“May I steal a piece of raw beef then,” rejoined the boy, “and rub the warts with it and bury it? For Uncle says that will do, and as the beef rots, so the warts will waste away.”
“Daniel,” said the Father, “those can be no lawful charms that begin with stealing; I could tell thee how to cure thy warts in a better manner. There is an infallible way, which is by washing the hands in moonshine, but then the moonshine must be caught in a bright silver basin. You wash and wash in the basin, and a cold moisture will be felt upon the hands, proceeding from the cold and moist rays of the moon.”
“But what shall we do for a silver basin,” said little Daniel?
The Father answered, “a pewter dish might be tried if it were made very bright; but it is not deep enough. The brass kettle perhaps might do better.”
“Nay,” said Guy, who had now begun to attend with some interest, “the shape of a kettle is not suitable. It should be a concave vessel, so as to concentrate the rays. Joshua Wilson I dare say would lend his brass basin, which he can very well spare at the hour you want it, because nobody comes to be shaved by moonlight. The moon rises early enough to serve at this time. If you come in this evening at six o'clock I will speak to Joshua in the mean time, and have the basin as bright and shining as a good scouring can make it. The experiment is curious and I should like to see it tried. Where Daniel didst thou learn it?” “I read it,” replied Daniel, “in Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourses, and he says it never fails.”
Accordingly the parties met at the appointed hour. Mambrino's helmet when new from the armourers, or when furbished for a tournament, was not brighter than Guy had rendered the inside of the barber's basin. Schoolmaster, Father and son retired to a place out of observation, by the side of the river, a wild stream tumbling among the huge stones which it had brought down from the hills. On one of these stones sate Daniel the elder, holding the basin in such an inclination toward the moon that there should be no shadow in it; Guy directed the boy where to place himself so as not to intercept the light, and stood looking complacently on, while young Daniel revolved his hands one in another within the empty basin, as if washing them. “I feel them cold and clammy Father!” said the boy. (It was the beginning of November) “Aye,” replied the father, “that's the cold moisture of the moon!” “Aye!” echoed the schoolmaster, and nodded his head in confirmation.
The operation was repeated on the two following nights; and Daniel would have kept up his son two hours later than his regular time of rest to continue it on the third if the evening had not set in with clouds and rain. In spite of the patient's belief that the warts would waste away and were wasting, (for Prince Hohenlohe could not require more entire faith than was given on this occasion) no alteration could be perceived in them at a fortnight's end. Daniel thought the experiment had failed because it had not been repeated sufficiently often, nor perhaps continued long enough. But the Schoolmaster was of opinion that the cause of failure was in the basin: for that silver being the lunar metal would by affinity assist the influential virtues of the moonlight, which finding no such affinity in a mixed metal of baser compounds, might contrariwise have its potential qualities weakened, or even destroyed when received in a brasen vessel, and reflected from it. Flossofer Daniel assented to this theory. Nevertheless as the child got rid of his troublesome excrescences in the course of three or four months, all parties disregarding the lapse of time at first, and afterwards fairly forgetting it, agreed that the remedy had been effectual, and Sir Kenelm if he had been living, might have procured the solemn attestation of men more veracious than himself that moonshine was an infallible cure for warts.
CHAPTER VIII. P. I.
A KIND SCHOOLMASTER AND A HAPPY SCHOOL BOY.