St. George and St. Michael

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

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And she regarded him a little anxiously.

'What should it signify, mother,'' said Richard, 'so long as neither
you nor I believe a word of it? Horses go up a tower to bed
forsooth! Yet for the matter of that, I will engage to ride my mare
up any corkscrew wide enough to turn her forelock and tail in--ay,
and down again too, which is another business with most horses. But
come now, mother Rees, confess this all a fable of thine own
contriving to make a mock of a farm-bred lad like me.'

'In good sooth, master Heywood,' answered the old woman, 'I tell the
tale as 'twas told to me. I avouch it not for certain, knowing that
my son Thomas hath a seething brain and loveth a joke passing well,
nor heedeth greatly upon whom he putteth it, whether his master or
his mother; but for the stair by the great hall window, that stair
have I seen with mine own eyes, though for the horses to come and go
thereby, that truly have I not seen. And for the rest I only say it
may well be, for there is nothing of it all which the wise man, my
lord Herbert, could not with a word--and that a light one for him to
speak, though truly another might be torn to pieces in saying it.'

'I would I might see the place!' murmured Richard.

'An' it were not thou art such a--! But it boots not talking, master
Heywood. Thou art too well known for a puritan--roundhead they call
thee; and thou hast given them and theirs too many hard knocks, my
son, to look they should be willing to let thee gaze on the wonders
of their great house. Else, being that I am a friend to thee and
thine, I would gladly--. But, as I say, it boots nothing--although
I have a son, who being more of the king's part than I am--.'

'Hast thou not then art enough, mother, to set me within Raglan
walls for an hour or two after midnight? I ask no more,' said
Richard, who, although he was but leading the way to quite another
proposal, nor desired aid of art black or white, yet could not help
a little tremor at making the bare suggestion of the unhallowed
idea.

'An' I had, I dared not use it,' answered the old woman; 'for is not
my lord Herbert there? Were it not for him--well--. But I dare not,
as I say, for his art is stronger than mine, and from his knowledge
I could hide nothing. And I dare not for thy sake either, my young
master. Once inside those walls of stone, those gates of oak, and
those portcullises of iron, and thou comes not out alive again, I
warrant thee.'

'I should like to try once, though,' said Richard. 'Couldst thou not
disguise me, mother Rees, and send me with a message to thy son?'

'I tell thee, young master, I dare not,' answered the old woman,
with utmost solemnity. 'And if I did, thy speech would presently
bewray thee.'

'I would then I knew that part of the wall a man might scramble over
in the dark,' said Richard.

'Thinks thou my lord marquis hath been fortifying his castle for two
years that a young Heywood, even if he be one of the godly, and have
long legs to boot, should make a vaulting horse of it? I know but
one knows the way over Raglan walls, and thou wilt hardly persuade
him to tell thee,' said mother Rees, with a grim chuckle.

As she spoke she rose, and went towards her sleeping chamber. Then
first Richard became aware that for some time he had been hearing a
scratching and whining. She opened the door, and out ran a
wretched-looking dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent
wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a discoloured
bandage. He went straight to Richard, and began fawning upon him and
licking his hands. Miserable and most disreputable as he looked, he
recognised in him Dorothy's mastiff.

'My poor Marquis!' he said, 'what evil hath then befallen thee? What
would thy mistress say to see thee thus?'

Marquis whined and wagged his tail as if he understood every word he
said, and Richard was stung to the heart at the sight of his
apparently forlorn condition.

'Hath thy mistress then forsaken thee too, Marquis?' he said, and
from fellow-feeling could have taken the dog in his arms.

'I think not so,' said mistress Rees. 'He hath been with her in the
castle ever since she went there.'

'Poor fellow, how thou art torn!' said Richard. 'What animal of
thine own size could have brought thee into such a plight? Or can it
be that thou hast found a bigger? But that thou hast beaten him I am
well assured.'

Marquis wagged an affirmative.

'Fangs of biggest dog in Gwent never tore him like that, master
Heywood. Heark'ee now. He cannot tell his tale, so I must tell thee
all I know of the matter. I was over to Raglan village three nights
agone, to get me a bottle of strong waters from mine host of the
White Horse, for the distilling of certain of my herbs good for
inward disorders, when he told me that about an hour before there
had come from the way of the castle all of a sudden the most
terrible noise that ever human ears were pierced withal, as if every
devil in hell of dog or cat kind had broken loose, and fierce battle
was waging between them in the Yellow Tower. I said little, but had
my own fears for my lord Herbert, and came home sad and slow and
went to bed. Now what should wake me the next morning, just as
daylight broke the neck of the darkness, but a pitiful whining and
obstinate scratching at my door! And who should it be but that same
lovely little lapdog of my young mistress now standing by thy knee!
But had thou seen him then, master Richard! It was the devil's
hackles he had been through! Such a torn dishclout of a dog thou
never did see! I understood it all in a moment. He had made one in
the fight, and whether he had had the better or the worse of it,
like a wise dog as he always was, he knew where to find what would
serve his turn, and so when the house was quiet, off he came to old
mother Rees to be plaistered and physicked. But what perplexes my
old brain is, how, at that hour of the night, for to reach my door
when he did, and him hardly able to stand when I let him in, it must
have been dead night when he left--it do perplex me, I say, to think
how at that time of the night he got out of that prison, watched as
it is both night and day by them that sleep not.'

'He couldn't have come over the wall?' suggested Richard.

'Had thou seen him--thou would not make that the question.'

'Then he must have come through or under it; there are but three
ways,' said Richard to himself. 'He's a big dog,' he added aloud,
regarding him thoughtfully as he patted his sullen affectionate
head. 'He's a big dog,' he repeated.

'I think a'most he be the biggest dog _I_ ever saw,' assented
mistress Rees.

'I would I were less about the shoulders,' said Richard.

'Who ever heard a man worth his mess of pottage wish him such a wish
as that, master Heywood! What would mistress Dorothy say to hear
thee? I warrant me she findeth no fault with the breadth of thy
shoulders.'

'I am less in the compass than I was before the last fight,' he went
on, without heeding his hostess, and as if he talked to the dog, who
stood with his chin on his knee, looking up in his face. 'Where
thou, Marquis, canst walk, I doubt not to creep; but if thou must
creep, what then is left for me? Yet how couldst thou creep with
such wounds in thy throat and belly, my poor Marquis?'

The dog whined, and moved all his feet, one after the other, but
without taking his chin off Richard's knee.

'Hast seen thy mistress, little Dick, Marquis?' asked Richard.

Again the dog whined, moved his feet, and turned his head towards
the door. But whether it was that he understood the question, or
only that he recognised the name of his friend, who could tell?

'Will thou take me to Dick, Marquis?'

The dog turned and walked to the door, then stood and looked back,
as if waiting for Richard to open it and follow him.

'No, Marquis, we must not go before night,' said Richard.

The dog returned slowly to his knee, and again laid his chin upon
it.

'What will the dog do next, thinkest thou, mother--when he finds
himself well again, I mean? Will he run from thee?' said Richard.

'He would be like neither dog nor man I ever knew, did he not.'
returned the old woman. 'He will for sure go back where he got his
hurts--to revenge them if he may, for that is the custom also with
both dogs and men.'

'Couldst thou make sure of him that he run not away till I come
again at night, mother?'

'Certain I can, my son. I will shut him up whence he will not break
so long as he hears me nigh him.'

'Do so then an' thou lovest me, mother Rees, and I will be here with
the first of the darkness.'

'An' I love thee, master Richard? Nay, but I do love thy good face
and thy true words, be thou puritan or roundhead, or fanatic, or
what evil name soever the wicked fashion of the times granteth to
men to call thee.'

'Hark in thine ear then, mother: I will call no names; but they of
Raglan have, as I truly believe, stolen from me my Lady.'

'Nay, nay, master Richard,' interrupted mistress Rees; 'did I not
tell thee with my own mouth that she went of her own free will, and
in the company of the reverend sir Matthew Herbert?'

'Alas! thou goest not with me, mother Rees. I meant not mistress
Dorothy. She is lost to me indeed; but so also is my poor mare,
which was stolen last night from Redware stables as the watchers
slept.'

'Alack-a-day!' cried goody Rees, holding up her hands in sore
trouble for her friend. 'But what then dreams thou of doing? Not
surely, before all the saints in heaven, will thou adventure thy
body within Raglan walls? But I speak like a fool. Thou canst not.'

'This good dog,' said Richard, stroking Marquis, 'must, as thou
thyself plainly seest, have found some way of leaving Raglan without
the knowledge or will of its warders. Where he gat him forth, will
he not get him in again? And where dog can go, man may at least
endeavour to follow.--Mayhap he hath for himself scratched a way, as
many dogs will.'

'But, for the love of God, master Heywood, what would thou do inside
that stone cage? Thy mare, be she, as thou hast often vaunted her to
me, the first for courage and wisdom and strength and fleetness of
all mares created--be her fore feet like a man's hands and her
heart like a woman's heart, as thou sayest, yet cannot she overleap
Raglan walls; and thinks thou they will raise portcullis and open
gate and drop drawbridge to let thee and her ride forth in peace? It
were a fool's errand, my young master, and nowise befitting thy
young wisdom.'

'What I shall do, when I am length within the walls, I cannot tell
thee, mother. Nor have I ever yet known much good in forecasting. To
have to think, when the hour is come, of what thou didst before
resolve, instead of setting thyself to understand what is around
thee, and perchance the whole matter different from what thou had
imagined, is to stand like Lazarus bound hand and foot in thine own
graveclothes. It will be given me to meet what comes; or if not, who
will bar me from meeting what follows ?'

'Master Heywood,' cried goody Rees, drawing herself with rebuke,
'for a man that is born of a woman to talk so wisely and so
foolishly both in a breath!--But,' she added, with a change of tone,
'I know better than bar the path to a Heywood. An' he will, he will.
And thou hast been vilely used, my young master. I will do what I
can to help thee to thine own--and no more--no more than thine own.
Hark in thine ear now. But first swear to me by the holy cross,
puritan as thou art, that thou wilt make no other use of what I tell
thee but to free thy stolen mare. I know thou may be trusted even
with the secret that would slay thine enemy. But I must have thy
oath notwithstanding thereto.'

'I will not swear by the cross, which was never holy, for thereby
was the Holy slain. I will not swear at all, mother Rees. I will
pledge thee the word of a man who fears God, that I will in no way
dishonourable make use of that which thou tellest me. An' that
suffice not, I will go without thy help, trusting in God, who never
made that mare to carry the enemy of the truth into the battle.'

'But what an' thou should take the staff of strife to measure thy
doings withal? That may then seem honourable, done to an enemy,
which thou would scorn to do to one of thine own part, even if he
wronged thee.'

'Nay, mother; but I will do nothing THOU wouldst think
dishonourable--that I promise thee. I will use what thou tellest me
for no manner of hurt to my lord of Worcester or aught that is his.
But Lady is not his, and her will I carry, if I may, from Raglan
stables back to Redware.'

'I am content. Hearken then, my son. Raglan watchword for the rest
of the month is--ST. GEORGE AND ST. PATRICK! May it stand thee in
good stead.'

'I thank thee, mother, with all my heart,' said Richard, rising
jubilant. 'Now shut up the dog, and let me go. One day it may lie in
my power to requite thee.'

'Thou hast requited me beforehand, master Heywood. Old mother Rees
never forgets. I would have done well by thee with the maiden, an'
thou would but have hearkened to my words. But the day may yet come.
Go now, and return with the last of the twilight. Come hither,
Marquis.'

The dog obeyed, and she shut him again in her chamber.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE MOAT OF THE KEEP.

Richard left the cottage, and mounted Oliver. To pass the time and
indulge a mournful memory, he rode round by Wyfern. When he reached
home, he found that his father had gone to pay a visit some miles
off. He went to his own room, cast himself on his bed, and tried to
think. But his birds would not come at his call, or coming would but
perch for a moment, and again fly. As he lay thus, his eyes fell on
his cousin, old Thomas Heywood's little folio, lying on the window
seat where he had left it two years ago, and straightway his
fluttering birds alighting there, he thought how the book had been
lying unopened all the months, while he had been passing through so
many changes and commotions. How still had the room been around it,
how silent the sunshine and the snow, while he had inhabited
tumult--tumult in his heart, tumult in his ears, tumult of sorrows,
of vain longings, of tongues and of swords! Where was the gain to
him? Was he nearer to that centre of peace, which the book, as it
lay there so still, seemed to his eyes to typify? The maiden loved
from childhood had left him for a foolish king and a phantom-church:
had he been himself pursuing anything better? He had been fighting
for the truth: had he then gained her? where was she? what was she
if not a living thing in the heart? Would the wielding of the sword
in its name ever embody an abstraction, call it from the vasty deep
of metaphysics up into self-conscious existence in the essence of a
man's own vitality? Was not the question still, how, of all loves,
to grasp the thing his soul thirsted after?

To many a sermon, cleric and lay, had he listened since he left that
volume there--in church, in barn, in the open field--but the
religion which seemed to fill all the horizon of these preachers'
vision, was to him little better than another tumult of words;
while, far beyond all the tumults, hung still, in the vast of
thought unarrived, unembodied, that something without a shape, yet
bearing a name around which hovered a vague light as of something
dimly understood, after which, in every moment of inbreaking
silence, his soul straightway began to thirst. And if the Truth was
not to be found in his own heart, could he think that the blows by
which he had not gained her had yet given her?--that through means
of the tumult he had helped to arouse in her name and for her sake,
but in which he had never caught a sight of her beauteous form, she
now sat radiantly smiling in any one human soul where she sat not
before?

Or should he say it was Freedom for which he had fought? Was he then
one whit more free in the reality of his being than he had been
before? Or had ever a battle wherein he had perilled his own life,
striking for liberty, conveyed that liberty into a single human
heart? Was there one soul the freer within, from the nearer presence
of that freedom which would have a man endure the heaviest wrong,
rather than inflict the lightest? He could not tell, but he greatly
doubted.

His thought went wandering away, and vision after vision, now of war
and now of love, now of earthly victory and now of what seemed
unattainable felicity, arose and passed before him, filling its
place. At length it came back: he would glance again into his cousin
Thomas's book. He had but to stretch out his hand to take it, for
his bed was close by the window. Opening it at random, he came upon
this passage:

And as the Mill, that circumgyreth fast, Refuseth nothing that
therein is cast, But whatsoever is to it assign'd Gladly receives
and willing is to grynd, But if the violence be with nothing fed, It
wasts itselfe: e'en so the heart mis-led, Still turning round,
unstable as the Ocean, Never at rest, but in continuall Motion,
Sleepe or awake, is still in agitation Of some presentment in th'
imagination.

If to the Mill-stone you shall cast in Sand, It troubles them, and
makes them at a stand; If Pitch, it chokes them; or if Chaffe let
fall, They are employ'd, but to no use at all. So, bitter thoughts
molest, uncleane thoughts staine And spot the Heart; while those
idle and vaine Weare it, and to no purpose. For when 'tis Drowsie
and carelesse of the future blisse, And to implore Heav'n's aid, it
doth imply How far is it remote from the most High. For whilst our
Hearts on Terrhen things we place, There cannot be least hope of
Divine grace.

'Just such a mill is my mind,' he said to himself. 'But can I
suppose that to sit down and read all day like a monk, would bring
me nearer to the thing I want?'

He turned over the volume half thinking, half brooding.

'I will look again,' he thought, 'at the verses which that day my
father gave me to read. Truly I did not well understand them.'

Once more he read the poem through. It closed with these lines:

So far this Light the Raies extends, As that no place It
comprehends. So deepe this Sound, that though it speake, It cannot
by a Sence so weake Be entertain'd. A Redolent Grace The Aire blowes
not from place to place. A pleasant Taste, of that delight It doth
confound all appetite. A strict Embrace, not felt, yet leaves That
vertue, where it takes it cleaves. This Light, this Sound, this
Savouring Grace, This Tastefull Sweet, this Strict Embrace, No Place
containes, no Eye can see, My God is; and there's none but Hee.

'I HAVE gained something,' he cried aloud. 'I understand it now--at
least I think I do. What if, in fighting for the truth as men say,
the doors of a man's own heart should at length fly open for her
entrance! What if the understanding of that which is uttered
concerning her, be a sign that she herself draweth nigh! Then I will
go on.--And that I may go on, I must recover my mare.'

Honestly, however, he could not quite justify the scheme. All the
efforts of his imagination, as he rode home, to bring his judgment
to the same side with itself, had failed, and he had been driven to
confess the project a foolhardy one. But, on the other hand, had he
not had a leading thitherward? Whence else the sudden conviction
that Scudamore had taken her, and the burning desire to seek her in
Raglan stables? And had he not heard mighty arguments from the lips
of the most favoured preachers in the army for an unquestioning
compliance with leadings? Nay, had he not had more than a leading?
Was it not a sign to encourage him, even a pledge of happy result,
that, within an hour of it, and in consequence of his first step in
partial compliance with it, he had come upon the only creature
capable of conducting him into the robber's hold? And had he not at
the same time learned the Raglan password?--He WOULD go.

He rose, and descending the little creaking stair of black oak that
led from his room to the next storey, sought his father's study,
where he wrote a letter informing him of his intended attempt, and
the means to its accomplishment that had been already vouchsafed
him. The rest of his time, after eating his dinner, he spent in
making overshoes for his mare out of an old buff jerkin. As soon as
the twilight began to fall, he set out on foot for the witch's
cottage.

When he arrived, he found her expecting him, but prepared with no
hearty welcome.

'I had liefer by much thee had not come so pat upon thy promise,
master Heywood. Then I might have looked to move thee from thy
purpose, for truly I like it not. But thou will never bring an old
woman into trouble, master Richard?'

'Or a young one either, if I can help it Mother Rees,' answered
Richard. 'But come now, thou must trust me, and tell me all I want
to know.'

He drew from his pocket paper and pencil, and began to put to her
question after question as to the courts and the various buildings
forming them, with their chief doors and windows, and ever as she
gave him an answer, he added its purport to the rough plan he was
drawing of the place.

'Listen to me, Master Heywood,' said the old woman at length after a
long, silence, during which he had been pondering over his paper.
'An' thou get once into the fountain court thou will know where thee
is by the marble horse that stands in the middle of it. Turn then
thy back to the horse, with the yellow tower above thee upon thy
right hand, and thee will be facing the great hall. On the other
side of the hall is the pitched court with its great gate and double
portcullis and drawbridge. Nearly at thy back, but to thy right
hand, will lie the gate to the bowling-green. At which of these
gates does thee think to lead out thy mare?'

'An' I pass at all, mother, it will be on her back, not at her
head.'

'Thou wilt not pass, my son. Be counselled. To thy mare, thou wilt
but lose thyself.'

Richard heard her as though he heard her not.

'At what hour doth the moon rise, mistress Rees?' he asked.

'What would thou with the moon?" she returned. "Is not she the enemy
of him who roves for plunder? Shines she not that the thief may be
shaken out of the earth?'

'I am not thief enough to steal in the dark, mother. How shall I
tell without her help where I am or whither I go?'

'She will be half way to the top of her hill by midnight.'

'An' thou speak by the card, then is it time that Marquis and I were
going.'

'Here, take thee some fern-seed in thy pouch, that thou may walk
invisible,' said the old woman. 'If thee chance to be an hungred,
then eat thereof,' she added, as she transferred something from her
pocket to his.

She called the dog and opened the chamber door. Out came Marquis,
walked to Richard, and stood looking up in his face as if he knew
perfectly that his business was to accompany him. Richard bade the
old woman good night, and stepped from the cottage.

No sooner was he in the darkness with the dog, than, fearing he
might lose sight of him, he tied his handkerchief round the dog's
neck, and fastened to it the thong of his riding whip--the sole
weapon he had brought with him--and so they walked together, Marquis
pulling Richard on. Ere long the moon rose, and the country dawned
into the dim creation of the light.

On and on they trudged, Marquis pulling at his leash as if he had
been a blind man's dog, and on and on beside them crept their
shadows, flattened out into strange distortion upon the road. But
when they had come within about two miles of Raglan, whether it was
that the sense of proximity to his mistress grew strong in him, or
that he scented the Great Mogul, as the horse the battle from afar,
Marquis began to grow restless, and to sniff about on one side of
the way. When at length they had by a narrow bridge crossed a brook,
the dog insisted on leaving the road and going down into the meadow
to the left. Richard made small resistance, and that only for
experiment upon the animal's determination. Across field after field
his guide led him, until, but for the great keep towering dimly up
into the moonlit sky, he could hardly have even conjectured where he
was. But he was well satisfied, for, ever as they came out of copse
or hollow, there was the huge thing in the sky, nearer than before.

At last he was able to descry a short stretch of the castle rampart,
past which, away to the westward, the dog was pulling, along a rough
cart-track through a field. This he presently found to be a quarry
road, and straight into the quarry the dog went, pulling eagerly;
but Richard was compelled to follow with caution, for the ground was
rough and broken, and the moon cast black misleading shadows.
Towards the blackest of these the dog led, and entered a hollow way.
Richard went straight after him, guarding his head with his arm,
lest he might meet a sudden descent of the roof, and lengthening his
leash to the utmost, that he might have timely warning of any
descent of the floor.

It was a very rough tunnel, the intent of which will afterwards
appear, forming part of one of lord Herbert's later contrivances for
the safety of the castle; but so well had Mr. Salisbury, the
surveyor, managed, that not one of the men employed upon it had an
idea that they were doing more than working the quarry for the
repair of the fortifications.

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