The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (love story novels in english .txt) 📖

gave him a draught of medicated wine, mixed with water. He rejected it, under the dishonourable epithet of “kennel washings,” and again uttered the words, “Wine—wine.”

“Nay, take it to thee, i’ the devil’s name,” said the leech, “since none but he can judge of thy constitution.”

A draught, long and deep enough to have discomposed the intellects of any other person, was found effectual in recalling those of Bonthron to a more perfect state; though he betrayed no recollection of where he was or what had befallen him, and in his brief and sullen manner asked why he was brought to the river side at this time of night.

“Another frolic of the wild Prince, for drenching me as he did before. Nails and blood, but I would—”

“Hold thy peace,” interrupted Eviot, “and be thankful, I pray you, if you have any thankfulness in you, that thy body is not crow’s meat and thy soul in a place where water is too scarce to duck thee.”

“I begin to bethink me,” said the ruffian; and raising the flask to his mouth, which he saluted with a long and hearty kiss, he set the empty bottle on the earth, dropped his head on his bosom, and seemed to muse for the purpose of arranging his confused recollections.

“We can abide the issue of his meditations no longer,” said Dwining; “he will be better after he has slept. Up, sir! you have been riding the air these some hours; try if the water be not an easier mode of conveyance. Your valours must lend me a hand. I can no more lift this mass than I could raise in my arms a slaughtered bull.”

“Stand upright on thine own feet, Bonthron, now we have placed thee upon them,” said Eviot.

“I cannot,” answered the patient. “Every drop of blood tingles in my veins as if it had pinpoints, and my knees refuse to bear their burden. What can be the meaning of all this? This is some practice of thine, thou dog leech!”

“Ay—ay, so it is, honest Bonthron,” said Dwining—“a practice thou shalt thank me for when thou comest to learn it. In the mean while, stretch down in the stern of that boat, and let me wrap this cloak about thee.”

Assisted into the boat accordingly, Bonthron was deposited there as conveniently as things admitted of. He answered their attentions with one or two snorts resembling the grunt of a boar who has got some food particularly agreeable to him.

“And now, Buncle,” said the chirurgeon, “your valiant squireship knows your charge. You are to carry this lively cargo by the river to Newburgh, where you are to dispose of him as you wot of; meantime, here are his shackles and bandages, the marks of his confinement and liberation. Bind them up together, and fling them into the deepest pool you pass over; for, found in your possession, they might tell tales against us all. This low, light breath of wind from the west will permit you to use a sail as soon as the light comes in and you are tired of rowing. Your other valiancie, Master Page Eviot, must be content to return to Perth with me afoot, for here severs our fair company. Take with thee the lantern, Buncle, for thou wilt require it more than we, and see thou send me back my flasket.”

As the pedestrians returned to Perth, Eviot expressed his belief that Bonthron’s understanding would never recover the shock which terror had inflicted upon it, and which appeared to him to have disturbed all the faculties of his mind, and in particular his memory.

“It is not so, an it please your pagehood,” said the leech. “Bonthron’s intellect, such as it is, hath a solid character: it Will but vacillate to and fro like a pendulum which hath been put in motion, and then will rest in its proper point of gravity. Our memory is, of all our powers of mind, that which is peculiarly liable to be suspended. Deep intoxication or sound sleep alike destroy it, and yet it returns when the drunkard becomes sober or the sleeper is awakened. Terror sometimes produces the same effect. I knew at Paris a criminal condemned to die by the halter, who suffered the sentence accordingly, showing no particular degree of timidity upon the scaffold, and behaving and expressing himself as men in the same condition are wont to do. Accident did for him what a little ingenious practice hath done for our amiable friend from whom we but now parted. He was cut down and given to his friends before life was extinct, and I had the good fortune to restore him. But, though he recovered in other particulars, he remembered but little of his trial and sentence. Of his confession on the morning of his execution—he! he! he! (in his usual chuckling manner)—he remembered him not a word. Neither of leaving the prison, nor of his passage to the Greve, where he suffered, nor of the devout speeches with which he—he! he! he!—edified—he! he! he!—so many good Christians, nor of ascending the fatal tree, nor of taking the fatal leap, had my revenant the slightest recollection.’ But here we reach the point where we must separate; for it were unfit, should we meet any of the watch, that we be found together, and it were also prudent that we enter the city by different gates. My profession forms an excuse for my going and coming at all times. Your valiant pagehood will make such explanation as may seem sufficing.”

“I shall make my will a sufficient excuse if I am interrogated,” said the haughty young man. “Yet I will avoid interruption, if possible. The moon is quite obscured, and the road as black as a wolf’s mouth.”

“Tut,” said the physicianer, “let not your valour care for that: we shall tread darker paths ere it be long.”

Without inquiring into the meaning of these evil boding sentences, and indeed hardly listening to them in the pride and recklessness of his nature, the page of Ramorny parted from his ingenious and dangerous companion, and each took his own way.