The Three Perils of Man Volume Ii Part 7

CHAPTER IV.

The wind blew as 'twould blawn it's last, The thickening showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleam the darkness swallowed, Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed; That night a child might understand The deil had business on his hand!

_Tam o' Shanter._

Long was it before any of the astonished spectators opened their lips.

The shock had almost deprived them of sense, sight, and motion; and when they began to articulate, it was only to utter short exclamations, and names of saints. Tam Craik was the first who ventured a remark, which was in the following words:--"By the Lord Robin!" (meaning, it was supposed, the king,) "The deil has flown away wi' him bodily in a flash o' fire!"

The great Master stood mute with astonishment; he even trembled with dread; and appeared once as if he would have fallen at the friar's feet: But he never said, Where is my seneschal gone? Whither hast thou sent him? seeming rather to succ.u.mb to his guests for the time, being as a man utterly at their mercy. His powerful and malevolent spirits had left him by his command; his steward, and only human attendant, had been blown into the air; and as for the miserable night-hag, they had seen no more of her since her escape from the prison vault, and they wist not whether she remained in the castle, or had fled from it out of dread of the symbols of the Christian religion, which she had seen about the friar, and the effects of which she had felt in frustrating her potent spells. The wizard had therefore none to execute his commands, and appeared a being quite forlorn, as well as greatly troubled in his mind.

No one ever knew to this day by what means the wicked seneschal was borne away among the clouds in a column of fire and smoke; and those who witnessed it spread the word over the country, that the devil took him away with a great roar amid fire and brimstone; and that, after having him up among the dark clouds, he tore him all to pieces. It was a fact that one of the steward's mangled limbs was found hanging on a tree, among some thick branches, in the wood of Sheil's Heuch, over against the castle, which gave some countenance to the report; and no farther remnants of him were ever discovered.

The friar, however, knew well enough by what means he was taken away; and though he never explained it as long as he remained in Scotland, it is meet that the readers of this tale should know the truth. It can be told in a few words. The friar had brought his huge wallet full of the strongest gunpowder he had been able to make, to shew off his wonderful feats, and astonish the great Master. The exigency of the moment induced him to part with it all at once; and, in all probability, he could not have caused so much astonishment by any experiment he could have put in practice.

He was guilty, however, of a manifest oversight; one that had well nigh proved fatal to the whole party in its consequences, When they found themselves freed from their vile persecutor, and the great Master rather their prisoner than they his, their first thought was of departing from that unhallowed place, and awaiting, in the neighbourhood, the wizard's final answer, without which they durst not well return to the warden.

Charlie jumped on the battlement with very joy that he would now get down to the mill to see what was become of Corby, and how he fared; and he was the first man to proceed down the narrow stair-case, leading the way to the fair fields. But, alas, how transient are all sublunary joys and hopes! In the middle of this confined and difficult stair, just at its darkest and most acute turn, there was a ma.s.sive iron door, which Charlie ran his nose against in his descent, and soon found, to his mortification and disappointment, that it was locked and double locked.

He returned to those above with the dismal information. The friar's countenance fell, and he became pale as ashes, when it was thus brought to his recollection that he had not only blown the brutal seneschal to the devil, but that he had blown the keys of the castle along with him; and there were they left on the roof to perish with hunger.

After many ineffectual attempts to break open that door, having no other resource, they agreed to go to the topmost tower, and there unite their voices, in order to raise the country to their a.s.sistance; for, without ropes and ladders, they saw no means of escape. Accordingly they ascended, and uttered many a prolonged and tremendous shout, for the s.p.a.ce of a whole hour. But these unwonted cries only drove the hinds to a greater distance from the castle. Many of them had witnessed the mighty explosion at the exit of the seneschal, which, in the middle of the lurid gloom, had a hideous effect; and when they heard such long and loud howls proceeding from the battlements of that gloomy and desolate pile, they weened that a whole host of demons had a.s.sembled about it, and kept far aloof.

In these and other fruitless exertions, our hapless prisoners spent the evening of that eventful day. The sun, or the blue sky, had not once appeared since the break of morn. For a little while, about noon, the hills of the Forest were visible, and, on their back-ground of pale shadowy clouds, formed a scene of dark sublimity. Still, as it approached toward evening, these clouds came lower and lower down upon the hills, and became more dark and dense in their appearance; and precisely at the close of day the storm burst forth in all its fury, sweeping over hill and dale with increasing majesty every minute. The woods roared and crashed before the blast. The snow descended so thick that in a short time every ravine and sheltered dell was heaped. After that came sleet and snow mingled; and, finally, a driving rain dashed with such violence on the earth, that it seemed as if a thousand cataracts poured from the western heaven to mix with the tempest below.

Needless is it to describe that night farther. It was that on which the great battle was fought in the camp of Douglas, and formerly mentioned in this momentous history.--It is therefore apparent that Isaac the curate is now drawing near to the same period of time when he broke off at a tangent and left the camp, and that every thing will, of course, go on to the catastrophe without further interruption.

Kind hearted and gentle reader, be not too sanguine. Who can tell what is to fall out between the cup and the lip? Incidents seem to have multipled intentionally to interrupt poor Isaac's narrative. Besides, let any one consider how he is to liberate and get free of this group of interesting individuals, locked up, as they were, to perish on the top of the castle of Aikwood. It was no difficulty to Isaac. He was one of those wise and downright men who know that truth tells always the best, and to that maxim he adhered. But the worst of it was, there were so many truths, that any body may see it was scarcely possible to get them all narrated in their proper places; and that, without the help of the waggoner, the task could never have been effected.

"Gude sauf us, but it is gaun to be an awsome night!" said Charlie Scott, as he stepped the last up into the dark apartment in which the party had spent the greater part of the day, and into which the storm had now driven them once more.

"Gaun to be?" said Tam, taking up Charlie's words; "I wot nae what it is gaun to be, but it is an awsome night already."

"It brings me in mind of a story," said Gibbie, "that I hae often heard about a friar Gabriel o' St Martin's that raised the deil--"

"Od, Sir, an ye dare, for the blood of you, speak another word about raising the deil the night," cried Charlie, interrupting him, "may I be chased by an Englishman, if I dinna thraw you ower the castle wa'. We little ken wha may be near, or wha may be amang us. Gin ane may judge by appearances, that same chap ye hae named (gude keep me frae repeating it) isna in his ain hett hame the night. Heaven defend us, hear how the wind howls and sobs! I wish yon auld houses o' the mill may be safe aneuch; they stand sair exposed. Hech-ho! hear til't! There will be mony cauld quarters on Otterdale the night, but there is some a-wanting there that wad be blithe to share them."

The friar now set himself to strike a light, which at last he effected; and collecting the oil which remained in the lamps into one, they found, to Charlie's great satisfaction, that they had as much as would burn over-night, besides some remnants of waxen torches. Of all the huge remains of their morning feast that they had seen removed from the table, they could not find one vestige, even though the trenchers remained in the chamber as it was termed; but, to their great joy, they found an article as precious to the eyes, for about two-thirds of the huge flagon of the wine of Palestine were still left. This, in the total absence of fuel, was a discovery of some consequence; and the friar, in the like absence of a steward, took that office voluntarily on himself.

When the lamp was kindled, the first thing that Delany did was to dress the poor poet's hurt head, and bind it up with a napkin. This attention and kindness so thrilled his heart that he could not refrain from tears, and seemed to rejoice in his wound; and as both he and his adored maiden had seen the ruffian steward transported up to heaven in a flame of fire, they were freed from all terror on his account; and, notwithstanding all the perils with which they were surrounded, they appeared composed, and, if not happy, were at least quite resigned to their fate.

The great Master sat m.u.f.fled up in his cloak, and apart by himself, his brows screwed down into deep curved wrinkles, and his sunken eye fixed on the ground. The friar filled a cup of wine, and, bowing, presented it to him the first. He took the cup, and drank it off, but he spoke not a word: his piercing eyes glimmered round the chamber; he uttered a loud groan, and, apparently, sunk again into his deep reverie. The transportation of his steward, while in the very act of braving the friar's might, made a terrible impression on his mind, and he weened that he now sat before his master--before one that might send him on a voyage of the same nature whenever he chose; and therefore he judged, with great reason, that for a s.p.a.ce it behoved him to keep on good terms with so dangerous an opponent.

When each had taken a cup of the elevating beverage, the effect was delightful; all their cares, dangers, and wants faded; the terrors of the storm, that was still increasing, only startled them now and then, as it rattled on the tower, or yelled thro' the crevices below. They chatted, laughed, and broke jokes on each other, till even the sublime Master was diverted from his profound and brooding ideas, and smiled at the rustic simplicity of the characters around him. The laird of the Peatstacknowe told a great number of his long stories, of which something that was seen, said, or done, always reminded him; Charlie told confused stories about battles and forays; and the poet came in always between with his rythmatic descriptions and allusions; until at one time the a.s.sociations of ideas followed one another in a manner so truly ludicrous, that the enchanter actually laughed till he had almost fallen into a fit, a thing that had not for twenty years been witnessed of him.

The tempest still continued to rage, and the loquacity of the party beginning to flag, they became drowsy as midnight approached. The friar then looking gravely around him, and, laying aside his hood, took a small psalter book from his bosom; which volume also contained the four books of the Apocalypse; and, opening it reverendly, he proposed that they should all join in performing the evening service to the Virgin, and the hymn to the Redeemer. Delany rose from off the lap of the poet's cloak, where she had sat nestling all the evening, and came and kneeled down at the friar's knee. The Master started up with a look of indignation, stamped on the floor, and ordered the friar to put up his vain book, and refrain from such flummery in his presence. The friar looked at him with a steady countenance.

"It is not meet that I should obey man rather than G.o.d," said he. "I have taken a vow in the face of Heaven, and I will pay that vow in spite of men and devils. I will sing my holy hymns with these my friends and children, and he that listeth not to join, let him be accursed, and translated from the presence."

This last sentence sounded rather equivocally in the Master's ears. He liked not such a translation as he had lately witnessed; for, with all his power and mysterious art, the terrors of death still encompa.s.sed him about. He held his peace, therefore, although he growled like a lion at bay at being bearded thus in his own castle.

The friar proceeded as he had said, and all the rest joined him with becoming devotion, save the poet, whose orisons that night were somewhat cold. He could not brook the charm that drew Delany from his own side to his rival's knee. The Master sat aloof, biting his lip, and grinning in derision; but, at one part of the service, although the curate does not say what part, he was insensibly overcome, and fell into a painful oblivious dream. The strains of the sacred music, simple as they were, stole over his soul, as some remembrance of early life sometimes steals into the heart of enfeebled age, reminding the decaying and dying worm of joys he can no more see, and of feelings of delight that have perished for ever.--If a son of the mountains of the north were transported to some far foreign clime, and there doomed to remain for life: After sojourning in that land for half an age, until grey and bowed down, if by chance, on some still evening, or mayhap through the eddies of the storm, one of the strains of his native land were poured on his ear, think of the recollections it would awaken in his mind: How painfully thrilling the sensations! Would it not be like the last sweet beam of a hope he was never more to cherish, a last look of all that was dear on earth?--Such were the feelings that crept unbidden over the soul of the enchanter, on hearing the sweet sounds, that reminded him of a religion he had for ever renounced, and in which he had never firmly believed till he had believed to tremble.

In this troubled trance he sat leaning against the wall, until the worshippers had reached the middle of the hymn to the Saviour. He then was seized with strong convulsions, and, rising up, with staggering steps, he fled from the chamber, crying as he went,--"Cruel and improvident things! reptiles! cursed, whining sycophants! that would send me to my doom before my time!" He rushed out to the battlements, and, groping his way through the storm, took shelter in the narrow staircase, that he might hear no more of the sounds that thus troubled and distracted his soul. What dread had seized him, or what he had seen or heard, his guests knew not; but they had scarcely well ended their hymn, when he rushed again in among them, with wildered looks, and his hair standing on end, seeming glad to take shelter among those from whom he had so lately fled with abhorrence. No one enquired the cause, for all were so weary and overcome with slumber; and every one then composed himself to sleep in the manner that best suited his convenience.

The storm continued to rage with unabated violence, and, after they had laid themselves down, they found that the castle was all tottering and quaking before it. The firmest heart was appalled; for the rocking of the castle was not all; every now and then they heard eldritch shrieks arising, as of some wretch perishing, or rather, as some of them thought, like the voices of angry spirits yelling through the tempest.

When one of these howling sounds came on the blast, every one of our prostrate friends breathed a deep sigh, or uttered some exclamatory sound, Charlie had always one, which he uttered even after he was asleep. "Hech! Gude sauf us, sirs! what will be the upshot o' a' this?"

The Master sat m.u.f.fled up in the corner close behind them, and after he judged them all to be asleep he fell a-crooning a sort of hymn in an under key. The poet was, however, more than half awake, and gathered up some broken fragments of it. Poets are never to trust when they give quotations from memory out of the works of others; and perhaps honest Carol might add some bombastic lines of his own, but he always averred that the following lines formed a part of the warlock's hymn.

"Pother, pother, My master and brother!

Who may endure thee, Thus failing in fury?

King of the tempest that travels the plain; King of the snow, and the hail, and the rain, Lend to thy lever yet seven times seven, Blow up the blue flame for bolt and for levin, The red forge of h.e.l.l with the bellows of heaven!

With hoop, and with hammer!

With yell, and with yammer; Hold them at play, Till the dawn of the day!

Pother! pother!

My sovereign and brother!

"O strain to thy lever, This world to sever In two or in three-- What joy it would be!

What toiling, and moiling, and mighty commotions!

What rending of hills, and what roaring of oceans!

Ay, that is thy voice, I know it full well; And that is thy whistle's majestic swell; But why wilt thou ride thy furious race, Along the bounds of vacant s.p.a.ce, While there is tongue of flesh to scream, And life to start, and blood to stream?

Yet pother, pother!

My sovereign and brother!

And men shall see, ere the rising sun, What deeds thy mighty arm hath done."

If it was true that the Master sung these ridiculous lines, which is not very likely, his "sovereign and brother" had not accepted of his sacrifice, nor paid due deference to his incense of praise. For, a little before the break of day, our group were aroused from their profound slumbers by loud and reiterated cries. The lamp was still burning feebly and blue. Charlie, whose ear was well trained to catch any alarm, was the first to start up; but the sight that he saw soon laid him again flat on the floor, though not before he had leaped clear over a narrow oak-table and two forms. There was a black being, that appeared to be half-man and half-beast, dragging Master Michael Scott along the room toward the door; yet he dragged him with difficulty, and at some times the wizard seemed rather to prevail. Horrible as this phantom was, all those who saw it agreed that there was something about it that instantly reminded them of the late seneschal; and, as they raised their heads and beheld it, every heart was chilled with terror.

Charlie p.r.o.nounced his short, loud prayer, which has already been recorded in this history, and which consisted merely of one vehement sentence of three syllables; yea, he p.r.o.nounced it as he flew; and then squatting in a corner, and covering his head with his cloak, that, whatever dreadful thing happened, he might not see it, there he lay repeating his little prayer as fast as human breath could utter it.

The demon struggled hard with the Master; and the latter, as may well be supposed, exerted his utmost power,--so that his adversary only got him toward the door as it were by inches. When he found himself losing ground, he always made a certain writhing motion, which cannot be described, and which every time extricated him somewhat from his adversary's clutches. Then the apparition laid hold of him again by the left side with his lobster claws, and that gripe uniformly caused the wizard to utter a loud and piercing cry. At such times Charlie's little prayer might be heard waxing still louder as the strife increased; and, though he lifted not his face from the earth, he continued a kind of spurning motion with his feet, as if he would fain have burrowed under the wall like a mole.

For a long time no one durst move to the Master's a.s.sistance. The scene so far surpa.s.sed ought they had ever conceived in horror, that their senses remained altogether benumbed. The combat continued with unabated ardour. The Master foamed at the mouth, his hair stood all on end, and his bloodshot eyes stared wildly, as if they would have started from their sockets. At length the fiend so far prevailed as to drag the Master close to the door, where he threw him down, and made a motion as if he would have dashed him through below it. But Michael was flesh and blood, and could not enter nor depart by the key-hole, or the foot of the door, like the beings with whom he had to do. The demon therefore tried to open the door; but the enchanter's muscular frame being jammed against it, it could not be opened at once. Michael's efforts were now directed to that object alone, namely, the keeping of the door shut, and he exerted himself till his remaining strength was exhausted, but at last suffered himself to be dragged back from the door, repeating these words as he lay flat on his back:--"'Tis done! 'Tis done! 'Tis over!

'Tis over!"

The lookers on sat and trembled, all save the friar, who had by that time somewhat rallied his scattered senses, and stood on his feet. The fiend had dragged the Master back from the door by the feet, and holding him down by the grey hair with one hand, he opened the door with the other; then, stooping down, he twisted the one hand, armed with red crooked claws, in his hair, and the other in his long grizzled beard.

The friar had stepped forward, and, at that moment, laying the rood on the Master's forehead with the one hand, and the open Book of the Gospels on his breast with the other, he p.r.o.nounced a sacred Name, and in that name commanded the demon to depart. Swift as the javelin leaves the hand of the warrior, or the winged shaft flies from the bowstring, did the monster fly from the symbols of a creed by which he and his confederate powers were all controlled, and from a name and authority at which the depths of h.e.l.l trembled. He rushed out at the door with a yell of dismay, and threw himself from the battlement on the yielding wind.

The friar peeped forth after him, but he only heard a booming sound, which died on the gale, and beheld like a dragon of blue livid fire flying toward the east, in the direction of the hill of Eildon.

The friar returned into the chamber with a countenance beaming with joy.

No conqueror ever returned from the field of battle with an exultation of mind so sublime as that which now lighted up his uncourtly mien. His victory had been so sudden and so complete, that all present were astounded at the greatness and extent of his power, and none of his friends doubted that his might was as far above that of their host as the sun or the stars are above the earth. They had in this instance seen it exemplified in a manner not to be disputed; and there was the Master himself still sitting on the floor, and gazing on his deliverer with astonishment.

"Man, may I not thank thee for this?" said he.

"No," said the friar, "think not of a poor mortal thing like me, overcome with sins, faults, and follies: You are freed for this time; but thank One who is greater than I."

"True; I am freed for the present," said the Master; "but it is by a mode, and by a power, that I dare not, for my existence, acknowledge or acquiesce in."

When Charlie heard by what was pa.s.sing that the devil had been vanquished and was fled, he called out with a voice that seemed to come from under ground,--for he was so m.u.f.fled up in his cloak that the sounds could scarcely be heard,--"Friar, steek the door." The good man obeyed, and as soon as Charlie heard the welcome sound, he raised his face, which was much of the same colour as a living lobster, and, standing on one knee, viewed all the faces and corners with that eloquence of eye which is quite indescribable. How superior was it to his blunt address:--"Gude sauf us, callans, is a' safe?--Is the coutribat ower? Sic a fie-gae-to as yon I saw never! Hech! but it is an unsonsy place this! I wadna live here an there warna another place to be had aneath the shoulder o' heaven."