The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER XXVI

  IT was the afternoon of the next day. Gerard was no longer light-headed,but very irritable, and full of fancies; and in one of these he beggedDenys to get him a lemon to suck. Denys, who from a rough soldier hadbeen turned by tender friendship into a kind of grandfather, got uphastily, and bidding him set his mind at ease, "lemons he should have inthe twinkling of a quart pot," went and ransacked the shops for them.

  They were not so common in the North as they are now, and he was absenta long while, and Gerard getting very impatient, when at last the dooropened. But it was not Denys. Entered softly an imposing figure; an oldgentleman in a long sober gown trimmed with rich fur, cherry-colouredhose, and pointed shoes, with a sword by his side in a morocco scabbard,a ruff round his neck not only starched severely, but treacherouslystiffened in furrows by rebatoes, or a little hidden framework of wood;and on his head a four-cornered cap with a fur border; on his chin andbosom a majestic white beard. Gerard was in no doubt as to the vocationof his visitor, for, the sword excepted, this was as familiar to him asthe full dress of a physician. Moreover a boy followed at his heels witha basket, where phials, lint and surgical tools rather courted thanshunned observation. The old gentleman came softly to the bedside, andsaid mildly and sotto voce, "How is't with thee, my son?"

  Gerard answered gratefully that his wound gave him little pain now; buthis throat was parched, and his head heavy.

  "A wound? they told me not of that. Let me see it. Ay, ay, a good cleanbite. The mastiff had sound teeth that took this out, I warrant me": andthe good doctor's sympathy seemed to run off to the quadruped he hadconjured; his jackal.

  "This must be cauterized forthwith, or we shall have you starting backfrom water, and turning somersaults in bed under our hands. 'Tis theyear for raving curs, and one hath done your business; but we willbaffle him yet. Urchin, go heat thine iron."

  "But, sir," edged in Gerard, "'twas no dog, but a bear."

  "A bear! young man?" remonstrated the senior severely: "think what yousay; 'tis ill jesting with the man of art who brings his grey hairs andlong study to heal you. A bear quotha! Had you dissected as many bearsas I, or the tithe, and drawn their teeth to keep your hand in, youwould know that no bear's jaw ever made this foolish trifling wound. Itell you 'twas a dog, and, since you put me to it, I even deny that itwas a dog of magnitude, but neither more nor less than one of theselittle furious curs that are so rife, and run devious, biting each manlyleg, and laying its wearer low, but for me and my learned brethren, whostill stay the mischief with knife and cautery."

  "Alas sir! when said I 'twas a bear's jaw? I said, 'A bear': it was hispaw, now."

  "And why didst not tell me that at once?"

  "Because you kept telling me instead."

  "Never conceal aught from your leech, young man," continued the senior,who was a good talker, but one of the worst listeners in Europe. "Well,it is an ill business. All the horny excrescences of animals, to witclaws of tigers, panthers, badgers, cats, bears, and the like, and hornof deer, and nails of humans, especially children, are imbued withdirest poison. Y'had better have been bitten by a cur, _whatever you maysay_, than gored by bull or stag, or scratched by bear. However, shalthave a good biting cataplasm for thy leg; meantime keep we the bodycool: put out thy tongue! good!--fever. Let me feel thy pulse:good!--fever. I ordain flebotomy and on the instant."

  "Flebotomy! that is blood-letting: humph? Well no matter, if 'tis sureto cure me; for I will not lie idle here." The doctor let him know thatflebotomy was infallible; especially in this case.

  "Hans, go fetch the things needful; and I will entertain the patientmeantime with reasons."

  The man of art then explained to Gerard that in disease the bloodbecomes hot and distempered and more or less poisonous: but, a portionof this unhealthy liquid removed, Nature is fain to create a purer fluidto fill its place. Bleeding therefore, being both a cooler and apurifier, was a specific in all diseases for all diseases were febrile,whatever empirics might say.

  "But think not," said he warmly, "that it suffices to bleed: any paltrybarber can open a vein (though not all can close it again). The art isto know what vein to empty for what disease. T'other day they brought meone tormented with earache. I let him blood in the right thigh and awayflew his earache. By-the-by he has died since then. Another came withthe toothache. I bled him behind the ear, and relieved him in a giffy.He is also since dead as it happens. I bled our bailiff between thethumb and forefinger for rheumatism. Presently he comes to me with aheadache and drumming in the ears, and holds out his hand over thebasin; but I smiled at his folly, and bled him in the left ankle soreagainst his will, and made his head as light as a nut."

  Diverging then from the immediate theme after the manner of enthusiasts,the reverend teacher proceeded thus:--

  "Know, young man, that two schools of art contend at this momentthroughout Europe. The Arabian, whose ancient oracles are Avicenna,Rhazes, Albucazis; and its revivers are Chauliac and Lanfranc; and theGreek school, whose modern champions are Bessarion, Platinus, andMarsilius Ficinus, but whose pristine doctors were medicine's veryoracles, Phoebus, Chiron, AEsculapius, and his sons Podalinus andMachaon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Praxagoras who invented the arteries,and Dioctes 'qui primus urinae animum dedit.' All these taught orally.Then came Hippocrates, the eighteenth from AEsculapius, and of him wehave manuscripts; to him we owe 'the vital principle.' He also inventedthe bandage, and tapped for water on the chest: and above all hedissected; yet only quadrupeds; for the brutal prejudices of the paganvulgar withheld the human body from the knife of science. Him followedAristotle, who gave us the aorta, the largest blood-vessel in the humanbody."

  "Surely, sir, the Almighty gave us all that is in our bodies, and notAristotle, nor any Grecian man," objected Gerard humbly.

  "Child! of course He gave us the thing; but Aristotle did more, he gaveus the name of the thing. But young men will still be talking. The nextgreat light was Galen; he studied at Alexandria, then the home ofscience. He, justly malcontent with quadrupeds, dissected apes, ascoming nearer to man: and bled like a Trojan. Then came Theophilus, whogave us the nerves, the lacteal vessels, and the pia mater."

  This worried Gerard. "I cannot lie still and hear it said that mortalman bestowed the parts which Adam our father took from Him, who made himof the clay, and us his sons."

  "Was ever such perversity?" said the doctor, his colour rising. "Who isthe real donor of a thing to man? he who plants it secretly in the darkrecesses of man's body, or the learned wight who reveals it to hisintelligence, and so enriches his mind with the knowledge of it?Comprehension is your only true possession. Are you answered?"

  "I am put to silence, sir."

  "And that is better still: for garrulous patients are ill to cure,especially in fever: I say then that Eristratus gave us the cerebralnerves and the milk vessels; nay more, he was the inventor of lithotomy,whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget: you do somewhatperturb me with your petty exceptions. Then came Ammonius the author oflithotrity, and here comes Hans with the basin--to stay your volubility.Blow thy chafer, boy, and hand me the basin; 'tis well. Arabians quotha!What are they but a sect of yesterday, who about the year 1000 did fallin with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having noconcurrent light of their own? for their demigod, and camel-driver,Mahound, impostor in science as in religion, had strictly forbidden themanatomy even of the lower animals, the which he who severeth frommedicine, 'tollit solem e mundo,' as Tully quoth. Nay, wonder not at myfervour, good youth. Where the general weal stands in jeopardy, a littlewarmth is civic, humane, and honourable; now there is settled of latein this town a pestilent Arabist, a mere empiric, who despising anatomy,and scarce knowing Greek from Hebrew, hath yet spirited away half mypatients; and I tremble for the rest. Put forth thine ankle; and thou,Hans, breathe on the chafer."

  Whilst matters were in this posture, in came Denys with the lemons, andstood surprised. "What sport is toward?" said he, rais
ing his brows.

  Gerard coloured a little and told him the learned doctor was going toflebotomize him and cauterize him; that was all.

  "Ay! indeed; and yon imp, what bloweth he hot coals for?"

  "What should it be for," said the doctor to Gerard, "but to cauterizethe vein when opened, and the poisonous blood let free? 'Tis the onlysafe way. Avicenna indeed recommends a ligature of the vein; but how'tis to be done he saith not, nor knew he himself I wot, nor any of thespawn of Ishmael. For me, I have no faith in such tricksy expedients:and take this with you for a safe principle! 'whatever an Arab orArabist says is right, must be wrong.'"

  "Oh, I see now what 'tis for," said Denys; "and art thou so simple as tolet him put hot iron to thy living flesh? didst ever keep thy littlefinger but ten moments in a candle? and this will be as many minutes.Art not content to burn in purgatory after thy death? must thou needsbuy a foretaste on't here?"

  "I never thought of that," said Gerard gravely: "The good doctor spakenot of burning, but of cautery; to be sure 'tis all one, but cauterysounds not so fearful as burning."

  "Imbecile! That is their art; to confound a plain man with dark words,till his hissing flesh lets him know their meaning. Now listen to what Ihave seen. When a soldier bleeds from a wound in battle, these leechessay, 'Fever. Blood him!' and so they burn the wick at t'other end too.They bleed the bled. Now at fever's heels comes desperate weakness; thenthe man needs all his blood to live; but these prickers and burners,having no forethought, recking nought of what is sure to come in a fewhours, and seeing like brute beasts only what is under their noses, havemeantime robbed him of the very blood his hurt had spared him to battlethat weakness withal; and so he dies exhausted: hundreds have I seen soscratched, and pricked, out of the world, Gerard, and tall fellows too:but lo! if they have the luck to be wounded where no doctor can be had,then they live; this too have I seen. Had I ever outlived that field inBrabant but for my most lucky mischance, lack of chirurgery? The frostchoked all my bleeding wounds and so I lived. A chirurgeon had prickedyet one more hole in this my body with his lance, and drained my lastdrop out, and my spirit with it. Seeing them thus distraught in bleedingof the bleeding soldier, I place no trust in them; for what slays aveteran may well lay a milk-and-water bourgeois low."

  "This sounds like common sense," sighed Gerard languidly, "but no needto raise your voice so: I was not born deaf, and just now I hearacutely."

  "Common sense! very common sense indeed," shouted the bad listener; "whythis is a soldier; a brute whose business is to kill men, not curethem." He added in very tolerable French, "Woe be to you, unlearned man,if you come between a physician and his patient, and woe be to you,misguided youth, if you listen to that man of blood."

  "Much obliged," said Denys with mock politeness; "but I am a true man,and would rob no man of his name. I do somewhat in the way of blood, butnot worth mention in this presence. For one I slay, you slay a score,and for one spoonful of blood I draw, you spill a tubful. The world isstill gulled by shows. We soldiers vapour with long swords: and even inwar beget two foes for every one we kill; but you smooth gownsmen, withsoft phrases and bare bodkins, 'tis you that thin mankind."

  "A sick chamber is no place for jesting," cried the physician.

  "No, doctor, nor for bawling," said the patient peevishly.

  "Come, young man," said the senior kindly; "be reasonable! Cuilibet insua arte credendum est. My whole life has been given to this art. Istudied at Montpelier; the first school in France and by consequence inEurope. There learned I Dririmancy, Scatomancy, Pathology, Therapeusis,and, greater than them all, Anatomy. For there we disciples ofHippocrates and Galen had opportunities those great ancients never knew.Good-bye, quadrupeds and apes, and Paganism, and Mohammedanism; webought of the churchwardens, we shook the gallows; we undid the sexton'swork o' dark nights, penetrated with love of science and our kind; allthe authorities had their orders from Paris to wink; and they winked.Gods of Olympus, how they winked! The gracious king assisted us; hesent us twice a year a living criminal condemned to die, and said 'Dealye with him as science asks: dissect him alive, if ye think fit.'"

  "By the liver of Herod, and Nero's bowels, he'll make me blush for theland that bore me, an if he praises it any more," shouted Denys at thetop of his voice.

  Gerard gave a little squawk, and put his fingers in his ears; butspeedily drew them out and shouted angrily, and as loudly, "You great,roaring, blaspheming, bull of Basan, hold your noisy tongue!"

  Denys summoned a contrite look.

  "Tush, slight man," said the doctor with calm contempt, and vibrated ahand over him as in this age men make a pointer dog down charge; thenflowed majestic on. "We seldom, or never dissected the living criminal,except in part. We mostly inoculated them with such diseases as thebarren time afforded, selecting of course the more interesting ones."

  "That means the foulest," whispered Denys meekly.

  "These we watched through all their stages, to maturity."

  "Meaning the death of the poor rogue," whispered Denys meekly.

  "And now, my poor sufferer, who best merits your confidence, this honestsoldier with his youth, his ignorance, and his prejudices, or agreybeard laden with the gathered wisdom of ages?"

  "That is," cried Denys impatiently, "will you believe what a jackdaw ina long gown has heard from a starling in a long gown, who heard it froma jay-pie, who heard it from a magpie, who heard it from a popinjay; orwill you believe what I, a man with nought to gain by looking awry, norspeaking false, have seen; not heard with the ears which are given us togull us, but seen with these sentinels mine eyne, seen, seen; to witthat fevered and blooded men die, that fevered men not blooded live?stay, who sent for this sang-sue? Did you?"

  "Not I. I thought you had."

  "Nay," explained the doctor, "the good landlord told me one was 'down'in his house: so I said to myself, 'a stranger, and in need of my art';and came incontinently."

  "It was the act of a good Christian, sir."

  "Of a good bloodhound," cried Denys contemptuously. "What, art thou sogreen as not to know that all these landlords are in league with certainof their fellow-citizens, who pay them toll on each booty? Whatever youpay this ancient for stealing your life blood, of that the landlordtakes his third for betraying you to him. Nay, more, as soon as everyour blood goes down the stair in that basin there, the landlord willsee it or smell it, and send swiftly to his undertaker and get his thirdout of that job. For if he waited till the doctor got down stairs, thedoctor would be beforehand and bespeak _his_ undertaker, and then _he_would get the black thirds. Say I sooth, old Rouge et Noir? dites!"

  "Denys, Denys, who taught you to think so ill of man?"

  "Mine eyes, that are not to be gulled by what men say, seeing this manya year what they do, in all the lands I travel."

  The doctor with some address made use of these last words to escape thepersonal question. "I too have eyes as well as thou, and go not bytradition only, but by what I have seen, and not only seen but done. Ihave healed as many men by bleeding, as that interloping Arabist haskilled for want of it. 'Twas but t'other day I healed one threatenedwith leprosy; I but bled him at the tip of the nose. I cured last year aquartan ague: how? bled its forefinger. Our cure lost his memory. Ibrought it him back on the point of my lance; I bled him behind the ear.I bled a dolt of a boy, and now he is the only one who can tell hisright hand from his left in a whole family of idiots. When the plaguewas here years ago, no sham plague, such as empirics proclaim every sixyears or so but the good honest Byzantine pest, I blooded an aldermanfreely, and cauterized the symptomatic buboes, and so pulled him out ofthe grave: whereas our then chirurgeon, a most pernicious Arabist,caught it himself, and died of it, aha, calling on Rhazes, Avicenna, andMahound, who, could they have come, had all perished as miserably ashimself."

  "Oh, my poor ears," sighed Gerard.

  "And am I fallen so low that one of your presence and speech rejects myart, and listens to a rude soldier, so far behind even
his own miserabletrade as to bear an arbalest, a worn-out invention, that German childrenshoot at pigeons with, but German soldiers mock at since everarquebusses came and put them down?"

  "You foul-mouthed old charlatan," cried Denys, "the arbalest isshouldered by taller men than ever stood in Rhenish hose, and even nowit kills as many more than your noisy, stinking arquebuss, as thelancet does than all our toys together. Go to! He was no fool who firstcalled you 'leeches.' Sang-sues! va!"

  Gerard groaned. "By the holy virgin, I wish you were both at Jericho,bellowing."

  "Thank you, comrade. Then I'll bark no more, but at need I'll bite. Ifhe has a lance, I have a sword; if he bleeds you, I'll bleed him. Themoment his lance pricks your skin, little one, my sword-hilt knocksagainst his ribs; I have said it."

  And Denys turned pale, folded his arms, and looked gloomy and dangerous.

  Gerard sighed wearily. "Now, as all this is about me, give me leave tosay a word."

  "Ay! let the young man choose life or death for himself."

  Gerard then indirectly rebuked his noisy counsellers by contrast andexample. He spoke with unparalleled calmness, sweetness, and gentleness.And these were the words of Gerard the son of Eli. "I doubt not you bothmean me well: but you assassinate me between you. Calmness and quiet areeverything to me; but you are like two dogs growling over a bone.

  "And in sooth, bone I should be, did this uproar last long."

  There was a dead silence, broken only by the silvery voice of Gerard, ashe lay tranquil, and gazed calmly at the ceiling, and trickled intowords.

  "First, venerable sir, I thank you for coming to see me, whether fromhumanity, or in the way of honest gain; all trades must live.

  "Your learning, reverend sir, seems great, to me at least, and for yourexperience, your age voucheth it.

  "You say you have bled many, and of these many many have not diedthereafter, but lived, and done well. I must needs believe you."

  The physician bowed; Denys grunted.

  "Others you say you have bled, and--they are dead. I must needs believeyou.

  "Denys knows few things compared with you, but he knows them well. He isa man not given to conjecture. This I myself have noted. He says he hasseen the fevered and blooded for the most part die; the fevered and notblooded live. I must needs believe him.

  "Here, then, all is doubt.

  "But thus much is certain; if I be bled, I must pay you a fee, and beburnt and excruciated with a hot iron, who am no felon.

  "Pay a certain price in money and anguish for a doubtful remedy, thatwill I never.

  "Next to money and ease, peace and quiet are certain goods, above all ina sick-room; but 'twould seem men cannot argue medicine without heat andraised voices; therefore, sir, I will essay a little sleep, and Denyswill go forth and gaze on the females of the place, and I will keep youno longer from those who can afford to lay out blood, and money, inflebotomy and cautery."

  The old physician had naturally a hot temper; he had often during thisbattle of words mastered it with difficulty, and now it mastered him.The most dignified course was silence; he saw this, and drew himself upand made loftily for the door, followed close by his little boy and bigbasket.

  But at the door he choked, he swelled, he burst. He whirled and cameback open-mouthed, and the little boy and big basket had to whisksemicircularly not to be run down, for de minimis non curatMedicina--even when not in a rage.

  "Ah! you reject my skill, you scorn my art. My revenge shall be to leaveyou to yourself; lost idiot, take your last look at me, and at the sun.Your blood be on your head!" And away he stamped.

  But on reaching the door he whirled and came back; his wicker tailtwirling round after him like a cat's.

  "In twelve hours at furthest you will be in the secondary stage offever. Your head will split. Your carotids will thump. Aha! And let buta pin fall you will jump to the ceiling. Then send for me: and I'll notcome." He departed. But at the door-handle gathered fury, wheeled andcame flying, with pale, terror-stricken boy and wicker tail whiskingafter him. "Next will come--CRAMPS of the STOMACH. Aha!

  "Then--BILIOUS VOMIT. Aha!

  "Then--COLD SWEAT, and DEADLY STUPOR.

  "Then--CONFUSION OF ALL THE SENSES.

  "Then--BLOODY VOMIT.

  "And after that nothing can save you, not even I: and if I could I wouldnot, and so farewell!"

  Even Denys changed colour at threats so fervent and precise; but Gerardonly gnashed his teeth with rage at the noise, and seized his hardbolster with kindling eye.

  This added fuel to the fire and brought the insulted ancient back fromthe impassable door, with his whisking train.

  "And after that--MADNESS!

  "And after that--BLACK VOMIT!

  "And then--CONVULSIONS!

  "And then--THAT CESSATION OF ALL VITAL FUNCTIONS THE VULGAR CALL'DEATH,' for which thank your own Satanic folly and insolence,farewell." He went. He came. He roared, "And think not to be buried inany Christian churchyard; for the bailiff is my good friend, and I shalltell him how and why you died: felo de se! felo de se! Farewell."

  Gerard sprang to his feet on the bed by some supernatural gymnasticpower excitement lent him, and, seeing him so moved, the vindictiveorator came back at him fiercer than ever, to launch some master-threatthe world has unhappily lost: for as he came with his whisking train,and shaking his fist, Gerard hurled the bolster furiously in his face,and knocked him down like a shot, the boy's head cracked under hisfalling master's, and crash went the dumb-strickened orator into thebasket; and there sat wedged in an inverted angle, crushing phial afterphial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar; but in a squattingposture: so that they sat in a sequence like graduated specimens, thesmaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and heuttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggledwith wonderful agility for one of his age.

  He was sitting on the hot coals.

  They had singed the cloth and were now biting the man. Struggling wildlybut vainly to get out of the basket, he rolled yelling over with itsideways, and lo! a great hissing: then the humane Gerard ran andwrenched off the tight basket not without a struggle. The doctor lay onhis face groaning, handsomely singed with his own chafer, and slaked amoment too late by his own villainous compounds, which however, being asvarious and even beautiful in colour, as they were odious in taste, hadstrangely diversified his grey robe and painted it more gaudy than neat.

  Gerard and Denys raised him up and consoled him. "Courage, man, 'tisbut cautery; balm of Gilead; why you recommended it but now to mycomrade here."

  The physician replied only by a look of concentrated spite, and went outin dead silence, thrusting his stomach forth before him in the drollestway. The boy followed him next moment, but in that slight interval heleft off whining, burst in a grin, and conveyed to the culprits by anunrefined gesture his accurate comprehension of, and rapturous thoughcompressed joy at, his master's disaster.