St. George and St. Michael

by George MacDonald

  Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and theDistributed Proofreading Team

  ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL

  BY GEORGE MACDONALD

  IN THREE VOLUMES

  LONDON

  1876

  CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

  CHAPTER I. DOROTHY AND RICHARD.

  CHAPTER II. RICHARD AND HIS FATHER.

  CHAPTER III. THE WITCH.

  CHAPTER IV. A CHAPTER OF FOOLS.

  CHAPTER V. ANIMADVERSIONS.

  CHAPTER VI. PREPARATIONS.

  CHAPTER VII. REFLECTIONS.

  CHAPTER VIII. AN ADVENTURE.

  CHAPTER IX. LOVE AND WAR.

  CHAPTER X. DOROTHY'S REFUGE.

  CHAPTER XI. RAGLAN CASTLE.

  CHAPTER XII. THE TWO MARQUISES.

  CHAPTER XIII. THE MAGICIAN'S VAULT.

  CHAPTER XIV. SEVERAL PEOPLE.

  CHAPTER XV. HUSBAND AND WIFE.

  CHAPTER XVI. DOROTHY'S INITIATION.

  CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

  CHAPTER XVII. THE FIRE-ENGINE.

  CHAPTER XVIII. MOONLIGHT AND APPLE-BLOSSOMS.

  CHAPTER XIX. THE ENCHANTED CHAIR.

  CHAPTER XX. MOLLY AND THE WHITE HORSE.

  CHAPTER XXI. THE DAMSEL WHICH FELL SICK.

  CHAPTER XXII. THE CATARACT.

  CHAPTER XXIII. AMANDA--DOROTHY--LORD HERBERT.

  CHAPTER XXIV. THE GREAT MOGUL.

  CHAPTER XXV. RICHARD HEYWOOD.

  CHAPTER XXVI. THE WITCH'S COTTAGE.

  CHAPTER XXVII. THE MOAT OF THE KEEP.

  CHAPTER XXVIII. RAGLAN STABLES.

  CHAPTER XXIX. THE APPARITION.

  CHAPTER XXX. RICHARD AND THE MARQUIS.

  CHAPTER XXXI. THE SLEEPLESS.

  CHAPTER XXXII. THE TURRET CHAMBER.

  CHAPTER XXXIII. JUDGE GOUT.

  CHAPTER XXXIV. AN EVIL TIME.

  CHAPTER XXXV. THE DELIVERER.

  CHAPTER XXXVI. THE DISCOVERY.

  CHAPTER XXXVII. THE HOROSCOPE.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE EXORCISM.

  CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

  CHAPTER XXXIX. NEWBURY.

  CHAPTER XL. DOROTHY AND ROWLAND.

  CHAPTER XLI. GLAMORGAN.

  CHAPTER XLII. A NEW SOLDIER.

  CHAPTER XLIII. LADY AND BISHOP.

  CHAPTER XLIV. THE KING.

  CHAPTER XLV. THE SECRET INTERVIEW.

  CHAPTER XLVI. GIFTS OF HEALING.

  CHAPTER XLVII. THE POET-PHYSICIAN.

  CHAPTER XLVIII. HONOURABLE DISGRACE.

  CHAPTER XLIX. SIEGE.

  CHAPTER L. A SALLY.

  CHAPTER LI. UNDER THE MOAT.

  CHAPTER LII. THE UNTOOTHSOME PLUM.

  CHAPTER LIII. FAITHFUL FOES.

  CHAPTER LIV. DOMUS DISSOLVITUR.

  CHAPTER LV. R. I. P.

  CHAPTER LVI. RICHARD AND CASPAR.

  CHAPTER LVII. THE SKELETON.

  CHAPTER LVIII. LOVE AND NO LEASING.

  CHAPTER LIX. AVE! VALE! SALVE!

  ST. GEORGE AND ST. MICHAEL.

  CHAPTER I.

  DOROTHY AND RICHARD.

  It was the middle of autumn, and had rained all day. Through thelozenge-panes of the wide oriel window the world appeared in the slowlygathering dusk not a little dismal. The drops that clung trickling tothe dim glass added rain and gloom to the landscape beyond, whither theeye passed, as if vaguely seeking that help in the distance, which thedripping hollyhocks and sodden sunflowers bordering the little lawn, orthe honeysuckle covering the wide porch, from which the slow raindropped ceaselessly upon the pebble-paving below, could not give--steepyslopes, hedge-divided into small fields, some green and dotted with redcattle, others crowded with shocks of bedraggled and drooping corn,which looked suffering and patient.

  The room to which the window having this prospect belonged was large andlow, with a dark floor of uncarpeted oak. It opened immediately upon theporch, and although a good fire of logs blazed on the hearth, was chillyto the sense of the old man, who, with his feet on the skin of afallow-deer, sat gazing sadly into the flames, which shone rosy throughthe thin hands spread out before them. At the opposite corner of thegreat low-arched chimney sat a lady past the prime of life, but stillbeautiful, though the beauty was all but merged in the loveliness thatrises from the heart to the face of such as have taken the greatest stepin life--that is, as the old proverb says, the step out of doors. Shewas plainly yet rather richly dressed, in garments of an old-fashionedand well-preserved look. Her hair was cut short above her forehead, andfrizzed out in bunches of little curls on each side. On her head was acovering of dark stuff, like a nun's veil, which fell behind and on hershoulders. Close round her neck was a string of amber beads, that gave asoft harmonious light to her complexion. Her dark eyes looked as if theyfound repose there, so quietly did they rest on the face of the old man,who was plainly a clergyman. It was a small, pale, thin, delicately andsymmetrically formed face, yet not the less a strong one, with enduranceon the somewhat sad brow, and force in the closed lips, while a goodconscience looked clear out of the grey eyes.

  They had been talking about the fast-gathering tide of opinion which,driven on by the wind of words, had already begun to beat so furiouslyagainst the moles and ramparts of Church and kingdom. The execution oflord Strafford was news that had not yet begun to 'hiss the speaker.'

  'It is indeed an evil time,' said the old man. 'The world has seldomseen its like.'

  'But tell me, master Herbert,' said the lady, 'why comes it in this ourday? For our sins or for the sins of our fathers?'

  'Be it far from me to presume to set forth the ways of Providence!'returned her guest. 'I meddle not, like some that should be wiser, withthe calling of the prophet. It is enough for me to know that ever andagain the pride of man will gather to "a mighty and a fearful head,"and, like a swollen mill-pond overfed of rains, burst the banks thatconfine it, whether they be the laws of the land or the ordinances ofthe church, usurping on the fruitful meadows, the hope of life for manand beast. Alas!' he went on, with a new suggestion from the image hehad been using, 'if the beginning of strife be as the letting out ofwater, what shall be the end of that strife whose beginning is theletting out of blood?'

  'Think you then, good sir, that thus it has always been? that such timesof fierce ungodly tempest must ever follow upon seasons of peace andcomfort?--even as your cousin of holy memory, in his verses concerningthe church militant, writes:

  "Thus also sin and darkness follow still The church and sun, with all their power and skill."'

  'Truly it seems so. But I thank God the days of my pilgrimage are nearlynumbered. To judge by the tokens the wise man gives us, the mourners arealready going about my streets. The almond-tree flourisheth at least.'

  He smiled as he spoke, laying his hand on his grey head.

  'But think of those whom we must leave behind us, master Herbert. Howwill it fare with them?' said the lady in troubled tone, and glancing inthe direction of the window.

  In the window sat a girl, gazing from it with the look of a child whohad uttered all her incantations, and could imagine no abatement in thesteady rain-pour.

  'We shall leave behind us strong hearts and sound heads too,' said Mr.Herbert. 'And I bethink me there will be none stronger or sounder thanthose of your young cousins, my late pupils, of whom I hear brave thingsfrom Oxford, and in whose affection my spirit constantly rejoices.'

  'You will be glad to hear such good news of your relatives, Dorothy,'said the lady, addressing her daughter.

  Even as she said the words, the setting sun broke through the mass ofgrey cloud, and poured over the earth a level flood of radiance, inwhich the red wheat glowed, and the drops that hung on every ear flashedlike diamonds. The girl's hair ca
ught it as she turned her face toanswer her mother, and an aureole of brown-tinted gold gleamed for amoment about her head.

  'I am glad that you are pleased, madam, but you know I have never seenthem--or heard of them, except from master Herbert, who has, indeed,often spoke rare things of them.'

  'Mistress Dorothy will still know the reason why,' said the clergyman,smiling, and the two resumed their conversation. But the girl rose, and,turning again to the window, stood for a moment rapt in thetransfiguration passing upon the world. The vault of grey was utterlyshattered, but, gathering glory from ruin, was hurrying in rosy massesaway from under the loftier vault of blue. The ordered shocks upontwenty fields sent their long purple shadows across the flush; and theevening wind, like the sighing that follows departed tears, was shakingthe jewels from their feathery tops. The sunflowers and hollyhocks nolonger cowered under the tyranny of the rain, but bowed beneath theweight of the gems that adorned them. A flame burned as upon an altar onthe top of every tree, and the very pools that lay on the distant roadhad their message of light to give to the hopeless earth. As she gazed,another hue than that of the sunset, yet rosy too, gradually flushed theface of the maiden. She turned suddenly from the window, and left theroom, shaking a shower of diamonds from the honeysuckle as she passedout through the porch upon the gravel walk.

  Possibly her elders found her departure a relief, for although they tookno notice of it, their talk became more confidential, and was soonmingled with many names both of rank and note, with a familiarity whichto a stranger might have seemed out of keeping with the humblercharacter of their surroundings.

  But when Dorothy Vaughan had passed a corner of the house to anothergarden more ancient in aspect, and in some things quaint even togrotesqueness, she was in front of a portion of the house whichindicated a far statelier past--closed and done with, like the roomswithin those shuttered windows. The inhabited wing she had left lookedlike the dwelling of a yeoman farming his own land; nor did thisappearance greatly belie the present position of the family. Forgenerations it had been slowly descending in the scale of worldlyaccount, and the small portion of the house occupied by the widow anddaughter of sir Ringwood Vaughan was larger than their means could matchwith correspondent outlay. Such, however, was the character of ladyVaughan, that, although she mingled little with the great families inthe neighbourhood, she was so much respected, that she would have been awelcome visitor to most of them.

  The reverend Mr. Matthew Herbert was a clergyman from the Welsh border,a man of some note and influence, who had been the personal friend bothof his late relative George Herbert and of the famous Dr. Donne.Strongly attached to the English church, and recoiling with disgust fromthe practices of the puritans--as much, perhaps, from refinement oftaste as abhorrence of schism--he had never yet fallen into such apassion for episcopacy as to feel any cordiality towards the schemes ofthe archbishop. To those who knew him his silence concerning it was alouder protest against the policy of Laud than the fiercestdenunciations of the puritans. Once only had he been heard to utterhimself unguardedly in respect of the primate, and that was amongstfriends, and after the second glass permitted of his cousin George.'Tut! laud me no Laud,' he said. 'A skipping bishop is worse than askipping king.' Once also he had been overheard murmuring to himself byway of consolement, 'Bishops pass; the church remains.' He had been agreat friend of the late sir Ringwood; and although the distance fromhis parish was too great to be travelled often, he seldom let a year goby without paying a visit to his friend's widow and daughter.

  Turning her back on the cenotaph of their former greatness, Dorothydived into a long pleached alley, careless of the drip from overhead,and hurrying through it came to a circular patch of thin grass, roundedby a lofty hedge of yew-trees, in the midst of which stood what had oncebeen a sun-dial. It mattered little, however, that only the stump of agnomon was left, seeing the hedge around it had grown to such a heightin relation to the diameter of the circle, that it was only for a verybrief hour or so in the middle of a summer's day, when, of all periods,the passage of Time seems least to concern humanity, that it could haveserved to measure his march. The spot had, indeed, a time-forsaken look,as if it lay buried in the bosom of the past, and the present hadforgotten it.

  Before emerging from the alley, she slackened her pace, half-stopped,and, stooping a little in her tucked-up skirt, threw a bird-like glancearound the opener space; then stepping into it, she looked up to thelittle disc of sky, across which the clouds, their roses alreadywithered, sailed dim and grey once more, while behind them the starswere beginning to recall their half-forgotten message from regionsunknown to men. A moment, and she went up to the dial, stood there foranother moment, and was on the point of turning to leave the spot, when,as if with one great bound, a youth stood between her and the entranceof the alley.

  'Ah ha, mistress Dorothy, you do not escape me so!' he cried, spreadingout his arms as if to turn back some runaway creature.

  But mistress Dorothy was startled, and mistress Dorothy did not chooseto be startled, and therefore mistress Dorothy was dignified, if notangry.

  'I do not like such behaviour, Richard,' she said. 'It ill suits withthe time. Why did you hide behind the hedge, and then leap forth sorudely?'

  'I thought you saw me,' answered the youth. 'Pardon my heedlessness,Dorothy. I hope I have not startled you too much.'

  As he spoke he stooped over the hand he had caught, and would havecarried it to his lips, but the girl, half-pettishly, snatched it away,and, with a strange mixture of dignity, sadness, and annoyance in hertone, said--

  'There has been something too much of this, Richard, and I begin to beashamed of it.'

  'Ashamed!' echoed the youth. 'Of what? There is nothing but me to beashamed of, and what can I have done since yesterday?'

  'No, Richard; I am not ashamed of you, but I am ashamed of--of--this wayof meeting--and--and----'

  'Surely that is strange, when we can no more remember the day in whichwe have not met than that in which we met first! No, dear Dorothy----'

  'It is not our meeting, Richard; and if you would but think as honestlyas you speak, you would not require to lay upon me the burden ofexplanation. It is this foolish way we have got into of late--kissinghands--and--and--always meeting by the old sun-dial, or in some otherover-quiet spot. Why do you not come to the house? My mother would giveyou the same welcome as any time these last--how many years, Richard?'

  'Are you quite sure of that, Dorothy?'

  'Well--I did fancy she spoke with something more of ceremony the lasttime you met. But, consider, she has seen so much less of you of late.Yet I am sure she has all but a mother's love in her heart towards you.For your mother was dear to her as her own soul.'

  'I would it were so, Dorothy! For then, perhaps, your mother would notshrink from being my mother too. When we are married, Dorothy--'

  'Married!' exclaimed the girl. 'What of marrying, indeed!' And sheturned sideways from him with an indignant motion. 'Richard,' she wenton, after a marked and yet but momentary pause, for the youth had nothad time to say a word, 'it has been very wrong in me to meet you afterthis fashion. I know it now, for see what such things lead to! If youknew it, you have done me wrong.'

  'Dearest Dorothy!' exclaimed the youth, taking her hand again, of whichthis time she seemed hardly aware, 'did you not know from the veryvanished first that I loved you with all my heart, and that to tell youso would have been to tell the sun that he shines warm at noon inmidsummer? And I did think you had a little--something for me, Dorothy,your old playmate, that you did not give to every other acquaintance.Think of the houses we have built and the caves we have dug together--ofour rabbits, and urchins, and pigeons, and peacocks!'

  'We are children no longer,' returned Dorothy. 'To behave as if we werewould be to keep our eyes shut after we are awake. I like you, Richard,you know; but why this--where is the use of all this--new sort of thing?Come up with me to the house, where master Herbert is now talking to mymother in the la
rge parlour. The good man will be glad to see you.'

  'I doubt it, Dorothy. He and my father, as I am given to understand,think so differently in respect of affairs now pending betwixt theparliament and the king, that--'

  'It were more becoming, Richard, if the door of your lips opened to theking first, and let the parliament follow.'

  'Well said!' returned the youth with a smile. 'But let it be my excusethat I speak as I am wont to hear.'

  The girl's hand had lain quiet in that of the youth, but now it startedfrom it like a scared bird. She stepped two paces back, and drew herselfup.

  'And you, Richard?' she said, interrogatively.

  'What would you ask, Dorothy?' returned the youth, taking a step nearer,to which she responded by another backward ere she replied.

  'I would know whom you choose to serve--whether God or Satan; whetheryou are of those who would set at nought the laws of the land----'

  'Insist on their fulfilment, they say, by king as well as people,'interrupted Richard.

  'They would tear their mother in pieces----'

  'Their mother!' repeated Richard, bewildered.

  'Their mother, the church,' explained Dorothy.

  'Oh!' said Richard. 'Nay, they would but cast out of her the wolves insheep's clothing that devour the lambs.'

  The girl was silent. Anger glowed on her forehead and flashed from hergrey eyes. She stood one moment, then turned to leave him, but halfturned again to say scornfully--

  'I must go at once to my mother! I knew not I had left her with such awolf as master Herbert is like to prove!'

  'Master Herbert is no bishop, Dorothy!'

  'The bishops, then, are the wolves, master Heywood?' said the girl, withgrowing indignation.

  'Dear Dorothy, I am but repeating what I hear. For my own part, I knowlittle of these matters. And what are they to us if we love oneanother?'

  'I tell you I am a child no longer,' flamed Dorothy.

  'You were seventeen last St. George's Day, and I shall be nineteen nextSt. Michael's.'

  'St. George for merry England!' cried Dorothy.

  'St. Michael for the Truth!' cried Richard.

  'So be it. Good-bye, then,' said the girl, going.

  'What DO you mean, Dorothy?' said Richard; and she stood to hear, butwith her back towards him, and, as it were, hovering midway in a pace.'Did not St. Michael also slay his dragon? Why should the knights partcompany? Believe me, Dorothy, I care more for a smile from you than forall the bishops in the church, or all the presbyters out of it.'

  'You take needless pains to prove yourself a foolish boy, Richard; andif I go not to my mother at once, I fear I shall learn to despiseyou--which I would not willingly.'

  'Despise me! Do you take me for a coward then, Dorothy?'

  'I say not that. I doubt not, for the matter of swords and pistols, youare much like other male creatures; but I protest I could never love aman who preferred my company to the service of his king.'

  She glided into the alley and sped along its vaulted twilight, her whitedress gleaming and clouding by fits as she went.

  The youth stood for a moment petrified, then started to overtake her,but stood stock-still at the entrance of the alley, and followed heronly with his eyes as she went.

  When Dorothy reached the house, she did not run up to her room that shemight weep unseen. She was still too much annoyed with Richard to regrethaving taken such leave of him. She only swallowed down a littleballoonful of sobs, and went straight into the parlour, where her motherand Mr. Herbert still sat, and resumed her seat in the bay window. Herheightened colour, an occasional toss of her head backwards, like thatwith which a horse seeks ease from the bearing-rein, generally followedby a renewal of the attempt to swallow something of upward tendency,were the only signs of her discomposure, and none of them were observedby her mother or her guest. Could she have known, however, what feelingshad already begun to rouse themselves in the mind of him whoseboyishness was an offence to her, she would have found it more difficultto keep such composure.

  Dorothy's was a face whose forms were already so decided that, should nosoftening influences from the central regions gain the ascendancy,beyond a doubt age must render it hard and unlovely. In all theroundness and freshness of girlhood, it was handsome rather thanbeautiful, beautiful rather than lovely. And yet it was stronglyattractive, for it bore clear indication of a nature to be trusted. Ifher grey eyes were a little cold, they were honest eyes, with a rarelook of steadfastness; and if her lips were a little too closelypressed, it was clearly from any cause rather than bad temper. Neitherhead, hands, nor feet were small, but they were fine in form andmovement; and for the rest of her person, tall and strong as Richardwas, Dorothy looked further advanced in the journey of life than he.

  She needed hardly, however, have treated his indifference to thepolitics of the time with so much severity, seeing her own acquaintancewith and interest in them dated from that same afternoon, during which,from lack of other employment, and the weariness of a long morning ofslow, dismal rain, she had been listening to Mr. Herbert as he dweltfeelingly on the arrogance of puritan encroachment, and the grossness ofpresbyterian insolence both to kingly prerogative and episcopalauthority, and drew a touching picture of the irritant thwartings andpitiful insults to which the gentle monarch was exposed in his attemptsto support the dignity of his divine office, and to cast its protectingskirt over the defenceless church; and if it was with less sympathy thathe spoke of the fears which haunted the captive metropolitan, Dorothy atleast could detect no hidden sarcasm in the tone in which he expressedhis hope that Laud's devotion to the beauty of holiness might not resultin the dignity of martyrdom, as might well be feared by those who wereassured that the whole guilt of Strafford lay in his return to his duty,and his subsequent devotion to the interests of his royal master: to allthis the girl had listened, and her still sufficiently uncertainknowledge of the affairs of the nation had, ere the talk was over,blossomed in a vague sense of partizanship. It was chiefly her desireafter the communion of sympathy with Richard that had led her into themistake of such a hasty disclosure of her new feelings.

  But her following words had touched him--whether to fine issues or notremained yet poised on the knife-edge of the balancing will. His firstemotion partook of anger. As soon as she was out of sight a spell seemedbroken, and words came.

  'A boy, indeed, mistress Dorothy!' he said. 'If ever it come to whatcertain persons prophesy, you may wish me in truth, and that for thesake of your precious bishops, the boy you call me now. Yes, you areright, mistress, though I would it had been another who told me so! Boyindeed I am--or have been--without a thought in my head but of her. Thesound of my father's voice has been but as the wind of the winnowingfan. In me it has found but chaff. If you will have me take a side,though, you will find me so far worthy of you that I shall take the sidethat seems to me the right one, were all the fair Dorothies of theuniverse on the other. In very truth I should be somewhat sorry to findthe king and the bishops in the right, lest my lady should flatterherself and despise me that I had chosen after her showing, forsooth!This is master Herbert's doing, for never before did I hear her speakafter such fashion.'

  While he thus spoke with himself, he stood, like the genius of the spot,a still dusky figure on the edge of the night, into which his dress ofbrown velvet, rich and sombre at once in the sunlight, all but merged.Nearly for the first time in his life he was experiencing the difficultyof making up his mind, not, however, upon any of the importantquestions, his inattention to which had exposed him to such sudden andunexpected severity, but merely as to whether he should seek her againin the company of her mother and Mr. Herbert, or return home. The resultof his deliberation, springing partly, no doubt, from anger, but that ofno very virulent type, was, that he turned his back on the alley, passedthrough a small opening in the yew hedge, crossed a neglected corner ofwoodland, by ways better known to him than to any one else, and came outupon the main road leading to the gates of hi
s father's park.