St. George and St. Michael Vol. I

G >> George MacDonald >> St. George and St. Michael Vol. I

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By this time the door of the neighbouring guard-room was crowded
with the heads of eager listeners, but the presence of the earl kept
them quiet, and at a sign from him they drew back ere the men
entered. The earl himself took a position where he would be covered
by the opening wicket.

Tom received them into bodily presence with the notification that,
having suspected their object, he had sent all his people out of the
way, in order to avoid the least danger of a broil. Bowing to them
with the utmost politeness as they entered, he requested them to
step forward into the court while he closed the wicket behind them,
but took the opportunity of whispering to one of the men just inside
the door of the guardhouse, who, the moment Tom had led the rustics
away, approached the earl, and told him what he had said.

'What can the rascal mean?' said the earl to himself; but he told
the man to carry the fool's message exactly as he had received it,
and quietly followed Tom and his companions, some of whom,
conceiving fresh importance from the overstrained politeness with
which they had been received, were now attempting a transformation
of their usual loundering gait into a martial stride, with the
result of a foolish strut, very unlike the dignified progress of the
sham earl, whose weak back roused in them no suspicion, and who had
taken care they should not see his face. Across the paved court, and
through the hall to the inner court, Tom led them, and the earl
followed.

The twilight was falling. The hall was empty of life, and filled
with a sombre dusk, echoing to every step as they passed through it.
They did not see the flash of eyes and glimmer of smiles from the
minstrel's gallery, and the solitude, size, and gloom had, even on
their dull natures, a palpable influence. The whole castle seemed
deserted as they followed the false earl across the second
court--with the true one stealing after them like a knave--little
imagining that bright eyes were watching them from the curtains of
every window like stars from the clear spaces and cloudy edges of
heaven. To the north-west corner of the court he led them, and
through a sculptured doorway up the straight wide ascent of stone
called the grand staircase. At the top he turned to the right, along
a dim corridor, from which he entered a suite of bedrooms and
dressing-rooms, over whose black floors he led the trampling
hob-nailed shoes without pity either for their polish or the labour
of the housemaids in restoring it.

In this way he reached the stair in the bell-tower, ascending which
he brought them into a narrow dark passage ending again in a
downward stair, at the foot of which they found themselves in the
long picture-gallery, having entered it in the recess of one of its
large windows. At the other end of the gallery he crossed into the
dining-room, then through an ante-chamber entered the drawing-room,
where the ladies, apprised of their approach, kept still behind
curtains and high chairs, until they had passed through, on their
way to cross the archway of the main entrance, and through the
library gain the region of household economy and cookery. Thither I
will not drag my reader after them. Indeed the earl, who had been
dogging them like a Fate, ever emerging on their track but never
beheld, had already began to pay his part of the penalty of the joke
in fatigue, for he was not only unwieldy in person, but far from
robust, being very subject to gout. He owed his good spirits to a
noble nature, and not to animal well-being. When they crossed from
the picture-gallery to the dining-room, he went down the stair
between, and into the oak-parlour adjoining the great hall. There he
threw himself into an easy chair which always stood for him in the
great bay window, looking over the moat to the huge keep of the
castle, and commanding through its western light the stone bridge
which crossed it. There he lay back at his ease, and, instructed by
the message Tom had committed to the serjeant of the guard, waited
the result.

As for his double, he went stalking on in front of his victims,
never turning to show his face; he knew they would follow, were it
but for the fear of being left alone. Close behind him they kept,
scarce daring to whisper from growing awe of the vast place. The
fumes of the beer had by this time evaporated, and the heavy
obscurity which pervaded the whole building enhanced their growing
apprehensions. On and on the fool led them, up and down, going and
returning, but ever in new tracks, for the marvellous old place was
interminably burrowed with connecting passages and communications of
every sort--some of them the merest ducts which had to be all but
crept through, and which would have certainly arrested the progress
of the earl had he followed so far: no one about the place
understood its "crenkles" so well as Tom. For the greater part of an
hour he led them thus, until, having been on their legs the whole
day, they were thoroughly wearied as well as awe-struck. At length,
in a gloomy chamber, where one could not see the face of another,
the pseudo-earl turned full upon them, and said in his most solemn
tones:--

'Arrived thus far, my masters, it is borne in upon me with rebuke,
that before undertaking to guide you to the armoury, I should have
acquainted you with the strange fact that at times I am myself
unable to find the place of which we are in search; and I begin to
fear it is so now, and that we are at this moment the sport of a
certain member of my family of whom it may be your worships have
heard things not more strange than true. Against his machinations I
am powerless. All that is left us is to go to him and entreat him to
unsay his spells.'

A confused murmur of objections arose.

'Then your worships will remain here while I go to the Yellow Tower,
and come to you again?' said the mock earl, making as if he would
leave them.

But they crowded round him with earnest refusals to be abandoned;
for in their very souls they felt the fact that they were upon
enchanted ground--and in the dark.

'Then follow me,' he said, and conducted them into the open air of
the inner court, almost opposite the archway in its buildings
leading to the stone bridge, whose gothic structure bestrid the moat
of the keep.

For Raglan Castle had this peculiarity, that its keep was surrounded
by a moat of its own, separating it from the rest of the castle, so
that, save by bridge, no one within any more than without the walls
could reach it. On to the bridge Tom led the way, followed by his
dupes--now full in the view of the earl where he sat in his parlour
window. When they had reached the centre of it, however, and
glancing up at the awful bulk of stone towering above them, its
walls strangely dented and furrowed, so as to such as they, might
well suggest frightful means to wicked ends, they stood stock-still,
refusing to go a step further; while their chief speaker, Upstill,
emboldened by anger, fear, and the meek behaviour of the supposed
earl, broke out in a torrent of arrogance, wherein his intention was
to brandish the terrors of the High Parliament over the heads of his
lordship of Worcester and all recusants. He had not got far,
however, before a shrill whistle pierced the air, and the next
instant arose a chaos of horrible, appalling, and harrowing noises,
'such a roaring,' in the words of their own report of the matter to
the reverend master Flowerdew, 'as if the mouth of hell had been
wide open, and all the devils conjured up'--doubtless they meant by
the arts of the wizard whose dwelling was that same tower of fearful
fame before which they now stood. The skin-contracting chill of
terror uplifted their hair. The mystery that enveloped the origin of
the sounds gave them an unearthliness which froze the very fountains
of their life, and rendered them incapable even of motion. They
stared at each other with a ghastly observance, which descried no
comfort, only like images of horror. 'Man's hand is not able to
taste' how long they might have thus stood, nor 'his tongue to
conceive' what the consequences might have been, had not a more
healthy terror presently supervened. Across the tumult of sounds,
like a fiercer flash through the flames of a furnace, shot a
hideous, long-drawn yell, and the same instant came a man running at
full speed through the archway from the court, casting
terror-stricken glances behind him, and shouting with a voice
half-choked to a shriek--

'Look to yourselves, my masters; the lions are got loose!'

All the world knew that ever since King James had set the fashion by
taking so much pleasure in the lions at the Tower, strange beasts
had been kept in the castle of Raglan.

The new terror broke the spell of the old, and the parliamentary
commissioners fled. But which was the way from the castle? Which the
path to the lions' den? In an agony of horrible dread, they rushed
hither and thither about the court, where now the white horse, as
steady as marble, should be when first they crossed it, was, to
their excited vision, prancing wildly about the great basin from
whose charmed circle he could not break, foaming, at the mouth, and
casting huge water-jets from his nostrils into the perturbed air;
while from the surface of the moat a great column of water shot up
nearly as high as the citadel, whose return into the moat was like a
tempest, and with all the elemental tumult was mingled the howling
of wild beasts. The doors of the hall and the gates to the bowling
green being shut, the poor wretches could not find their way out of
the court, but ran from door to door like madmen, only to find all
closed against them. From every window around the court--from the
apartments of the waiting gentlewomen, from the picture-gallery,
from the officers' rooms, eager and merry eyes looked down on the
spot, themselves unseen and unsuspected, for all voices were hushed,
and for anything the bumpkins heard or saw they might have been in a
place deserted of men, and possessed only by evil spirits, whose
pranks were now tormenting them. At last Upstill, who had fallen on
the bridge at his first start, and had ever since been rushing about
with a limp and a leap alternated, managed to open the door of the
hall, and its eastern door having been left open, shot across and
into the outer court, where he made for the gate, followed at varied
distance by the rest of the routed commissioners of search, as each
had discovered the way his forerunner fled. With trembling hands
Upstill raised the latch of the wicket, and to his delight found it
unlocked. He darted through, passed the twin portcullises, and was
presently thundering over the draw-bridge, which, trembling under
his heavy steps, seemed on the point of rising to heave him back
into the jaws of the lion, or, worse still, the clutches of the
enchanter. Not one looked behind him, not even when, having passed
through the white stone gate, also purposely left open for their
escape, and rattled down the multitude of steps that told how deep
was the moat they had just crossed, where the last of them nearly
broke his neck by rolling almost from top to bottom, they reached
the outermost, the brick gate, and so left the awful region of
enchantment and feline fury commingled. Not until the castle was out
of sight, and their leader had sunk senseless on the turf by the
roadside, did they dare a backward look. The moment he came to
himself they started again for home, at what poor speed they could
make, and reached the Crown and Mitre in sad plight, where, however,
they found some compensation in the pleasure of setting forth their
adventures--with the heroic manner in which, although vanquished by
the irresistible force of enchantment, they had yet brought off
their forces without the loss of a single man. Their story spread
over the country, enlarged and embellished at every fresh stage in
its progress.

When the tale reached mother Rees, it filled her with fresh awe of
the great magician, the renowned lord Herbert. She little thought
the whole affair was a jest of her own son's. Firmly believing in
all kinds of magic and witchcraft, but as innocent of conscious
dealing with the powers of ill as the whitest-winged angel betwixt
earth's garret and heaven's threshold, she owed her evil repute
amongst her neighbours to a rare therapeutic faculty, accompanied by
a keen sympathetic instinct, which greatly sharpened her powers of
observation in the quest after what was amiss; while her touch was
so delicate, so informed with present mind, and came therefore into
such rapport with any living organism, the secret of whose suffering
it sought to discover, that sprained muscles, dislocated joints, and
broken bones seemed at its soft approach to re-arrange their
disturbed parts, and yield to the power of her composing will as to
a re-ordering harmony. Add to this, that she understood more of the
virtues of some herbs than any doctor in the parish, which, in the
condition of general practice at the time, is not perhaps to say
much, and that she firmly believed in the might of certain charms,
and occasionally used them--and I have given reason enough why,
while regarded by all with disapprobation--she should be by many
both courted and feared. For her own part she had a leaning to the
puritans, chiefly from respect to the memory of a good-hearted,
weak, but intellectually gifted, and, therefore, admired husband;
but the ridicule of her yet more gifted son had a good deal shaken
this predilection, so that she now spent what powers of
discrimination and choice she possessed solely upon persons,
heedless of principles in themselves, and regarding them only in
their vital results. Hence, it was a matter of absolute indifference
to her which of the parties now dividing the country was in the
right, or which should lose, which win, provided no personal evil
befel the men or women for whom she cherished a preference. Like
many another, she was hardly aware of the jurisdiction of
conscience, save in respect of immediate personal relations.

CHAPTER V.

ANIMADVERSIONS.

From the time when the conversation recorded had in some measure
dispelled the fog between them, Roger and Richard Heywood drew
rapidly nearer to each other. The father had been but waiting until
his son should begin to ask him questions, for watchfulness of
himself and others had taught him how useless information is to
those who have not first desired it, how poor in influence, how soon
forgotten; and now that the fitting condition had presented itself,
he was ready: with less of reserve than in the relation between them
was common amongst the puritans, he began to pour his very soul into
that of his son. All his influence went with that party which,
holding that the natural flow of the reformation of the church from
popery had stagnated in episcopacy, consisted chiefly of those who,
in demanding the overthrow of that form of church government, sought
to substitute for it what they called presbyterianism; but Mr.
Heywood belonged to another division of it which, although less
influential at present, was destined to come by and by to the front,
in the strength of the conviction that to stop with presbyterianism
was merely to change the name of the swamp--a party whose
distinctive and animating spirit was the love of freedom, which
indeed, degenerating into a passion among its inferior members,
broke out, upon occasion, in the wildest vagaries of speech and
doctrine, but on the other hand justified itself in its leaders,
chief amongst whom were Milton and Cromwell, inasmuch as they
accorded to the consciences of others the freedom they demanded for
their own--the love of liberty with them not meaning merely the love
of enjoying freedom, but that respect for the thing itself which
renders a man incapable of violating it in another.

Roger Heywood was, in fact, already a pupil of Milton, whose
anonymous pamphlet of 'Reformation touching Church Discipline' had
already reached him, and opened with him the way for all his
following works.

Richard, with whom my story has really to do, but for the
understanding of whom it is necessary that the character and mental
position of his father should in some measure be set forth, proved
an apt pupil, and was soon possessed with such a passion for justice
and liberty, as embodied in the political doctrines now presented
for his acceptance, that it was impossible for him to understand how
any honest man could be of a different mind. No youth, indeed, of
simple and noble nature, as yet unmarred by any dominant phase of
selfishness, could have failed to catch fire from the enthusiasm of
such a father, an enthusiasm glowing yet restrained, wherein party
spirit had a less share than principle--which, in relation to such a
time, is to say much. Richard's heart swelled within him at the
vistas of grandeur opened by his father's words, and swelled yet
higher when he read to him passages from the pamphlet to which I
have referred. It seemed to him, as to most young people under
mental excitement, that he had but to tell the facts of the case to
draw all men to his side, enlisting them in the army destined to
sweep every form of tyranny, and especially spiritual usurpation and
arrogance, from the face of the earth.

Being one who took everybody at the spoken word, Richard never
thought of seeking Dorothy again at their former place of meeting.
Nor, in the new enthusiasm born in him, did his thoughts for a good
many days turn to her so often, or dwell so much upon her, as to
cause any keen sense of their separation. The flood of new thoughts
and feelings had transported him beyond the ignorant present. In
truth, also, he was a little angry with Dorothy for showing a
foolish preference for the church party, so plainly in the wrong was
it! And what could SHE know about the question by his indifference
to which she had been so scandalised, but to which he had been
indifferent only until rightly informed thereon! If he had ever
given her just cause to think him childish, certainly she should
never apply the word to him again! If he could but see her, he would
soon convince her--indeed he MUST see her--for the truth was not
his to keep, but to share! It was his duty to acquaint her with the
fact that the parliament was the army of God, fighting the great red
dragon, one of whose seven heads was prelacy, the horn upon it the
king, and Laud its crown. He wanted a stroll--he would take the path
through the woods and the shrubbery to the old sun-dial. She would
not be there, of course, but he would walk up the pleached alley and
call at the house.

Reasoning thus within himself one day, he rose and went. But, as he
approached the wood, Dorothy's great mastiff, which she had reared
from a pup with her own hand, came leaping out to welcome him, and
he was prepared to find her not far off.

When he entered the yew-circle, there she stood leaning on the dial,
as if, like old Time, she too had gone to sleep there, and was
dreaming ancient dreams over again. She did not move at the first
sounds of his approach; and when at length, as he stood silent by
her side, she lifted her head, but without looking at him, he saw
the traces of tears on her cheeks. The heart of the youth smote him.

'Weeping, Dorothy?' he said.

'Yes,' she answered simply.

'I trust I am not the cause of your trouble, Dorothy?'

'You!' returned the girl quickly, and the colour rushed to her pale
cheeks. 'No, indeed. How should you trouble me? My mother is ill.'

Considering his age, Richard was not much given to vanity, and it
was something better that prevented him from feeling pleased at
being thus exonerated: she looked so sweet and sad that the love
which new interests had placed in abeyance returned in full tide.
Even when a child, he had scarcely ever seen her in tears; it was to
him a new aspect of her being.

'Dear Dorothy!' he said, 'I am very much grieved to learn this of
your beautiful mother.'

'She IS beautiful,' responded the girl, and her voice was softer
than he had ever heard it before; 'but she will die, and I shall be
left alone.'

'No, Dorothy! that you shall never be,' exclaimed Richard, with a
confidence bordering on presumption.

'Master Herbert is with her now,' resumed Dorothy, heedless of his
words.

'You do not mean her life is even now in danger?' said Richard, in a
tone of sudden awe.

'I hope not, but, indeed, I cannot tell. I left master Herbert
comforting her with the assurance that she was taken away from the
evil to come. "And I trust, madam," the dear old man went on to say,
"that my departure will not long be delayed, for darkness will cover
the earth, and gross darkness the people." Those were his very
words.'

'Nay, nay!' said Richard, hastily; 'the good man is deceived; the
people that sit in darkness shall see a great light.'

The girl looked at him with strange interrogation.

'Do not be angry, sweet Dorothy,' Richard went on. 'Old men may
mistake as well as youths. As for the realm of England, the sun of
righteousness will speedily arise thereon, for the dawn draws nigh;
and master Herbert may be just as far deceived concerning your
mother's condition, for she has been but sickly for a long time, and
yet has survived many winters.'

Dorothy looked at him still, and was silent. At length she spoke,
and her words came slowly and with weight.

'And what prophet's mantle, if I may make so bold, has fallen upon
Richard Heywood, that the word in his mouth should outweigh that of
an aged servant of the church? Can it be that the great light of
which he speaks is Richard Heywood himself?'

'As master Herbert is a good man and a servant of God,' said
Richard, coldly, stung by her sarcasm, but not choosing to reply to
it, 'his word weighs mightily; but as a servant of the church his
word is no weightier than my father's, who is also a minister of the
true tabernacle, that wherein all who are kings over themselves are
priests unto God--though truly he pretends to no prophecy beyond the
understanding of the signs of the times.'

Dorothy saw that a wonderful change, such as had been incredible
upon any but the witness of her own eyes and ears, had passed on her
old playmate. He was in truth a boy no longer. Their relative
position was no more what she had been of late accustomed to
consider it. But with the change a gulf had begun to yawn between
them.

'Alas, Richard!' she said, mistaking what he meant by the signs of
the times, 'those who arrogate the gift of the Holy Ghost, while
their sole inspiration is the presumption of their own hearts and an
overweening contempt of authority, may well mistake signs of their
own causing for signs from heaven. I but repeat the very words of
good master Herbert.'

'I thought such swelling words hardly sounded like your own,
Dorothy. But tell me, why should the persuasion of man or woman hang
upon the words of a fellow-mortal? Is not the gift of the Spirit
free to each who asks it? And are we not told that each must be
fully persuaded in his own mind?'

'Nay, Richard, now I have thee! Hang you not by the word of your
father, who is one, and despise the authority of the true church,
which is many?'

'The true church were indeed an authority, but where shall we find
it? Anyhow, the true church is one thing, and prelatical episcopacy
another. But I have yet to learn what authority even the true church
could have over a man's conscience.'

'You need to be reminded, Richard, that the Lord of the church gave
power to his apostles to bind or loose.'

'I do not need to be so reminded, Dorothy, but I do not need to be
shown first that that power was over men's consciences; and second,
that it was transmitted to others by the apostles waiving the
question as to the doubtful ordination of English prelates.'

Fire flashed from Dorothy's eyes.

'Richard Heywood,' she said, 'the demon of spiritual pride has
already entered into you, and blown you up with a self-sufficiency
which I never saw in you before, or I would never, never have
companied with you, as I am now ashamed to think I have done so
long, even to the danger of my soul's health.'

'In that case I may comfort myself, mistress Dorothy Vaughan,' said
Richard, 'that you will no longer count me a boy! But do you then no
longer desire that I should take one part OR the other and show
myself a man? Am I man enough yet for the woman thou art, Dorothy?
--But, Dorothy,' he added, with sudden change of tone, for she had
in anger turned to leave him, 'I love you dearly, and I am truly
sorry if I have spoken so as to offend you. I came hither eager to
share with you the great things I have learned since you left me
with just contempt a fortnight ago.'

'Then it is I whose foolish words have cast you into the seat of the
scorner! Alas! alas! my poor Richard! Never, never more, while you
thus rebel against authority and revile sacred things, will I hold
counsel with you.'

And again she turned to go.

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