









                         Chapter IV
                              
            Endymion Leer Prescribes for Ranulph


Master Nathaniel awoke the following morning with a less
leaden heart than the circumstances would seem to warrant. 
In the person of Ranulph an appalling disgrace had come upon
him, and there could be no doubt but that Ranulph's life and
reason were both in danger.  But mingling with his anxiety
was the pleasant sense of a new possession -- this love for
his son that he had suddenly discovered in his heart, and it
aroused in him all the pride and the pleasure that a new
pony would have done when he was a boy.
   Besides, there was that foolish feeling of his that
reality was not solid, and that facts were only plastic
toys; or, rather, that they were poisonous plants, which you
need not pluck unless you choose.  And, even if you do pluck
them, you can always fling them from you and leave them to
wither on the ground.
   He would have liked to vent his rage on Willy Wisp.  But
during the previous winter Willy had mysteriously
disappeared.  And though a whole month's wages had been
owing to him, he had never been seen or heard of since.
   However, in spite of his attitude to facts, the sense of
responsibility that had been born with this new love for
Ranulph forced him to take some action in the matter, and he
decided to call in Endymion Leer.
   Endymion Leer had arrived in Lud-in-the-Mist some thirty
years ago, no one knew from where.
   He was a physician, and his practice soon became one of
the biggest in the town, but was mainly confined to the
tradespeople and the poorer part of the population, for the
leading families were conservative, and always a little
suspicious of strangers.  Besides, they considered him apt
to be disrespectful, and his humour had a quality that made
them vaguely uncomfortable.  For instance, he would
sometimes startle a polite company by exclaiming half to
himself, "Life and death!  Life and death!  They are the
dyes in which I work.  Are my hands stained?"  And, with his
curious dry chuckle, he would hold them out for inspection.
   However, so great was his skill and learning that even
the people who disliked him most were forced to consult him
in really serous cases. 
   Among the humbler classes his was a name to conjure with,
for he was always ready to adapt his fees to the purses of
his patients, and where the purses were empty he gave his
services free.  For he took a genuine pleasure in the
exercise of his craft for its own sake.  One of the stories
told about him was that one night he had been summoned from
his bed to a farm-house that lay several miles beyond the
walls of the town, to find when he got there that his
patient was only a little black pig, the sole survivor of a
valuable litter.  But he took the discovery in good part,
and settled down for the night to tend the little animal;
and by morning he was able to declare it out of danger. 
When, on his return to Lud-in-the-Mist, he had been twitted
for having wasted so much time on such an unworthy object,
he had answered that a pig was thrall to the same master as
a Mayor, and that it needed as much skill to cure the one as
the other; adding that a good fiddler enjoys fiddling for
its own sake, and that it is all the same to him whether he
plays at a yokel's wedding or a merchant's funeral.
   He did not confine his interests to medicine.  Though not
himself by birth a Dorimarite, there was little concerning
the ancient customs of his adopted country that he did not
know; and some years ago he had been asked by the Senate to
write the official history of the Guild Hall, which, before
the revolution, had been the palace of the Dukes, and was
the finest monument in Lud-in-the-Mist.  To this task he had
for some time devoted his scanty leisure.
   The Senators had no severer critic than Endymion Leer,
and he was the originator of most of the jokes at their
expense that circulated in Lud-in-the-Mist.  But to Master
Nathaniel Chanticleer he seemed to have a personal
antipathy; and on the rare occasions when they met his
manner was almost insolent.
   It was possible that this dislike was due to the fact
that Ranulph when he was a tiny boy had seriously offended
him; for pointing his fat little finger at him he had
shouted in his shrill baby voice:
   
             "Before the cry of Chanticleer
              Gibbers away Endymion Leer."

When his mother had scolded him for his rudeness, he said
that he had been taught the rhyme by a funny old man he had
seen in his dreams.  Endymion Leer had gone deadly white --
with rage, Dame Marigold supposed; and during several years
he never referred to Ranulph except in a voice of suppressed
spite.
   But that was years ago, and it was to be presumed that he
had at last forgotten what had, after all, been nothing but
a piece of childish impudence.
   The idea of confiding to this upstart the disgraceful
thing that had happened to a Chanticleer was very painful to
Master Nathaniel.  But if anyone could cure Ranulph it was
Endymion Leer, so Master Nathaniel pocketed his pride and
asked him to come and see him. 
   As Master Nathaniel paced up and down his pipe-room (as
his private den was called) waiting for the doctor, the full
horror of what had happened swept over him.  Ranulph had
committed the unmentionable crime -- he had eaten fairy
fruit.  If it ever became known -- and these sort of things
always did become known -- the boy would be ruined socially
for ever.  And, in any case, his health would probably be
seriously affected for years to come.  Up and down like a
see-saw went the two aspects of the case in his anxious
mind... a Chanticleer had eaten fairy fruit; little Ranulph
was in danger.
   Then the page announced Endymion Leer.
   He was a little rotund man of about sixty, with a snub
nose, a freckled face, and with one eye blue and the other
brown.
   As Master Nathaniel met his shrewd, slightly contemptuous
glance he had an uncomfortable feeling which he had often
before experienced in his presence, namely that the little
man could read his thoughts.  So he did not beat about the
bush, but told him straight away why he had called him in.
   Endymion Leer gave a low whistle.  Then he shot at Master
Nathaniel a look that was almost menacing and said sharply,
"Who gave him the stuff?"
   Master Nathaniel told him it was a lad who had once been
in his service called Willy Wisp.
   "Willy Wisp?" cried the doctor hoarsely.  "Willy Wisp?"
   "Yes, Willy Wisp... confound him for a double-dyed
villain," said Master Nathaniel fiercely.  And then added in
some surprise, "Do you know him?"
   "Know him?  Yes, I know him.  Who doesn't know Willy
Wisp?" said the doctor.  "You see not being a merchant or a
Senator," he added with a sneer, "I can mix with whom I
choose.  Willy Wisp with his pranks was the plague of the
town while he was in it, and his Worship the Mayor wasn't
altogether blessed by the townsfolk for keeping such a
rascally servant."
   "Well, anyway, when I next meet him I'll thrash him
within an inch of his life," cried Master Nathaniel
violently; and Endymion Leer looked at him with a queer
little smile.
   "And now you'd better take me to see your son and heir,"
he said, after a pause.
   "Do you... do you think you'll be able to cure him?"
Master Nathaniel asked hoarsely, as he led the way to the
parlour.
   "I never answer that kind of question before I've seen
the patient, and not always then," answered Endymion Leer.
   Ranulph was lying on a couch in the parlour, and Dame
Marigold was sitting embroidering, her face pale and a
little defiant.  She was still feeling every inch a Vigil
and full of resentment against the two Chanticleers, father
and son, for having involved her in this horrible business.
   Poor Master Nathaniel stood by, faint with apprehension,
while Endymion Leer examined Ranulph's tongue, felt his
pulse and, at the same time, asked him minute questions as
to his symptoms. 
   Finally he turned to Master Nathaniel and said, "I want
to be left alone with him.  He will talk to me more easily
without you and your dame.  Doctors should always see their
patients alone."
   But Ranulph gave a piercing shriek of terror.  "No, no,
no!" he cried.  "Father! Father! Don't leave me with him."
   And then he fainted.
   Master Nathaniel began to lose his head, and to buzz and
bang again like a cockchafer.  But Endymion Leer remained
perfectly calm.  And the man who remains calm inevitably
takes command of a situation.  Master Nathaniel found
himself gently but firmly pushed out of his own parlour, and
the door locked in his face.  Dame Marigold had followed
him, and there was nothing for them to do but to await the
doctor's good pleasure in the pipe-room.
   "By the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I'm going back!" cried
Master Nathaniel wildly.  "I don't trust that fellow, I'm
not going to leave Ranulph alone with him, I'm going back.
   "Oh, nonsense, Nat!" cried Dame Marigold wearily.  "Do
*please* be calm.  One really *must* allow a doctor to have
his way."
   For about a quarter of an hour Master Nathaniel paced the
room with ill-concealed impatience.
   The parlour was opposite the pipe-room, with only a
narrow passage between them, and as Master Nathaniel had
opened the door of the pipe-room, he soon was able to hear a
murmur of voices proceeding from the parlour.  This was
comforting, for it showed that Ranulph must have come to.
   Then, suddenly, his whole body seemed to stiffen, the
pupils of his eyes dilated, he went ashy white, and in a low
terrified voice he cried, "Marigold, do you hear?"
   In the parlour somebody was singing.  It was a pretty,
plaintive air, and if one listened carefully one could
distinguish the words.
   
      "And can the physician make sick men well,
       And can the magician a fortune divine
       Without lily, germander, and sops in wine?
                  With sweet-brier,
                     And bon-fire,
                  And strawberry-wire,
                     And columbine."
   
   "Good gracious, Nat!" cried Dame Marigold, with a mocking
look of despair.  "What on *earth* is the matter now?"
   "Marigold!  Marigold!" he cried hoarsely, seizing her
wrists, don't you *hear*?"
   "I hear a vulgar old song, if that's what you mean.  I've
known it all my life.  It is very kind and domesticated of
Endymion Leer to turn nursemaid and rock the cradle like
this!"
   *But what Master Nathaniel had heard was the Note.*
   For a few seconds he stood motionless,the sweat breaking
out on his forehead.  Then blind with rage, he dashed across
the corridor.  But he had forgotten the parlour was locked,
so he dashed out by the front door and came bursting in by
the window that opened on to the garden. 
   The two occupants of the parlour were evidently so
absorbed in each other that they had noticed neither Master
Nathaniel's violent assault on the door nor yet his entry by
the window.
   Ranulph was lying on the couch with a look on his face of
extraordinary peace and serenity, and there was Endymion
Leer, crouching over him and softly crooning the tune to
which he had before been singing words.
   Master Nathaniel, roaring like a bull, flung himself on
the doctor, and, dragging him to his feet, began to shake
him as a terrier does a rat, at the same time belabouring
him with every insulting epithet he could remember,
including, of course, "Son of a Fairy."
   As for Ranulph, he began to whimper, and complain that
his father had spoiled everything, for the doctor had been
making him well.
   The din caused terrified servants to come battering at
the door, and Dame Marigold came hurrying in by the garden
window, and, pink with shame, she began to drag at Master
Nathaniel's coat, almost hysterically imploring him to come
to his senses.
   But it was only to exhaustion that he finally yielded,
and relaxed his hold on his victim, who was purple in the
face and gasping for breath -- so severe had been the
shaking.
   Dame Marigold cast a look of unutterable disgust at her
panting, triumphant husband, and overwhelmed the little
doctor with apologies and offers of restoratives.  He sank
down on a chair, unable for a few seconds to get his breath,
while Master Nathaniel stood glaring at him, and poor
Ranulph lay whimpering on the couch with a white scared
face.  Then the victim of Master Nathaniel's fury got to his
feet, gave himself a little shake, took out his handkerchief
and mopped his forehead, and with a little chuckle and in a
voice in which there was no trace of resentment, remarked,
"Well, a good shaking is a fine thing for settling the
humours.  Your Worship has turned doctor!  Thank you...
thank you kindly for your physic."
   But Master Nathaniel said in a stern voice, "What were
you doing to my son?"
   "What was I doing to him?  Why, I was giving him
medicine.  Songs were medicines long before herbs."
   "He was making me well," moaned Ranulph.
   "What was that song?" demanded Master Nathaniel, in the
same stern voice.
   "A very old song.  Nurses sing it to children.  You must
have known it all your life.  What's it called again?  You
know it, Dame Marigold, don't you?  `Columbine' -- yes,
that's it.  `Columbine.'"
   The trees in the garden twinkled and murmured.  The birds
were clamorous.  From the distance came the chimes of the
Guildhall clock, and the parlour smelt of spring-flowers and
pot-pourri.
   Something seemed to relax in Master Nathaniel.  He passed
his hand over his forehead, gave an impatient little shrug,
and, laughing awkwardly, said, "I... I really don't quite
know what took me.  I've been anxious about the boy, and I
suppose it had upset me a little.  I can only beg your
pardon, Leer." 
   "No need to apologize... no need at all.  No doctor worth
his salt takes offence with... sick men," and the look he
shot at Master Nathaniel was both bright and strange.
   Again Master Nathaniel frowned, and very stiffly he
murmured "Thank you."
   "Well," went on the doctor in a matter-of-fact voice, "I
should like to have a little private talk with you about
this young gentleman.  May I?"
   "Of course, of course, Dr. Leer," cried Dame Marigold
hastily, for she saw that her husband was hesitating.  "He
will be delighted, I am sure.  Though I think you're a very
brave man to trust yourself to such a monster.  Nat, take
Dr. Leer into the pipe-room."
   And Master Nathaniel did so.
   Once there the doctor's first words made him so happy as
instantly to drive away all traces of his recent fright and
to make him even forget to be ashamed of his abominable
behaviour.
   What the doctor said was, "Cheer up, your Worship!  I
don't for a moment believe that boy of yours has eaten --
what one mustn't mention."
   "What? What?" cried Master Nathaniel joyfully.  "By the
Golden Apples of the West!  It's been a storm in a tea-cup
then?  The little rascal, what a fright he gave us!"
   Of course, he had known all the time that it could not be
true!  Facts could never be as stubborn as that, and as
cruel.
   And this incorrigible optimist about facts was the same
man who walked in daily terror of the unknown.  But perhaps
the one state of mind was the outcome of the other.
   Then, as he remembered the poignancy of the scene between
himself and Ranulph last night and, as well, the
convincingness of Ranulph's story, his heart once more grew
heavy.
   "But... but," he faltered, "what was the good of this
cock and bull story, then?  What purpose did it serve? 
There's no doubt the boy's ill in both mind and body, and
why, in the name of the Milky Way, should he go to the
trouble of inventing a story about Willy Wisp's giving him a
tasted of that *damned* stuff?" and he looked at Endymion
Leer appealingly, as much as to say, "Here are the facts.  I
give them to you.  Be merciful and give them a less ugly
shape."
   This Endymion Leer proceeded to do.
   "How do we know it was... `that damned stuff'?" he
asked.  "We have only Willy Wisp's word for it, and from
what I know of that gentleman, his word is about as reliable
as... as the wind in a frolic.  All Lud knows of his
practical jokes... he'd say anything to give one a fright. 
No, no, believe me, he was just playing off one of his
pranks on Master Ranulph.  I've had some experience in the
real thing -- I've an extensive practice, you know, down at
the wharf -- and your son's symptoms aren't the same.  No,
no, your son is no more likely to have eaten fairy fruit --
than you are." 
   Master Nathaniel smiled, and stretched his arms in an
ecstasy of relief.  "Thank you, Leer, thank you," he said
huskily.  "The whole thing was appalling that really I
believe it almost turned my head.  And you are a very kind
fellow not to bear me a grudge for my monstrous mishandling
of you in the parlour just now."
   For the moment Master Nathaniel felt as if he really
loved the queer, sharp-tongued, little upstart.
   "And now," he went on gleefully, "to show me that it is
*really* forgotten and forgiven, we must pledge each other
in some wild-thyme gin... my cellar is rather noted for it,
you know," and from a corner cupboard he brought out two
glasses and a decanter of the fragrant green cordial, left
over from the supper party of the previous night.
   For a few minutes they sat sipping in silent contentment.
   Then Endymion Leer, as if speaking to himself, said
dreamily, "Yes, this is perhaps the solution.  Why should we
look for any other cure when we have the wild-thyme
distilled by our ancestors?  *Wild* time?  No, time isn't
wild... time-gin, sloe-gin.  It is very soothing."
   Master Nathaniel grunted.  He understood perfectly what
Endymion Leer meant, but he did not choose to show that he
did.  Any remark verging on the poetical or philosophical
always embarrassed him.  Fortunately, such remarks were rare
in Lud-in-the-Mist.
   So he put down his glass and said briskly, "Now then,
Leer, let's go to business.  You've removed an enormous load
from my mind, but, all the same, the boy's not himself. 
What's the matter with him?"
   Endymion Leer gave an odd little smile.  And then he
said, slowly and deliberately, "Master Nathaniel, what is
the matter with *you*?"
   Master Nathaniel started violently.
   "The matter with me?" he said coldly.  "I have not asked
you in to consult you about my own health.  We will, if you
please, keep to that of my son."
   But he rather spoiled the dignified effect his words
might have had by gobbling like a turkey cock, and muttering
under his breath, "Damn the fellow and his impudence!" 
Endymion Leer chuckled.
   "Well, I may have been mistaken," he said, "but I have
sometimes had the impression that our Worship the Mayor was
well, a whimsical fellow, given to queer fancies.  Do you
know my name for your house?  I call it the Mayor's Nest. 
The Mayor's Nest!"
   And he flung back his head and laughed heartily at his
own joke, while Master Nathaniel glared at him, speechless
with rage.
   "Now, your Worship," he went on in a more serious voice. 
"If I have been indiscreet you must forgive me... as I
forgave you in the parlour.  You see, a doctor is obliged to
keep his eyes open... it is not from what his patients tell
him that he prescribes for them, but from what he notices
himself.  To a doctor everything is a symptom... the way a
man lights his pipe even.  For instance, I once had the 
honour of having your Worship as my partner at a game of
cards.  You've forgotten probably -- it was years ago at the
Pyepowders.  We lost that game.  Why?  Because each time
that you held the most valuable card in the pack -- the Lyre
of Bones -- you discarded it as if it had burnt your
fingers.  Things like that set a doctor wondering, Master
Nathaniel.  You are a man who is frightened about
something."
   Master Nathaniel slowly turned crimson.  Now that the
doctor mentioned it, he remembered quite well that at one
time he objected to holding the Lyre of Bones.  Its name
caused him to connect it with the Note.  As we have seen, he
was apt to regard innocent things as taboo.  But to think
that somebody should have noticed it!
   "This is a necessary preface to what I have got to say
with regard to your son," went on Endymion Leer.  "You see,
I want to make it clear that, though one has never come
within a mile of fairy fruit, one can have all the symptoms
of being an habitual consumer of it.  Wait!  Wait!  Hear me
out!"
   For Master Nathaniel, with a smothered exclamation, had
sprung from his chair.
   "I am not saying that *you* have all these symptoms...
far from it.  But you know that there are spurious
imitations of many diseases of the body -- conditions that
imitate exactly all the symptoms of the disease, and the
doctors themselves are often taken in by them.  You wish me
to confine my remarks to your son... well, I consider that
he is suffering from a spurious surfeit of fairy fruit."
   Though still angry, Master Nathaniel was feeling
wonderfully relieved.  This explanation of his own condition
that robbed it of all mystery and, somehow, made it
rational, seemed almost as good as a cure.  So he let the
doctor go on with his disquisition without any further
interruption except the purely rhetorical once of an
occasional protesting grunt.
   "Now, I have studied somewhat closely the effects of
fairy fruit," the doctor was saying.  "These effects we
regard as a malady.  But, in reality, they are more like a
melody -- a tune that one can't get out of one's head," and
he shot a very sly little look at Master Nathaniel, out of
his bright bird-like eyes.
   "Yes," he went on in a thoughtful voice, "its effects, I
think, can best be described as a changing of the inner
rhythm by which we live.  Have you ever noticed a little
child of three or four walking hand in hand with its father
through the streets?  It is almost as if the two were
walking in time to perfectly different tunes.  Indeed,
though they hold each other's hand, they might be walking on
different planets... each seeing and hearing entirely
different things.  And while the father marches steadily on
towards some predetermined goal, the child pulls against his
hand, laughs without cause, makes little bird-like swoops at
invisible objects.  Now, anyone who has tasted fairy fruit
(your Worship will excuse my calling a  spade a spade in
this way, but in my profession one can't be mealy-mouthed)
-- anyone,then, who has tasted fairy fruit walks through
life beside other people to a different tune from theirs...
just like the little child beside its father.  But one can
be *born* to a different tune... and that, I believe, is the
case with Master Ranulph.  Now, if he is ever to become a
useful citizen, though he need not lose his own tune, he
must learn to walk in time to other people's.  He will not
learn to do that here -- at present.  Master Nathaniel, *you
are not good for your son*."
   Master Nathaniel moved uneasily in his chair, and in a
stifled voice he said, "What then do you recommend?"
   "I should recommend his being taught another tune," said
the doctor briskly.  "A different one from any he has heard
before... but one to which other people walk as well as he. 
You must have captains and mates, Master Nathaniel, with
little houses down at the seaport town.  Is there no honest
fellow among them with a sensible wife with whom the lad
could lodge for a month or two?  Or stay," he went on,
without giving Master Nathaniel time to answer, "life on a
farm would do as well -- better, perhaps.  Sowing and
reaping, quiet days, smells and noises that are like old
tunes, healing nights... slow-time gin!  By the Harvest of
Souls, Master Nathaniel, I'd rather any day, be a farmer
than a merchant... waving corn is better than the sea, and
waggons are better than ships, and freighted with sweeter
and more wholesome merchandise than all your silks and
spices; for in their cargo are peace and a quiet mind. 
Yes.  Master Ranulph must spend some months on a farm, and I
know the very place for him."
   Master Nathaniel was more moved than he cared to show by
the doctor's words.  They were like the cry of the cock,
without its melancholy.  But he tried to make his voice dry
and matter of fact, as he asked where this marvellous farm
might be.
   "Oh, it's to the west," the doctor answered vaguely.  "It
belongs to an old acquaintance of mine -- the widow
Gibberty.  She's a fine, fresh, bustling woman and knows
everything a woman ought to know, and her granddaughter,
Hazel, is a nice, sensible, hard-working girl.  I'm sure..."
   "Gibberty, did you say?" interrupted Master Nathaniel. 
He seemed to have heard the name before.
   "Yes.  You may remember having heard her name in the law
courts -- it isn't a common one.  She had a case many years
ago.  I think it was a thieving labourer her late husband
had thrashed and dismissed who sued her for damages."
   "And where exactly is this farm?"
   "Well, it's about sixty miles away from Lud, just out of
a village called  Swan-on-the-Dapple."
   "Swan-on-the-Dapple?  Then it's quite close to the Elfin
Marches!" cried Master Nathaniel indignantly.
   "About ten miles away," replied Endymion Leer
imperturbably.  "But what of that?  Ten miles on a busy
self-supporting farm is as great a distance as a hundred
would be at Lud.  Still, under the circumstances, I can 
understand your fighting shy of the west.  I must think of
some other plan." 
   "I should think so indeed!" growled Master Nathaniel.
   "However," continued the doctor, "you have really nothing
to fear from that quarter.  He would, in reality, be much
further moved from temptation there than here.  The
smugglers, whoever they are, run great risks to get the
fruit into Lud, and they're not going to waste it on rustics
and farmhands."
   "All the same," said Master Nathaniel doggedly, "I'm not
going to have him going so damnably near to... a certain
place."
   "The place that does not exist in the eyes of the law,
eh?" said Endymion Leer with a smile.
   Then he leaned forward in his chair, and gazed steadily
at Master Nathaniel.  This time, his eyes were kind as well
as piercing.  "Master Nathaniel, I'd like to reason with you
a little," he said.  "Reason I know, is only a drug, and, as
such, its effects are never permanent.  But, like the juice
of the poppy, it often gives a temporary relief."
   He sat silent for a few seconds, as if choosing in
advance the words he meant to use.  Then he began, "We have
the misfortune of living in a country that marches with the
unknown; and that is apt to make the fancy sick.  Though we
laugh at old songs and old yarns, nevertheless, they are the
*yarn* with which we weave our picture of the world."
   He paused for a second to chuckle over his own pun, and
then went on, "But, for once, let us look things straight in
the face, and call them by their proper names.  Fairyland,
for instance... no one has been there within the memory of
man.  For generations it has been a forbidden land.  In
consequence, curiosity, ignorance, and unbridled fancy have
put their heads together and concocted a country of golden
trees hanging with pearls and rubies, the inhabitants of
which are immortal and terrible through unearthly gifts --
and so on.  But -- and in this I am in no way subscribing to
a certain antiquary of ill odour -- there is not a single
homely thing that, looked at from a certain angle, does not
become fairy.  Think of the Dapple, or the Dawl, when they
roll the sunset towards the east.  Think of an autumn wood,
or a hawthorn in May.  *A hawthorn in May -- there's* a
miracle for you!  Who would ever have dreamed that that
gnarled stumpy old tree had the power to do *that*?  Well,
all these things are familiar sights, but what should we
think if never having seen them we read a description of
them, or saw them for the first time?  A golden river! 
Flaming trees!  Trees that suddenly break into flower!  For
all we know, it may be Dorimare that is Fairyland to the
people across the Debatable Hills."
   Master Nathaniel was drinking in every word as if it was
nectar.  A sense of safety was tingling in his veins like a
generous wine... mounting to his head, even, a little bit,
so unused was he to that particular intoxicant.
   Endymion Leer eyed him, with a little smile.  "And now,"
he said, "perhaps your Worship will let me talk a little of
your own case.  The malady you suffer from should, I think,
be called `life-sickness.'  You are, so to speak, a bad 
sailor, and the motion of life makes you brain-sick.  There,
beneath you, all round you, there surges and swells, and
ebbs and flows, that great, ungovernable, ruthless element
that we call life.  And its motion gets into your blood,
turns your head dizzy.  Get your sea legs, Master
Nathaniel!  By which I do not mean you must cease feeling
the motion... go on feeling it, but learn to like it; or if
not to like it, at any rate to bear it with firm legs and a
steady head."
   There were tears in Master Nathaniel's eyes and he smiled
a little sheepishly.  At that moment his feet were certainly
on {terra firma}; and so convinced are we that each mood
while it lasts will be the permanent temper of our soul that
for the moment he felt that he would never feel
"life-sickness" again.
   "Thank you, Leer, thank you," he murmured.  "I'd do a
good deal for you, in return for what you've just said."
   "Very well, then," said the doctor briskly, "give me the
pleasure of curing your son.  It's the greatest pleasure I
have in life, curing people.  Let me arrange for him to go
to this farm."
   Master Nathaniel, in his present mood, was incapable of
gainsaying him.  So it was arranged that Ranulph should
shortly leave for Swan-on-the-Dapple.
   It was with a curious solemnity that, just before he took
his leave, Endymion Leer said, "Master Nathaniel, there is
one thing I want you to bear in mind -- *I have never in my
life made a mistake in a prescription.*"
   As Endymion Leer trotted away from the Chanticleers he
chuckled to himself and softly rubbed his hands.  "I can't
help being a physician and giving balm," he muttered.  "But
it was monstrous good policy as well.  He would never have
allowed the boy to go, otherwise."
   Then he started, and stood stock-still, listening.  From
far away there came a ghostly sound.  It might have been the
cry of a very distant cock, or else it might have been the
sound of faint, mocking laughter.
