor? A shame and a scandal it is to the country, and His Highness should be above sacrificing a young maid to the idolaters——"
Thus grumbling he went into the still-room to search for the manuscripts his master required. The other assistant, a stout young Burgundian, by name Walter de la Barre, had now brought his pots to the right heat and set them aside to cool.
He came forward, wiping his hands which were stained with clay and lead.
"Did the Elector command you to the feast, Magister?" he asked. "I heard to-day it was to be in the town hall, for the palace is not large enough—and all attending are to bring their own butlers and cooks and plate, and there is to be a three days' tourney——"
"Walter! Walter!" interrupted Vanderlinden sternly. "Is it a wonder that your metals will not fuse, your minerals dissolve, that your liquids turn, and your furnaces fall out when your head is full of such idleness as this?
"How often have I told you that it is the spirit and not the mind shall conquer in this pursuit of ours? Leave these worldly, silly things and fix your thoughts on the great mystery, the awful secret which God is pleased to withhold from us."
The young man flushed, and turned again to his furnace which he was keeping at white heat for the melting of more lead wherewith to seal a further row of pots containing a strange solution with which Vanderlinden was experimenting. Hans returned with the three rolls of manuscript and the book. The alchemist, with a severe injunction to them to keep up the furnace and refrain from idle speech, withdrew to his private chamber in the roof or gables, where he usually meditated and struggled with the problems he discovered in the mystical writings and oblique instructions, veiled hints and tortuous references of the ancient sages and masters.
The two young men, as soon as they were alone, at once went to the window and leant out, squeezing themselves together with some difficulty, for the casement was narrow.