"But truce to your apprehensions, Master Tressilian.

I understood the good knight's case from what Master William Badger told me; and I hope I am able enough to administer a poor dose of mandragora, which, with the sleep that must needs follow, is all that Sir Hugh Robsart requires to settle his distraught brains." "I trust thou dealest fairly with me, Wayland ?" said Tressilian.
"Most fairly and honestly, as the event shall show," replied the artist.
"What would it avail me to harm the poor old man for whom you are interested ?--you, to whom I owe it that Gaffer Pinniewinks is not even now rending my flesh and sinews with his accursed pincers, and probing every mole in my body with his sharpened awl (a murrain on the hands which forged it!) in order to find out the witch's mark ?--I trust to yoke myself as a humble follower to your worship's train, and I only wish to have my faith judged of by the result of the good knight's slumbers." Wayland Smith was right in his prognostication.

The sedative draught which his skill had prepared, and Will Badger's confidence had administered, was attended with the most beneficial effects.

The patient's sleep was long and healthful, and the poor old knight awoke, humbled indeed in thought and weak in frame, yet a much better judge of whatever was subjected to his intellect than he had been for some time past.

He resisted for a while the proposal made by his friends that Tressilian should undertake a journey to court, to attempt the recovery of his daughter, and the redress of her wrongs, in so far as they might yet be repaired.