









                         Chapter XIX

                The Berries of Merciful Death


Late into that night Master Nathaniel paced the floor of his
pipe-room, trying to pierce through the intervening medium
of the dry words of the Law and the vivider though less
reliable one of Mistress Ivy's memory, and reach that old
rustic tragedy, as it had been before the vultures of Time
had left nothing of it but dry bones.
   He felt convinced that Mistress Ivy's reconstruction was
correct -- as far as it went.  The farmer had been poisoned,
though not by osiers.  But by what?  And what had been the
part played by Pugwalker, alias Endymion Leer?  It was, of
course, gratifying to his vanity that his instinctive
identification of the two had been correct.  But how
tantalizing it would be if this dead man's tale was to
remain but a vague whisper, too low to be heard by the ear
of the Law!
   On his table was the slipper that Master Ambrose had
facetiously suggested might be of use to him.  He picked it
up, and stared at it absently.  Ambrose had said the sight
of it had made Endymion Leer jump out of his skin, and that
the reason was obvious.  And yet those purple strawberries
did not look like fairy fruit.  Master Nathaniel had
recently become but too familiar with the aspect of that
fruit not to recognize it instantly, whatever its variety. 
Though he had never seen berries exactly like these, he was
certain that they did not grow in Fairyland.
   He walked across to his bookcase and took out a big
volume bound in vellum.  It was a very ancient illustrated
herbal of the plants of Dorimare.
   At first he turned its pages somewhat listlessly, as if
he did not really expect to find anything of interest.  Then
suddenly he came on an illustration, underneath which was
written THE BERRIES OF MERCIFUL DEATH.  He gave a low
whistle, and fetching the slipper laid it beside the
picture.  The painted berries and the embroidered ones were
identical.
   On the opposite page the berries were described in a
style that a literary expert would have recognized as
belonging to the Duke Aubrey period.  The passage ran
thus: -- 
                   THE BERRIES OF MERCIFUL DEATH
      
      These berries are wine-coloured, and crawl along the
   ground, and have the leaves of wild strawberries.  They
   ripen during the first quarter of the harvest moon, and
   are only to be found in certain valleys of the West, and
   even there they grow but sparsely; and, for the sake of
   birds and children and other indiscreet lovers of fruit,
   it is well that such is the case, for they are a deadly
   and insidious poison, though very tardy in their action,
   often lying dormant in the blood for many days.  Then the
   poison begins to speak in itchings of the skin, while the
   tongue, as though in punishment for the lies it may have
   told, becomes covered with black spots, so that it has
   the appearance of the shards of a ladybird, and this is
   the only warning to the victim that his end is
   approaching.  For, if evil things ever partake of the
   blessed virtues, then we may say that this malign berry
   is mercifully cruel, in that it spares its victims
   belchings and retchings and fiery humours and racking
   colics.  And, shortly before his end, he is overtaken by
   a pleasant drowsiness, yielding to which he falls into a
   peaceful sleep, which is his last.  And now I will give
   you a receipt, which, if you have no sin upon your
   conscience, and are at peace with the living and the
   dead, and have never killed a robin, nor robbed an
   orphan, nor destroyed the nest of a dream, it may be will
   prove an antidote to that poison -- and may be it will
   not.  This, then, is the receipt: Take one pint of salad
   oil and put it into a vial glass, but first wash it with
   rose-water, and marygold flower water, the flowers being
   gathered towards the West.  Wash it till the oil comes
   white; then put it into the glass, and then put thereto
   the buds of Peonies, the flowers of Marygold and the
   flowers and tops of Shepherd's Thyme.  The Thyme must be
   gathered near the side of a hill where the Fairies are
   said to dance.
   
   Master Nathaniel laid down the book, and his eyes were
more frightened than triumphant.  There was something
sinister in the silent language in which dead men told their
tales -- with sly malice embroidering them on old maids'
canvas work, hiding them away in ancient books, written long
before they were born; and why were his ears so attuned to
this dumb speech?
   For him the old herbalist had been describing a murderer,
subtle, sinister, mitigating dark deeds with mercy -- a
murderer, the touch of whose bloody hands was balm to the
sick in body, and whose voice could rock haunted minds to
sleep.  And, as well, in the light of what he already knew,
the old herbalist had told a story.  A violent, cruel,
reckless woman had wished to rid herself of her enemy by the
first means that came to her hand -- osiers, the sap of
which produced an agonizing, cruel death.  But her discreet
though murderous lover took the osiers from her, and gave
her instead the berries of merciful death. 
   The herbalist had proved beyond the shadow of a doubt
that the villain of the story was Endymion Leer.
   Yes, but how should he make the dead tell their tale loud
enough to reach the ear of the Law?
   In any case, he must leave Lud, and that quickly.
   Why should he not visit the scene of this old drama, the
widow Gibberty's farm?  Perhaps he might there find
witnesses who spoke a language understood by all.
   
   The next morning he ordered a horse to be saddled, packed
a few necessaries in a knapsack, and then he told Dame
Marigold that, for the present, he could not stay in Lud. 
"As for you," he said, "you had better move to Polydore's. 
For the moment I'm the most unpopular man in town, and it
would be just as well that they should think of you as
Vigil's sister rather than as Chanticleer's wife."
   Dame Marigold's face was very pale that morning and her
eyes were very bright.  "Nothing would induce me," she said
in a low voice, "ever again to cross the threshold of
Polydore's house.  I shall never forgive him for the way he
has treated you.  No, I shall stay here -- in *your* house. 
And," she added, with a little scornful laugh, "you needn't
be anxious about me.  I've never yet met a member of the
lower classes that was a match for one of ourselves -- they
fall to heel as readily as a dog.  I'm not a bit afraid of
the mob, or anything they could do to me."
   Master Nathaniel chuckled.  "By the Sun, Moon and Stars!"
he cried proudly, "you're a chip off the old block,
Marigold!"
   "Well, don't stay too long away, Nat," she said, "or else
when you come back you'll find that I've gone mad like
everybody else, and am dancing as wildly as Mother Tibbs,
and singing songs about Duke Aubrey!" and she smiled her
charming crooked smile.
   Then he went up to say good-bye to old Hempie.
   "Well, Hempie," he cried gaily.  "Lud's getting too hot
for me.  So I'm off with a knapsack on my back to seek my
fortune, like the youngest son in your old stories.  Will
you wish me luck?"
   There were tears in the old woman's eyes as she looked at
him, and then she smiled.
   "Why, Master Nat," she cried, "I don't believe you've
felt so light-hearted since you were a boy!  But these are
strange times when a Chanticleer is chased out of
Lud-in-the-Mist!  And wouldn't I just like to give those
Vigils and the rest of them a bit of my mind!" and her old
eyes flashed.  "But don't you ever get downhearted, Master
Nat, and don't ever forget that there have always been
Chanticleers in Lud-in-the-Mist, and that there always will
be!  But it beats me how you're to manage with only three
pairs of stockings, and no one to mend them."
   "Well, Hempie," he laughed, "they say the Fairies are
wonderfully neat-fingered, and, who knows, perhaps in my
wanderings I may fall in with a fairy housewife who will 
darn my stockings for me," and he brought out the forbidden
word as lightly and easily as if it had been one in daily
use.
   About an hour after Master Nathaniel had ridden away Luke
Hempen arrived at the house, wild-eyed, dishevelled, and
with very startling news.  But it was impossible to
communicate it to Master Nathaniel, as he had left without
telling anyone his destination.
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