Truly, said Saxon, there seemeth to be some fatal attraction in this same chemistry, for we met two officers of the Blue Guards in Salisbury, who, though they were stout soldierly men in other respects, had also a weakness in that direction.
Ha! cried Sir Jacob, with interest. To what school did they belong?
Nay, I know nothing of the matter, Saxon answered, save that they denied that Gervinus of Nurnberg, whom I guarded in prison, or any other man, could transmute metals.
For Gervinus I cannot answer, said our host, but for the possibility of it I can pledge my knightly word. However, of that anon. The time came at last when the second Charles was invited back to his throne, and all of us, from Jeffrey Hudson, the court dwarf, up to my Lord Clarendon, were in high feather at the hope of regaining our own once more. For my own claim, I let it stand for some time, thinking that it would be a more graceful act for the King to help a poor cavalier who had ruined himself for the sake of his family without solicitation on his part. I waited and waited, but no word came, so at last I betook myself to the levee and was duly presented to him. Ah, said he, greeting me with the cordiality which he could assume so well, you are, if I mistake not, Sir Jasper Killigrew? Nay, your Majesty, I answered, I am Sir Jacob Clancing, formerly of Snellaby Hall, in Staffordshire; and with that I reminded him of Worcester fight and of many passages which had occurred to us in common. Ods fish! he cried, how could I be so forgetful! And how are all at Snellaby? I then explained to him that the Hall had passed out of my hands, and told him in a few words the state to which I had been reduced. His face clouded over and his manner chilled to me at once. They are all on to me for money and for places, he said, and truly the Commons are so niggardly to me that I can scarce be generous to others. However, Sir Jacob, we shall see what can be done for thee, and with that he dismissed me. That same night the secretary of my Lord Clarendon came to me, and announced with much form and show that, in consideration of my long devotion and the losses which I had sustained, the King was graciously pleased to make me a lottery cavalier.
And pray, sir, what is a lottery cavalier? I asked.
It is nothing else than a licensed keeper of a gambling-house. This was his reward to me. I was to be allowed to have a den in the piazza of Covent Garden, and there to decoy the young sparks of the town and fleece them at ombre. To restore my own fortunes I was to ruin others. My honour, my family, my reputation, they were all to weigh for nothing so long as I had the means of bubbling a few fools out of their guineas.
I have heard that some of the lottery cavaliers did well, remarked Saxon reflectively.
Well or ill, it way no employment for me. I waited upon the King and implored that his bounty would take another form. His only reply was that for one so poor I was strangely fastidious. For weeks I hung about the court I and other poor cavaliers like myself, watching the royal brothers squandering upon their gaming and their harlots sums which would have restored us to our patrimonies. I have seen Charles put upon one turn of a card as much as would have satisfied the most exacting of us. In the parks of St. James, or in the Gallery at Whitehall, I still endeavoured to keep myself before his eyes, in the hope that some provision would be made for me. At last I received a second message from him. It was that unless I could dress more in the mode he could dispense with my attendance. That was his message to the old broken soldier who had sacrificed health, wealth, position, everything in the service of his father and himself.
Shameful! we cried, all three.
Can you wonder, then, that I cursed the whole Stuart race, false-hearted, lecherous, and cruel? For the Hall, I could buy it back to-morrow if I chose, but why should I do so when I have no heir?
Ho, you have prospered then! said Decimus Saxon, with one of his shrewd sidelong looks. Perhaps you have yourself found out how to convert pots and pans into gold in the way you have spoken of. But that cannot be, for I see iron and brass in this room which would hardly remain there could you convert it to gold.
Gold has its uses, and iron has its uses, said Sir Jacob oracularly. The one can never supplant the other.
Yet these officers, I remarked, did declare to us that it was but a superstition of the vulgar.
Then these officers did show that their knowledge was less than their prejudice. Alexander Setonius, a Scot, was first of the moderns to achieve it. In the month of March 1602 he did change a bar of lead into gold in the house of a certain Hansen, at Rotterdam, who hath testified to it. He then not only repeated the same process before three learned men sent by the Kaiser Rudolph, but he taught Johann Wolfgang Dienheim of Freibourg, and Gustenhofer of Strasburg, which latter taught it to my own illustrious master
Who in turn taught it to you, cried Saxon triumphantly. I have no great store of metal with me, good sir, but there are my head-piece, back and breast-plate, taslets and thigh-pieces, together with my sword, spurs, and the buckles of my harness. I pray you to use your most excellent and praiseworthy art upon these, and I will promise within a few days to bring round a mass of metal which shall be more worthy of your skill.
Nay, nay, said the alchemist, smiling and shaking his head. It can indeed be done, but only slowly and in order, small pieces at a time, and with much expenditure of work and patience. For a man to enrich himself at it he must labour hard and long; yet in the end I will not deny that he may compass it. And now, since the flasks are empty and your young comrade is nodding in his chair, it will perhaps be as well for you to spend as much of the night as is left in repose. He drew several blankets and rugs from a corner and scattered them over the floor. It is a soldiers couch, he remarked; but ye may sleep on worse before ye put Monmouth on the English throne. For myself, it is my custom to sleep in an inside chamber, which is hollowed out of the hill. With a few last words and precautions for our comfort he withdrew with the lamp, passing through a door which had escaped our notice at the further end of the apartment.
Reuben, having had no rest since he left Havant, had already dropped upon the rugs, and was fast asleep, with a saddle for a pillow. Saxon and I sat for a few minutes longer by the light of the burning brazier.
One might do worse than take to this same chemical business, my companion remarked, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. See you yon iron-bound chest in the corner?
What of it?
It is two thirds full of gold, which this worthy gentleman hath manufactured.
How know you that? I asked incredulously.
When you did strike the door panel with the hilt of your sword, as though you would drive it in, you may have heard some scuttling about, and the turning of a lock. Well, thanks to my inches, I was able to look through yon slit in the wall, and I saw our friend throw something into the chest with a chink, and then lock it. It was but a glance at the contents, yet I could swear that that dull yellow light could come from no metal but gold. Let us see if it be indeed locked. Rising from his seat he walked over to the box and pulled vigorously at the lid.
Forbear, Saxon, forbear! I cried angrily. What would our host say, should he come upon you?
Nay, then, he should not keep such things beneath his roof. With a chisel or a dagger now, this might be prized open.