Volume Ii Part 3 (1/2)
”She brings me a-mind o' my mither,” said Gibbie--but he got not time to proceed; for after she had exhausted the contents of her caldron on the intruders, she attacked them with burning coals and pieces of wood.
These she dashed among them with such desperate force, that part of them sought refuge in retreat. Not so our redoubted friar. He gave the lamp out of his hand to the laird, bidding him take care of it, and turning his back toward her, and running backward for fear of farther injury to his face and eyes, he seized the witch by the frock, and putting his arm round both hers to restrain them, he held her fast to his side. In doing so, he uncovered the cross that hung at his girdle. When she saw this, and that her body was pressed against it, she uttered the most horrified howlings, and appeared to be falling into convulsions. Nevertheless, the friar kept his hold. He let her scream on, and, dragging her toward the door, said unto her, ”Thou wicked one! as thy works have been, so shall be thy reward; and as thou hast sown, so also shalt thou reap. Come with me, and I will put thee into a place where thou shalt cease from troubling.”
Without more ado, he bore her away to the vault where lay her surly and unyielding a.s.sociate, beside his ma.s.s of dry human bones; and forcing her in, he locked them up together, saying, as he turned the ma.s.sy bolt, ”Lo, the gates of iron and of bra.s.s close upon thee! the bolts of steel are drawn around thy dwelling! There shalt thou remain, and there shall thy flesh be consumed, unless thou repentest thee of the evil that thou hast done.”
There was a shrewd smile on the friar's face as he said this, as of one who either did not mean to put his threat in execution, or marvelled how it was that he should thus be lording it in the castle of Aikwood, and imprisoning whom he would.
Never till that instant did any of the party miss their friend and champion, Charlie Scott; but when they turned from the door of the prison to consult what was to be done next, behold he was wanting This caused them great dismay, but the friar most of all.
”Wo is me!” cried he: ”How is the mighty departed, and the pillar of our strength moved out of its place! As well may they take my head from my body, and say unto me live, as bid us go on and prosper without that mighty man.”
The poor waggoner must again return from the top of the hill, and bring up the most important and weighty part of his cargo; no less a load than muckle Charlie Scott, laird of Yardbire, and the far famed warlock and necromancer, Master Michael Scott.
The mighty uproar that Charlie made at the head of the stair, when he believed the devil to be on the steps, aroused the great necromancer from his nocturnal experiments, all of which were of an infernal kind.
At such hours as these his capacious mind was abstracted from all worldly concerns, such as other mortals busy themselves about. If any thing sublunary engaged his studies and calculations, it was how to make the living die and the dead to live,--how to remove mountains out of their places, to turn the sea into dry land, and the fields into a billowy and briny ocean,--or in any way counteract nature in her goings on. In some of these great enterprises was he doubtlessly engaged that morning, when the voice of Charlie Scott astounded his ears.
Often had hosts of demons mustered at his call in the castle of Aikwood, and the yelling sounds of the infernals were no strangers to his ears; but never had he heard such a potent voice before as that sent forth by Charlie, when he conceived himself cooped up between the devil and a bolted door. Conceived did I say? No: Charlie saw distinctly, by this time, an indefinable being coming slowly up to him. Saint Peter! as he did thresh the warlock's door. ”Is there any body here? Hilloa! Open the door I say.” Thump, thump, thump!
The bolt inside was drawn, and, owing to the strong pressure without, the door flew wide open at once. Charlie perceiving the light, and fearless of ought but the figure behind him, rushed into the room, and made toward the fire. The door was instantly shut behind him with a loud and furious clash; and Charlie then turning around, got the first look of the inmate. He was a boardly muscular man, somewhat emaciated in his appearance, with a strong bushy beard that flowed to his girdle, of a hue that had once been jet black, but was now slightly tinted with grey.
His eyes were uncommonly bright and piercing, but they had some resemblance to the eyes of a serpent. He wore on his head a turban of crimson velvet, ornamented with mystic figures in gold, and on the front of it was a star of many dazzling colours. The rest of his body was wrapped in a mantle or gown, striped with all the hues of the rainbow, and many more.
Charlie's eye had lately been lighted up with terror, but as it fell on the majestic figure of Master Michael Scott, its wild gleam softened into respect, and he saluted him with his quick, abrupt, border bow, which rather resembled the motion made by a raven beckoning from his rock as he wakes the surrounding echoes, than the slow and graceful courtesy then so well understood among the great. Michael still kept his erect posture at the back of the door, fixing on our yeoman an indignant and angry glance. That look conjured up a little more of Charlie's breeding; he doffed his steel bonnet with the one hand, stroked down the hair of his forehead with the other, and gave the master another bow, or rather a nod.
”Gude e'en t'ye, Sir; I fancy you're the lord o' this castle?” said Charlie.
”You fancy so, do you?” said the Master with a sneer; and giving three tramps with his heel on the floor, in one moment the three pages, Prig, Prim, and p.r.i.c.ker, stood beside him.
”Work, Master, work,--what work now?”
”Take that burly thief and housebreaker, bind him, and put him to the test.”
”Stop short there, my good masters, till I speak t'ye, said Charlie, ”I'm neither a housebreaker nor a thief, but a leel man, our warden's kinsman, and your ain, Master Michael Scott. I came here on fair and honourable service, and I have been guidit waur than a tike; and I'll just tell you plainly, for I'm rather an e'en-down chap, that if ane o'
thae brats dare but to touch me, I'll tak my hand aff his haffet in sic a way that he sanna grene to lay foul finger on a gentleman again.”
The three pages fell a giggling at this speech, and one of them brushed forward and seized Charlie with a force of which he had no conception.
But he was one that never suffered any personal attack with impunity. He drew a stroke with his clenched fist, and aimed such a blow at the page's head, that, if he had had a head like other pages, would have smashed it to pieces. Charlie hit no head at all. He struck a thing of nought. But the force of his arm was such, that, about two yards farther on, he hit an apparatus of curious construction, which he called ”a machine for setting the wind on fire,” and which he made to fly all in flinders against the wall. The Master's eye kindled with rage; but the three urchins, who delighted in nothing but mischief, laughed still the louder, and pressed all forward on Charlie. He had been a little astounded at missing the page's head; but, being somewhat fl.u.s.tered, he had not leisure to reflect, and his conceptions were naturally none of the most acute; so, for the present, he took it for a miss. But seeing they purposed to lay violent hands on him, he sprung back into the middle of the room, in order to command weapon s.p.a.ce; and drawing out the Eskdale souple, he stood on the defensive in a most determined posture.
The pertinacious elves wheeled also backward, taking a circle round behind the Master, and advanced on him all abreast. Good Lord, with what might Charlie struck at them! He came on them with a hew that he meant should cut them all three through the middle at once. But he, a second time, struck on vacancy. The sword whistled through the void, taking Charlie round with it, and demolis.h.i.+ng almost every thing that was in the room. The pages screamed with delight, but Michael foamed with fury. Charlie paid no regard either to him or the devastation he had made among his utensils; but, springing round the board to the other side of the room, said, in a loud perturbed voice: ”Tell me just this ae thing, Michael,--are thae three creatures deils? Because an they be deils, I hae nae mair chance wi' them than a cat. But as for yoursel, goodman, I ken ye are flesh and blood, and o' my ain kith and kin,” (and with that he seized Michael by the throat,) ”therefore, either gar thae h.e.l.licats gang about their business, or, by Him that made us, I'll thraw your neck about.”
Whether it was the might of the enchanter himself, or that of his bond spirits, Charlie wist not; but in one moment after that his feet were tripped from beneath him, and he was laid on his back on the floor.
There he was held by a might against which his great strength could not prevail, bound with cords, and stretched on the board. The Master and his familiars then conversed in Latin, a language of which Charlie knew but little, having never been at court; but he heard they were conversing about his baptism. Charlie had not got much time in his life to think about these sacred rites, yet he had always held them in proper respect and veneration; and at that time he blessed the hour he had been presented in holy church, having strong hopes that on that account the powers of h.e.l.l would not prevail against him. The elves loosed his buff-belt, and unclasped his steel-doublet, laying his manly bosom quite bare. The Master gave them directions in Latin, and each of them went and brought a long knife with two edges, sharp as a razor, and having a point like a lance.
”I didna trow that there had been ought sae misleared in nature as this,” said Charlie. ”It's no that I'm ony feared for death. I hae looked him ower often i' the face to blench at his ca': but I wad just hae liket to hae fa'en i' the field wi' my sword i' my hand, and no to be cut up like a Christmas pye, and carved a' into collops by a wheen d.a.m.ned deils.”
One of them prepared to cut open his breast, and another his belly; but a moment's dispute taking place between them in some unknown tongue, about the mode, as Charlie believed, he crossed himself as well as he could with his bound hands, and p.r.o.nounced a sacred name into himself.
That instant he perceived the pages fall a-trembling, and stand back; their faces blenched with dread, and the weapons fell from their hands.
The Master was wroth, and ordered them to proceed, as Charlie weened by his motions; but, instead of that, they retired trembling into a corner.