St. George and St. Michael

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

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The next morning, then, she was up before the sun, and, sitting at
her window, awaited his arrival. The moment he shone upon the gilded
cock of the bell tower, she rose and hastened out, eager to taste of
the sweets promised her; stood a moment to gaze on the limpid stream
ever flowing from the mouth of the white horse, and wonder whence
that and the whale-spouts he so frequently sent aloft from his
nostrils came; then passing through the archway and over the bridge,
found herself at the magician's door. For a moment she hesitated:
from within came such a tumult of hammering, that plainly it was of
no use to knock, and she could not at once bring herself to enter
unannounced and uninvited. But confidence in lord Herbert soon
aroused her courage, and gently she opened the door and peeped in.
There he stood, in a linen frock that reached from his neck to his
knees, already hard at work at a small anvil on a bench, while
Caspar was still harder at work at a huge anvil on the ground in
front of a forge. This, with the mighty bellows attached to it,
occupied one of the six sides of the room, and the great roaring,
hissing thing that had so frightened lady Margaret, now silent and
cold, occupied another. Neither of the men saw her. So she entered,
closed the door, and approached lord Herbert, but he continued
unaware of her presence until she spoke. Then he ceased his
hammering, turned, and greeted her with his usual smile of sincerity
absolute.

'Are you always as true to your appointments, cousin?' he said, and
resumed his hammering.

'It was hardly an appointment, my lord, and yet here I am,' said
Dorothy.

'And you mean to infer that----?'

'An appointment is no slight matter, my lord, or one that admits of
breaking.'

'Right,' returned his lordship, still hammering at the thin plate of
whitish metal growing thinner and thinner under his blows. Dorothy
glanced around her for a moment.

'I would not be troublesome, my lord,' she said; 'but would you tell
me in a few words what it is you make here?'

'Had I three tongues, and thou three ears,' answered lord Herbert,
'I could not. But look round thee, cousin, and when thou spiest the
thing that draws thine eye more than another, ask me concerning
that, and I will tell thee.'

Hardly had Dorothy, in obedience, cast her eyes about the place, ere
they lighted on the same huge wheel which had before chiefly
attracted her notice.

'What is that great wheel for, with such a number of weights hung to
it?' she asked.

'For a memorial,' replied lord Herbert, 'of the folly of the man who
placeth his hopes in man. That wonderful engine; it is now nearly
three years since I showed it to his blessed majesty in the Tower of
London, also with him to the dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, and two
extraordinary ambassadors besides, but of them all no man hath ever
sought to look upon it again. It is a form of the Proteus-like
perpetuum mobile-a most incredible thing if not seen.'

He then proceeded to show her how, as every spoke passed the highest
point, the weight attached to it immediately hung a foot farther
from the centre of the wheel, and as every spoke passed the lowest
point, its weight returned a foot nearer to the centre, thus causing
the leverage to be greater always on one and the same side of the
wheel. Few of my readers will regret so much as myself that I am
unable to give them the constructive explanation his lordship gave
Dorothy as to the shifting of the weights. Whether she understood it
or not, I cannot tell either, but that is of less consequence.
Before she left the workshop that morning, she had learned that a
thousand knowledges are needed to build up the pyramid on whose top
alone will the bird of knowledge lay her new egg.

When he had finished his explanation, lord Herbert returned to his
work, leaving Dorothy again to her own observations. And now she
would gladly have questioned him about the huge mass of brick and
iron, which, now standing silent, cold, and motionless as death, had
that night seemed alive with the fierce energy of flame, and yet
sorely driven, sighing, and groaning, and furiously hissing; but as
it was not now at work, she thought it would be better to wait an
opportunity when it should be in the agony of its wrestle with
whatever unseen enemy it coped withal. She did not know that, the
first of its race, it was not quite equal to the task the magician
had imposed upon it, but that its descendants would at length become
capable of doing a thousand times as much, with the swinging joy of
conscious might, with the pant of the giant, not the groan of the
overtasked stripling urging his last effort.

She was standing by a chest, examining the strangely elaborate and
mysterious-looking scutcheon of its lock, when his lordship's
hammering ceased, and presently she found that he was by her side.

'That escutcheon is the best thing of the kind I have yet made,' he
said. 'A humour I have, never to be contented to produce any
invention the second time, without appearing refined. The lock and
key of this are in themselves a marvel, for the little triangle
screwed key weighs no more than a shilling, and yet it bolts and
unbolts an hundred bolts through fifty staples round about the
chest, and as many more from both sides and ends, and at the self-
same time shall fasten it to a place beyond a man's natural strength
to take it away. But the best thing is the escutcheon; for the owner
of it, though a woman, may with her own delicate hand vary the ways
of coming to open the lock ten millions of times, beyond the
knowledge of the smith that made it, or of me who invented it. If a
stranger open it, it setteth an alarm agoing, which the stranger
cannot stop from running out; and besides, though none should .be
within hearing, yet it catcheth his hand, as a trap doth a fox; and
though far from maiming him, yet it leaveth such a mark behind it,
as will discover him if suspected; the escutcheon or lock plainly
showing what moneys he hath taken out of the box to a farthing, and
how many times opened since the owner hath been at it.'

He then showed her how to set it, left the chest open, and gave her
the key off his bunch that she might use it more easily. Ere she
returned it, she had made herself mistress of the escutcheon as far
as the mere working of it was concerned, as she proved to the
satisfaction of the inventor.

Her docility and quickness greatly pleased him. He opened a cabinet,
and after a search in its drawers, took from it a little thing, in
form and colour like a plum, which he gave her, telling her to eat
it. She saw from his smile that there was something at the back of
the playful request, and for a moment hesitated, but reading in his
countenance that he wished her at least to make the attempt, she put
it in her mouth.

She was gagged. She could neither open nor shut her mouth a hair's
breadth, could neither laugh, cry out, nor make any noise beyond an
ugly one she would not make twice. The tears came into her eyes, for
her position was ludicrous, and she imagined that his lordship was
making game of her. A girl less serious or more merry would have
been moved only to laughter.

But lord Herbert hastened to relieve her. On the application of a
tiny key, fixed with a joint in a finger-ring, the little steel
bolts it had thrown out in every direction returned within the plum,
and he drew it from her mouth.

'You little fool!' he said, with indescribable sweetness, for he saw
the tears in her eyes; 'did you think I would hurt you? '

'No, my lord; but I did fear you were going to make game of me. I
could not have borne Caspar to see me so.'

'Alas, my poor child!' he rejoined, 'you have come to the wrong
house if you cannot put up with a little chafing. There!' he added,
putting the plum in her hand, 'it is an untoothsome thing, but the
moment may come when you will find it useful enough to repay you for
the annoyance of a smile that had in it ten times more friendship
than merriment.'

'I ask your pardon, my lord,' said Dorothy, by this time blushing
deep with shame of her mistrust and over-sensitiveness, and on the
point of crying downright. But his lordship smiled so kindly that
she took heart and smiled again.

He then showed her how to raise the key hid in the ring, and how to
unlock the plum.

'Do not try it on yourself,' he said, as he put the ring on her
finger; 'you might find that awkward.'

'Be sure I shall avoid it, my lord,' returned Dorothy.

'And do not let any one know you have such a thing,' he said, 'or
that there is a key in your ring.'

'I will try not, my lord.'

The breakfast bell rang.

'If you will come again after supper,' he said, as he pulled off his
linen frock, 'I will show you my fire-engine at work, and tell you
all that is needful to the understanding thereof;--only you must
not publish it to the world,' he added, 'for I mean to make much
gain by my invention.'

Dorothy promised, and they parted--lord Herbert for the marquis's
parlour, Dorothy for the housekeeper's room, and Caspar for the
third table in the great hall.

After breakfast Dorothy practised with her plum until she could
manage it with as much readiness as ease. She found that it was made
of steel, and that the bolts it threw out upon the slightest
pressure were so rounded and polished that they could not hurt,
while nothing but the key would reduce them again within their
former sheath.

END OF VOLUME I.

START OF VOLUME II

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FIRE-ENGINE.

As soon as supper was over in the housekeeper's room, Dorothy sped
to the keep, where she found Caspar at work.

'My lord is not yet from supper, mistress,' he said. 'Will it please
you wait while he comes?'

Had it been till midnight, so long as there was a chance of his
appearing, Dorothy would have waited. Caspar did his best to amuse
her, and succeeded,--showing her one curious thing after
another,--amongst the rest a watch that seemed to want no winding
after being once set agoing, but was in fact wound up a little by
every opening of the case to see the dial. All the while the
fire-engine was at work on its mysterious task, with but now and
then a moment's attention from Caspar, a billet of wood or a
shovelful of sea-coal on the fire, a pull at a cord, or a hint from
the hooked rod. The time went rapidly.

Twilight was over, Caspar had lighted his lamp, and the moon had
risen, before lord Herbert came.

'I am glad to find you have patience as well as punctuality in the
catalogue of your virtues, mistress Dorothy,' he said as he entered.
'I too am punctual, and am therefore sorry to have failed now, but
it is not my fault: I had to attend my father. For his sake pardon
me.'

'It were but a small matter, my lord, even had it been uncompelled,
to keep an idle girl waiting.'

'I think not so,' returned lord Herbert. 'But come now, I will
explain to you my wonderful fire-engine.'

As he spoke, he took her by the hand, and led her towards it. The
creature blazed, groaned, and puffed, but there was no motion to be
seen about it save that of the flames through the cracks in the door
of the furnace, neither was there any clanking noise of metal. A
great rushing sound somewhere in the distance, that seemed to belong
to it, yet appeared too far off to have any connection with it.

'It is a noisy thing,' he said, as they stood before it, 'but when I
make another, it shall do its work that thou wouldst not hear it
outside the door. Now listen to me for a moment, cousin. Should it
come to a siege and I not at Raglan--the wise man will always
provide for the worst--Caspar will be wanted everywhere. Now this
engine is essential to the health and comfort, if not to the
absolute life of the castle, and there is no one at present capable
of managing it save us two. A very little instruction, however,
would enable any one to do so: will you undertake it, cousin, in
case of need?'

'Make me assured that I can, and I will, my lord,' answered Dorothy.

'A good and sufficing answer,' returned his lordship, with a smile
of satisfaction. 'First then,' he went on, 'I will show you wherein
lies its necessity to the good of the castle. Come with me, cousin
Dorothy.'

He led the way from the room, and began to ascend the stair which
rose just outside it. Dorothy followed, winding up through the
thickness of the wall. And now she could not hear the engine. As she
went up, however, certain sounds of it came again, and grew louder
till they seemed close to her ears, then gradually died away and
once more ceased. But ever, as they ascended, the rushing sound
which had seemed connected with it, although so distant, drew nearer
and nearer, until, having surmounted three of the five lofty stories
of the building, they could scarcely hear each other speak for the
roar of water, falling in intermittent jets. At last they came out
on the top of the wall, with nothing between them and the moat below
but the battlemented parapet, and behold! the mighty tower was
roofed with water: a little tarn filled all the space within the
surrounding walk. It undulated in the moonlight like a subsiding
storm, and beat the encircling banks. For into its depths shot
rather than poured a great volume of water from a huge orifice in
the wall, and the roar and the rush were tremendous. It was like the
birth of a river, bounding at once from its mountain rock, and the
sound of its fall indicated the great depth of the water into which
it plunged. Solid indeed must be the walls that sustained the
outpush of such a weight of water!

'You see now, cousin, what yon fire-souled slave below is labouring
at,' said his lordship. 'His task is to fill this cistern, and that
he can in a few hours; and yet, such a slave is he, a child who
understands his fetters and the joints of his bones can guide him at
will.'

'But, my lord,' questioned Dorothy, 'is there not water here to
supply the castle for months? And there is the draw-well in the
pitched court besides.'

'Enough, I grant you,' he replied, 'for the mere necessities of
life. But what would come of its pleasures? Would not the
beleaguered ladies miss the bounty of the marble horse? Whence comes
the water he gives so freely that he needeth not to drink himself?
He would thirst indeed but for my water-commanding fiend below. Or
how would the birds fare, were the fountains on the islands dry in
the hot summer? And what would the children say if he ceased to
spout? And how would my lord's tables fare, with the armed men
besetting every gate, the fish-ponds dry, and the fish rotting in
the sun? See you, mistress Dorothy? And for the draw-well, know you
not wherein lies the good of a tower stronger than all the rest? Is
it not built for final retreat, the rest of the castle being at
length in the hands of the enemy? Where then is your draw-well?'

'But this tower, large as it is, could not receive those now within
the walls of the castle,' said Dorothy.

'They will be fewer ere its shelter is needful.'

It was his tone quite as much as the words that drove a sudden
sickness to the heart of the girl: for one moment she knew what
siege and battle meant. But she recovered herself with a strong
effort, and escaped from the thought by another question.

'And whence comes all this water, my lord?' she said, for she was
one who would ask until she knew all that concerned her.

'Have you not chanced to observe a well in my workshop below, on the
left-hand side of the door, not far from the great chest?'

'I have observed it, my lord.'

'That is a very deep well, with a powerful spring. Large pipes lead
from all but the very bottom of that to my fire-engine. The fuller
the well, the more rapid the flow into the cistern, for the
shallower the water, the more labour falls to my giant. He is
finding it harder work now. But you see the cistern is nearly full.'

'Forgive me, my lord, if I am troubling you,' said Dorothy, about to
ask another question.

'I delight in the questions of the docile,' said his lordship. 'They
are the little children of wisdom. There! that might be out of the
book of Ecclesiasticus,' he added, with a merry laugh. 'I might pass
that off on Dr. Bayly for my father's: he hath already begun to
gather my father's sayings into a book, as I have discovered. But,
prithee, cousin, let not my father know of it.'

'Fear not me, my lord,' returned Dorothy. 'Having no secrets of my
own to house, it were evil indeed to turn my friends' out of doors.'

'Why, that also would do for Dr. Bayly! Well said, Dorothy! Now for
thy next question.'

'It is this, my lord: having such a well in your foundations, whence
the need of such a cistern on your roof? I mean now as regards the
provision of the keep itself in case of ultimate resort.'

'In coming to deal with a place of such strength as this,' replied
his lordship, '--I mean the keep whereon we now stand, not the
castle, which, alas! hath many weak points--the enemy would
assuredly change the siege into a blockade; that is, he would try to
starve instead of fire us out; and, procuring information
sufficiently to the point, would be like enough to dig deep and cut
the water-veins which supply that well; and thereafter all would
depend on the cistern. From the moment therefore when the first
signs of siege appear, it will be wisdom and duty on the part of the
person in charge to keep it constantly full--full as a cup to the
health of the king. I trust however that such will be the good
success of his majesty's arms that the worst will only have to be
provided against, not encountered.--But there is more in it yet.
Come hither, cousin. Look down through this battlement upon the
moat. You see the moon in it? No? That is because it is covered so
thick with weeds. When you go down, mark how low it is. There is
little defence in the moat that a boy might wade through. I have
allowed it to get shallow in order to try upon its sides a new
cement I have lately discovered; but weeks and weeks have passed,
and I have never found the leisure, and now I am sure I never shall
until this rebellion is crushed. It is time I filled it. Pray look
down upon it, cousin. In summer it will be full of the loveliest
white water-lilies, though now you can see nothing but green weeds.'

He had left her side and gone a few paces away, but kept on
speaking.

'One strange thing I can tell you about them, cousin--the roots of
that whitest of flowers make a fine black dye! What apophthegm
founded upon that, thinkest thou, my father would drop for Dr
Bayly?'

'You perplex me much, my lord,' said Dorothy. 'I cannot at all
perceive your lordship's drift.'

'Lay a hand on each side of the battlement where you now stand; lean
through it and look down. Hold fast and fear nothing.' Dorothy did
as she was desired, and thus supported gazed upon the moat below,
where it lay a mere ditch at the foot of the lofty wall.

'My lord, I see nothing,' she said, turning to him, as she thought;
but he had vanished.

Again she looked at the moat, and then her eyes wandered away over
the castle. The two courts and their many roofs, even those of all
the towers, except only the lofty watch-tower on the western side,
lay bare beneath her, in bright moonlight, flecked and blotted with
shadows, all wondrous in shape and black as Erebus.

Suddenly, she knew not whence, arose a frightful roaring, a hollow
bellowing, a pent-up rumbling. Seized by a vague terror, she clung
to the parapet and trembled. But even the great wall beneath her,
solid as the earth itself, seemed to tremble under her feet, as with
some inward commotion or dismay. The next moment the water in the
moat appeared to rush swiftly upwards, in wild uproar, fiercely
confused, and covered with foam and spray. To her bewildered eyes,
it seemed to heap itself up, wave upon furious wave, to reach the
spot where she stood, greedy to engulf her. For an instant she
fancied the storming billows pouring over the edge of the
battlement, and started back in such momentary agony as we suffer in
dreams. Then, by a sudden rectification of her vision, she perceived
that what she saw was in reality a multitude of fountain jets
rushing high towards their parent-cistern, but far-failing ere they
reached it. The roar of their onset was mingled with the despairing
tumult of their defeat, and both with the deep tumble and wallowing
splash of the water from the fire-engine, which grew louder and
louder as the surface of the water in the reservoir sank. The uproar
ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, but the moat mirrored a
thousand moons in the agitated waters which had overwhelmed its
mantle of weeds.

'You see now,' said lord Herbert, rejoining her while still she
gazed, 'how necessary the cistern is to the keep? Without it, the
few poor springs in the moat would but sustain it as you saw it.
From here I can fill it to the brim.'

'I see,' answered Dorothy. 'But would not a simple overflow serve,
carried from the well through the wall?'

'It would, were there no other advantages with which this mode
harmonised. I must mention one thing more--which I was almost
forgetting, and which I cannot well show you to-night--namely, that
I can use this water not only as a means of defence in the moat, but
as an engine of offence also against any one setting unlawful or
hostile foot upon the stone bridge over it. I can, when I please,
turn that bridge, the same by which you cross to come here, into a
rushing aqueduct, and with a torrent of water sweep from it a whole
company of invaders.'

'But would they not have only to wait until the cistern was empty?'

'As soon and so long as the bridge is clear, the outflow ceases. One
sweep, and my water-broom would stop, and the rubbish lie sprawling
under the arch, or half-way over the court. And more still,' he
added with emphasis: 'I COULD make it boiling!'

'But your lordship would not?' faltered Dorothy.

'That might depend,' he answered with a smile. Then changing his
tone in absolute and impressive seriousness, 'But this is all
nothing but child's play,' he said, 'compared with what is involved
in the matter of this reservoir. The real origin of it was its
needfulness to the perfecting of my fire-engine.'

'Pardon me, my lord, but it seems to me that without the cistern
there would be no need for the engine. How should you want or how
could you use the unhandsome thing? Then how should the cistern be
necessary to the engine?'

'Handsome is that handsome does,' returned his lordship. 'Truly,
cousin Dorothy, you speak well, but you must learn to hear better. I
did not say that the cistern existed for the sake of the engine, but
for the sake of the perfecting of the engine. Cousin Dorothy, I will
give you the largest possible proof of my confidence in you, by not
only explaining to you the working of my fire-engine, but
acquainting you--only you must not betray me!'

'I, in my turn,' said Dorothy, 'will give your lordship, if not the
strongest, yet a very strong proof of my confidence: I promise to
keep your secret before knowing what it is.'

'Thanks, cousin. Listen then: That engine is a mingling of discovery
and invention such as hath never had its equal since first the
mechanical powers were brought to the light. For this shall be as a
soul to animate those, all and each--lever, screw, pulley, wheel,
and axle--what you will. No engine of mightiest force ever for
defence or assault invented, let it be by Archimedes himself, but
could by my fire-engine be rendered tenfold more mighty for safety
or for destruction, although as yet I have applied it only to the
blissful operation of lifting water, thus removing the curse of it
where it is a curse, and carrying it where the parched soil cries
for its help to unfold the treasures of its thirsty bosom. My
fire-engine shall yet uplift the nation of England above the heads
of all richest and most powerful nations on the face of the whole
earth. For when the troubles of this rebellion are over, which press
so heavily on his majesty and all loyal subjects, compelling even a
peaceful man like myself to forsake invention for war, and the
workman's frock which I love, for the armour which I love not, when
peace shall smile again on the country, and I shall have time to
perfect the work of my hands, I shall present it to my royal master,
a magical supremacy of power, which shall for ever raise him and his
royal progeny above all use or need of subsidies, ship-money,
benevolences, or taxes of whatever sort or name, to rule his kingdom
as independent of his subjects in reality as he is in right; for
this water-commanding engine, which God hath given me to make, shall
be the source of such wealth as no accountant can calculate. For
herewith may marsh-land be thoroughly drained, or dry land perfectly
watered; great cities kept sweet and wholesome; mines rid of the
water gathering from springs therein, so as he may enrich himself
withal; houses be served plentifully on every stage; and gardens in
the dryest summer beautified and comforted with fountains. Which
engine when I found that it was in the power of my hands to do, as
well as of my heart to conceive that it might be done, I did kneel
down and give humble thanks from the bottom of my heart to the
omnipotent God whose mercies are fathomless, for his vouchsafing me
an insight into so great a secret of nature and so beneficial to all
mankind as this my engine.'

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