Walter Scott

“ The darkened apartment, where salves and medicines showed that the leech had been busy in his craft, a tall thin form lay on a bed, arrayed in a nightgown belted around him, with pain on his brow, and a thousand stormy passions agitating his bosom. Everything in the apartment indicated a man of opulence and of expense. Henbane Dwining, the apothecary, who seemed to have the care of the patient, stole with a crafty and catlike step from one corner of the room to another, busying himself with mixing medicines and preparing dressings. ”

“ Thou aim at the same revenge with Ramorny?"
"Ay, truly," replied Dwining, "for the smithy churl under whose blow you have suffered has often done me despite and injury. He has thwarted me in counsel and despised me in action. His brutal and unhesitating bluntness is a living reproach to the subtlety of my natural disposition. I fear him, and I hate him."
"And you hope to hind an active coadjutor in me?" said Ramorny, in the same supercilious tone as before. "But know, the artisan fellow is too low in degree to be to me either the object of hatred or of fear. Yet he shall not escape. ”

“ Hearken — the master whom I have served through vice and virtue, with too much zeal for my own character, perhaps, but with unshaken fidelity to him — the very man, to soothe whose frantic folly I have incurred this irreparable loss, is, at the prayer of his doating father, about to sacrifice me, by turning me out of his favour, and leaving me at the mercy of the hypocritical relative with whom he seeks a precarious reconciliation at my expense. ”

“ What is there that prevented me to use means yet more subtle, and to taint your room with essences, before which the light of life twinkles more and more dimly, till it expires, like a torch amidst the foul vapours of some subterranean dungeon? ”

“ How now, sir leech look you pale — you, who say to death, stand back or advance, can you tremble to think of him or to hear him named? I have not mentioned your fee, for one who loves revenge for itself requires no deeper bribe; yet, if broad lands and large sums of gold can increase thy zeal in a brave cause, believe me, these shall not be lacking."
"They tell for something in my humble wishes," said Dwining: "the poor man in this bustling world is thrust down like a dwarf in a crowd, and so trodden under foot ”

“ All Perth rings with the smith's skill and strength."
"Take two assistants with thee," said the knight.
"Not I," said Bonthron. "If you double anything, let it be the reward."
"Account it doubled," said his master; "but see thy work be thoroughly executed."
"Trust me for that, sir knight: seldom have I failed."
"Use this sage man's directions," said the wounded knight, pointing to the physician. "And hark thee, await his coming forth, and drink not till the business be done."
"I will not," answered the dark satellite; "my own life depends on my blow being steady and sure. ”

“ He is the strongest, boldest, and most skilful swordsman in Perth and all the country around it."
"Fear nothing; he shall be met with had he the strength of Sampson. But then, mark me! Hope not thou to escape my vengeance, unless thou become my passive agent in the scene which is to follow. Mark me, I say once more. I have studied at no Moorish college, and lack some of thy unbounded appetite for revenge, but yet I will have my share of vengeance. ”

“ We hate not the reptile that has stung us, though we might shake it off the wound, and tread upon it. I know the ruffian of old as a stout man at arms, and a pretender, as I have heard, to the favour of the scornful puppet whose beauties, forsooth, spurred us to our wise and hopeful attempt. Fiends that direct this nether world, by what malice have ye decided that the hand which has couched a lance against the bosom of a prince should be struck off like a sapling by the blow of a churl, and during the turmoil of a midnight riot? ”

“ Thanks to the feuds of this boisterous time, had I twenty hands, instead of these two poor servants of my art (displaying his skinny palms) , there is enough of employment for them — well requited employment, too, where thanks and crowns contend which shall best pay my services; while you, Sir John, wreak upon your chirurgeon the anger you ought only to bear against the author of your wound."
"Villain, it is beneath me to reply to thee," said the patient; "but every word of thy malignant tongue is a dirk, inflicting wounds which set all the medicines of Arabia at defiance." ”

“ It may be concealed till your knighthood retires for a time from the court, and then, when new accidents have darkened the recollection of the present stir, it may be imputed to a wound received from the shivering of a spear, or from a crossbow bolt. ”