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 serious 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 farmhouse 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 forever. And, in any case, his health would probably be seriously affected for years to come. Up and down like a seesaw 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
