St. George and St. Michael

by George MacDonald

  CHAPTER IV.

  A CHAPTER OF FOOLS.

  The same afternoon, as it happened, a little company of rustics, who hadjust issued from the low hatch-door of the village inn, stood for amoment under the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung huskilycreaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then passed on to theroad, and took their way together.

  'Hope you then,' said one of them, as continuing their previousconversation, 'that we shall escape unhurt? It is a parlous business.Not as one of us is afeard as I knows on. But the old earl, he do have amost unregenerate temper, and you had better look to 't, my masters.'

  'I tell thee, master Upstill, it's not the old earl as I'm afeard on,but the young lord. For thou knows as well as ere a one it be notwithout cause that men do call him a wizard, for a wizard he be, andthat of the worst sort.'

  'We shall be out again afore sundown, shannot we?' said another. 'That Itrust.'

  'Up to the which hour the High Court of Parliament assembled will havepower to protect its own--eh, John Croning?'

  'Nay, that I cannot tell. It be a parlous job, and for mine own part,whether for the love I bear to the truth, or the hatred I cherish towardthe scarlet Antichrist, with her seven tails--'

  'Tush, tush, John! Seven heads, man, and ten horns. Those are thenumbers master Flowerdew read.'

  'Nay, I know not for your horns; but for the rest I say seven tails. Didnot honest master Flowerdew set forth unto us last meeting that thescarlet woman sat upon seven hills--eh? Have with you there, masterSycamore!'

  'Well, for the sake of sound argument, I grant you. But we ha' got to dowith no heads nor no tails, neither--save and except as you may say thesting is in the tail; and then, or I greatly mistake, it's not seventimes seven as will serve to count the stings, come of the tails whatmay.'

  'Very true,' said another; 'it be the stings and not the tails we wantnews of. But think you his lordship will yield them up withoutgainsaying to us the messengers of the High Parliament now assembled?'

  'For mine own part,' said John Croning, 'though I fear it come of theold Adam yet left in me, I do count it a sorrowful thing that the earlshould be such a vile recusant. He never fails with a friendly word, orit may be a jest--a foolish jest--but honest, for any one gentle orsimple he may meet. More than once has he boarded me in that fashion.What do you think he said to me, now, one day as I was a mowin' of thegrass in the court, close by the white horse that spout up the waterhigh as a house from his nose-drills? Says he to me--for he come downthe grand staircase, and steps out and spies me at the work with my oldscythe, and come across to me, and says he, "Why, Thomas," says he, notknowin' of my name, "Why, Thomas," says he, "you look like old Timehimself a mowing of us all down," says he. "For sure, my lord," says I,"your lordship reads it aright, for all flesh is grass, and all theglory of man is as the flower of the field." He look humble at that,for, great man as he be, his earthly tabernacle, though more thansizeable, is but a frail one, and that he do know. And says he, "Wheredid you read that, Thomas?" "I am not a larned man, please yourlordship," says I, "and I cannot honestly say I read it nowheres, but Iheerd the words from a book your lordship have had news of: they do callit the Holy Bible. But they tell me that they of your lordship'spersuasion like it not." "You are very much mistaken there, Thomas,"says he. "I read my Bible most days, only not the English Bible, whichis full of errors, but the Latin, which is all as God gave it," says he.And thereby I had not where to answer withal.'

  'I fear you proved a poor champion of the truth, master Croning.'

  'Confess now, Cast-down Upstill, had he not both sun and wind ofme--standing, so to say, on his own hearth-stone? Had it not been so, Icould have called hard names with the best of you, though that is byrights the gift of the preachers of the truth. See how the good masterFlowerdew excelleth therein, sprinkling them abroad from thewatering-pot of the gospel. Verily, when my mind is too feeble to grasphis argument, my memory lays fast hold upon the hard names, and while Ihold by them, I have it all in a nutshell.'

  Fortified occasionally by a pottle of ale, and keeping their spiritsconstantly stirred by much talking, they had been all day occupied insearching the Catholic houses of the neighbourhood for arms. Whatauthority they had for it never came to be clearly understood. Plainlythey believed themselves possessed of all that was needful, or such menwould never have dared it. As it was, they prosecuted it with such abold front, that not until they were gone did it occur to some, who hadyielded what arms they possessed, to question whether they had donewisely in acknowledging such fellows as parliamentary officials withoutdemanding their warrant. Their day's gleanings up to this point--ofswords and pikes, guns and pistols, they had left in charge of the hostof the inn whence they had just issued, and were now bent on crowningtheir day's triumph with a supreme act of daring--the renown of whichthey enlarged in their own imaginations, while undermining the courageneedful for its performance, by enhancing its terrors as they went.

  At length two lofty hexagonal towers appeared, and the consciousnessthat the final test of their resolution drew nigh took immediate form ina fluttering at the heart, which, however, gave no outward sign but thatof silence; and indeed they were still too full of the importance ofunaccustomed authority to fear any contempt for it on the part ofothers.

  It happened that at this moment Raglan Castle was full of merry-makingupon occasion of the marriage of one of lady Herbert'swaiting-gentlewomen to an officer of the household; and in thesefestivities the earl of Worcester and all his guests were taking a part.

  Among the numerous members of the household was one who, from being aturnspit, had risen, chiefly in virtue of an immovably lugubriousexpression of countenance, to be the earl's fool. From this peculiarityhis fellow-servants had given him the nickname of The Hangman; but theman himself had chosen the role of a puritan parson, as affording thebest ground-work for the display of a humour suitable to the expressionof countenance with which his mother had endowed him. That mother wasGoody Rees, concerning whom, as already hinted, strange things werewhispered. In the earlier part of his career the fool had notunfrequently found his mother's reputation a sufficient shelter frompersecution; and indeed there might have been reason to suppose that itwas for her son's sake she encouraged her own evil repute, a distinctioninvolving considerable risk, seeing the time had not yet arrived whenthe disbelief in such powers was sufficiently advanced for the safety ofthose reported to possess them. In her turn, however, she ran a risksomewhat less than ordinary from the fact that her boy was a domestic inthe family of one whose eldest son, the heir to the earldom, lay under asimilar suspicion; for not a few of the household were far fromsatisfied that lord Herbert's known occupations in the Yellow Tower werenot principally ostensible, and that he and his man had nothing to dowith the black art, or some other of the many regions of occult sciencein which the ambition after unlawful power may hopefully exerciseitself.

  Upon occasion of a family fete, merriment was in those days carriedfurther, on the part of both masters and servants, than in the greatlyaltered relations and conditions of the present day would be desirable,or, indeed, possible. In this instance, the fun broke out in thearranging of a mock marriage between Thomas Rees, commonly called TomFool, and a young girl who served under the cook. Half the jest lay inthe contrast between the long face of the bridegroom, both congenitallyand wilfully miserable, and that of the bride, broad as a harvest moon,and rosy almost to purple. The bridegroom never smiled, and spoke withhis jaws rather than his lips; while the bride seldom uttered a syllablewithout grinning from ear to ear, and displaying a marvellousappointment of huge and brilliant teeth. Entering solemnly into thejoke, Tom expressed himself willing to marry the girl, but represented,as an insurmountable difficulty, that he had no clothes for theoccasion. Thereupon the earl, drawing from his pocket his bunch of keys,directed him to go and take what he liked from his wardrobe. Now theearl was a man of large circumference, and the fool as lank in person asin countenance.

 
; Tom took the keys and was some time gone, during which many conjectureswere hazarded as to the style in which he would choose to appear. Whenhe re-entered the great hall, where the company was assembled, the roarof laughter which followed his appearance made the glass of its greatcupola ring again. For not merely was he dressed in the earl's beaverhat and satin cloak, splendid with plush and gold and silver lace, buthe had indued a corresponding suit of his clothes as well, even to hissilk stockings, garters, and roses, and with the help of many pillowsand other such farcing, so filled the garments which otherwise had hungupon him like a shawl from a peg, and made of himself such a 'sweetcreature of bombast' that, with ludicrous unlikeness of countenance, hebore in figure no distant resemblance to the earl himself.

  Meantime lady Elizabeth had been busy with the scullery-maid, whom shehad attired in a splendid brocade of her grandmother's, with allsuitable belongings of ruff, high collar, and lace wings, such as QueenElizabeth is represented with in Oliver's portrait. Upon her appearance,a few minutes after Tom's, the laughter broke out afresh, in redoubledpeals, and the merriment was at its height, when the warder of one ofthe gates entered and whispered in his master's ear the arrival of thebumpkins, and their mission announced, he informed his lordship, withall the importance and dignity they knew how to assume. The earl burstinto a fresh laugh. But presently it quavered a little and ceased, whileover the amusement still beaming on his countenance gathered a slightshade of anxiety, for who could tell what tempest such a mere whirlingof straws might not forerun?

  A few words of the warder's had reached Tom where he stood a littleaside, his solemn countenance radiating disapproval of the tumultuousfolly around him. He took three strides towards the earl.

  'Wherein lieth the new jest?' he asked, with dignity.

  'A set of country louts, my lord,' answered the earl, 'are at the gate,affirming the right of search in this your lordship's house of Raglan.'

  'For what?'

  'Arms, my lord.'

  'And wherefore? On what ground?'

  'On the ground that your lordship is a vile recusant--a papist, andtherefore a traitor, no doubt, although they use not the word,' said theearl.

  'I shall be round with them,' said Tom, embracing the assumedproportions in front of him, and turning to the door.

  Ere the earl had time to conceive his intent, he had hurried from thehall, followed by fresh shouts of laughter. For he had forgotten tostuff himself behind, and, when the company caught sight of his back ashe strode out, the tenuity of the foundation for such a 'huge hill offlesh' was absurd as Falstaff's ha'p'orth of bread to the 'intolerabledeal of sack.'

  But the next moment the earl had caught the intended joke, and althougha trifle concerned about the affair, was of too mirth-loving a nature tointerfere with Tom's project, the result of which would doubtless behighly satisfactory--at least to those not primarily concerned. Heinstantly called for silence, and explained to the assembly what hebelieved to be Tom Fool's intent, and as there was nothing to be seenfrom the hall, the windows of which were at a great height from thefloor, and Tom's scheme would be fatally imperilled by the visiblepresence of spectators, from some at least of whom gravity of demeanourcould not be expected, gave hasty instructions to several of his sonsand daughters to disperse the company to upper windows having a view ofone or the other court, for no one could tell where the fool's humourmight find its principal arena. The next moment, in the plain dress ofrough brownish cloth, which he always wore except upon state occasions,he followed the fool to the gate, where he found him talking through thewicket-grating to the rustics, who, having passed drawbridge andportcullises, of which neither the former had been raised nor the latterlowered for many years, now stood on the other side of the gatedemanding admittance. In the parley, Tom Fool was imitating his master'svoice and every one of the peculiarities of his speech to perfection,addressing them with extreme courtesy, as if he took them for gentlemenof no ordinary consideration,--a point in his conception of his partwhich he never forgot throughout the whole business. To the dismay ofhis master he was even more than admitting, almost boasting, that therewas an enormous quantity of weapons in the castle--sufficient at leastto arm ten thousand horsemen!--a prodigious statement, for, at theuttermost, there was not more than the tenth part of that amount--stilla somewhat larger provision no doubt than the intruders had expected tofind! The pseudo-earl went on to say that the armoury consisted of onestrong room only, the door of which was so cunningly concealed andsecured that no one but himself knew where it was, or if found couldopen it. But such he said was his respect to the will of the most augustparliament, that he would himself conduct them to the said armoury, anddeliver over upon the spot into their safe custody the whole mass ofweapons to carry away with them. And thereupon he proceeded to open thegate.

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

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

  'What can the rascal mean?' said the earl to himself; but he told theman to carry the fool's message exactly as he had received it, andquietly followed Tom and his companions, some of whom, conceiving freshimportance from the overstrained politeness with which they had beenreceived, were now attempting a transformation of their usual lounderinggait into a martial stride, with the result of a foolish strut, veryunlike the dignified progress of the sham earl, whose weak back rousedin them no suspicion, and who had taken care they should not see hisface. 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 asombre dusk, echoing to every step as they passed through it. They didnot see the flash of eyes and glimmer of smiles from the minstrel'sgallery, and the solitude, size, and gloom had, even on their dullnatures, a palpable influence. The whole castle seemed deserted as theyfollowed the false earl across the second court--with the true onestealing after them like a knave--little imagining that bright eyes werewatching them from the curtains of every window like stars from theclear spaces and cloudy edges of heaven. To the north-west corner of thecourt he led them, and through a sculptured doorway up the straight wideascent of stone called the grand staircase. At the top he turned to theright, along a dim corridor, from which he entered a suite of bedroomsand dressing-rooms, over whose black floors he led the tramplinghob-nailed shoes without pity either for their polish or the labour ofthe housemaids in restoring it.

  In this way he reached the stair in the bell-tower, ascending which hebrought them into a narrow dark passage ending again in a downwardstair, at the foot of which they found themselves in the longpicture-gallery, having entered it in the recess of one of its largewindows. At the other end of the gallery he crossed into thedining-room, then through an ante-chamber entered the drawing-room,where the ladies, apprised of their approach, kept still behind curtainsand high chairs, until they had passed through, on their way to crossthe archway of the main entrance, and through the library gain theregion of household economy and cookery. Thither I will not drag myreader after them. Indeed the earl, who had been dogging them like aFate, ever emerging on their track but never beheld, had already beganto pay his part of the penalty of the joke in fatigue, for he was notonly unwieldy in person, but far from robust, being very subject togout. He owed his good spirits to a noble nature, and not to animalwell-being. When they cros
sed from the picture-gallery to thedining-room, he went down the stair between, and into the oak-parlouradjoining the great hall. There he threw himself into an easy chairwhich always stood for him in the great bay window, looking over themoat to the huge keep of the castle, and commanding through its westernlight 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 theguard, waited the result.

  As for his double, he went stalking on in front of his victims, neverturning to show his face; he knew they would follow, were it but for thefear of being left alone. Close behind him they kept, scarce daring towhisper from growing awe of the vast place. The fumes of the beer had bythis time evaporated, and the heavy obscurity which pervaded the wholebuilding enhanced their growing apprehensions. On and on the fool ledthem, up and down, going and returning, but ever in new tracks, for themarvellous old place was interminably burrowed with connecting passagesand communications of every sort--some of them the merest ducts whichhad to be all but crept through, and which would have certainly arrestedthe progress of the earl had he followed so far: no one about the placeunderstood its "crenkles" so well as Tom. For the greater part of anhour 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 agloomy chamber, where one could not see the face of another, thepseudo-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, thatbefore undertaking to guide you to the armoury, I should have acquaintedyou with the strange fact that at times I am myself unable to find theplace of which we are in search; and I begin to fear it is so now, andthat we are at this moment the sport of a certain member of my family ofwhom it may be your worships have heard things not more strange thantrue. Against his machinations I am powerless. All that is left us is togo 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, andcome to you again?' said the mock earl, making as if he would leavethem.

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

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

  For Raglan Castle had this peculiarity, that its keep was surrounded bya 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 couldreach it. On to the bridge Tom led the way, followed by his dupes--nowfull in the view of the earl where he sat in his parlour window. Whenthey had reached the centre of it, however, and glancing up at the awfulbulk of stone towering above them, its walls strangely dented andfurrowed, so as to such as they, might well suggest frightful means towicked ends, they stood stock-still, refusing to go a step further;while their chief speaker, Upstill, emboldened by anger, fear, and themeek behaviour of the supposed earl, broke out in a torrent ofarrogance, wherein his intention was to brandish the terrors of the HighParliament over the heads of his lordship of Worcester and allrecusants. He had not got far, however, before a shrill whistle piercedthe air, and the next instant arose a chaos of horrible, appalling, andharrowing noises, 'such a roaring,' in the words of their own report ofthe matter to the reverend master Flowerdew, 'as if the mouth of hellhad been wide open, and all the devils conjured up'--doubtless theymeant by the arts of the wizard whose dwelling was that same tower offearful fame before which they now stood. The skin-contracting chill ofterror uplifted their hair. The mystery that enveloped the origin of thesounds gave them an unearthliness which froze the very fountains oftheir life, and rendered them incapable even of motion. They stared ateach other with a ghastly observance, which descried no comfort, onlylike images of horror. 'Man's hand is not able to taste' how long theymight have thus stood, nor 'his tongue to conceive' what theconsequences might have been, had not a more healthy terror presentlysupervened. Across the tumult of sounds, like a fiercer flash throughthe flames of a furnace, shot a hideous, long-drawn yell, and the sameinstant came a man running at full speed through the archway from thecourt, casting terror-stricken glances behind him, and shouting with avoice 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 bytaking so much pleasure in the lions at the Tower, strange beasts hadbeen kept in the castle of Raglan.

  The new terror broke the spell of the old, and the parliamentarycommissioners fled. But which was the way from the castle? Which thepath to the lions' den? In an agony of horrible dread, they rushedhither and thither about the court, where now the white horse, as steadyas marble, should be when first they crossed it, was, to their excitedvision, prancing wildly about the great basin from whose charmed circlehe could not break, foaming, at the mouth, and casting huge water-jetsfrom his nostrils into the perturbed air; while from the surface of themoat 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 theelemental tumult was mingled the howling of wild beasts. The doors ofthe hall and the gates to the bowling green being shut, the poorwretches could not find their way out of the court, but ran from door todoor like madmen, only to find all closed against them. From everywindow around the court--from the apartments of the waiting gentlewomen,from the picture-gallery, from the officers' rooms, eager and merry eyeslooked down on the spot, themselves unseen and unsuspected, for allvoices were hushed, and for anything the bumpkins heard or saw theymight have been in a place deserted of men, and possessed only by evilspirits, whose pranks were now tormenting them. At last Upstill, who hadfallen on the bridge at his first start, and had ever since been rushingabout with a limp and a leap alternated, managed to open the door of thehall, and its eastern door having been left open, shot across and intothe outer court, where he made for the gate, followed at varied distanceby the rest of the routed commissioners of search, as each haddiscovered the way his forerunner fled. With trembling hands Upstillraised the latch of the wicket, and to his delight found it unlocked. Hedarted through, passed the twin portcullises, and was presentlythundering over the drawbridge, which, trembling under his heavy steps,seemed on the point of rising to heave him back into the jaws of thelion, or, worse still, the clutches of the enchanter. Not one lookedbehind him, not even when, having passed through the white stone gate,also purposely left open for their escape, and rattled down themultitude of steps that told how deep was the moat they had justcrossed, where the last of them nearly broke his neck by rolling almostfrom top to bottom, they reached the outermost, the brick gate, and soleft the awful region of enchantment and feline fury commingled. Notuntil the castle was out of sight, and their leader had sunk senselesson the turf by the roadside, did they dare a backward look. The momenthe came to himself they started again for home, at what poor speed theycould make, and reached the Crown and Mitre in sad plight, where,however, they found some compensation in the pleasure of setting forththeir adventures--with the heroic manner in which, although vanquishedby the irresistible force of enchantment, they had yet brought off theirforces without the loss of a single man. Their story spread over thecountry, enlarged and embellished at every fresh stage in its progress.

  When the tale reached mother Rees, it filled her with fresh awe of thegreat magician, the renowned lord Herbert. She little thought the wholeaffair was a jest of her own son's. Firmly believing in all kinds ofmagic and witchcraft, but as innocent of conscious dealing with thepowers of ill as the whitest-winged angel betwixt earth's garret andheaven's threshold, she owed her evil repute amongst her neighbours to arare therapeutic faculty, accompanied by a keen sympathetic instinct,which greatly sharpened her powers of observation in t
he quest afterwhat was amiss; while her touch was so delicate, so informed withpresent mind, and came therefore into such rapport with any livingorganism, the secret of whose suffering it sought to discover, thatsprained muscles, dislocated joints, and broken bones seemed at its softapproach to re-arrange their disturbed parts, and yield to the power ofher composing will as to a re-ordering harmony. Add to this, that sheunderstood more of the virtues of some herbs than any doctor in theparish, which, in the condition of general practice at the time, is notperhaps to say much, and that she firmly believed in the might ofcertain charms, and occasionally used them--and I have given reasonenough why, while regarded by all with disapprobation--she should be bymany both courted and feared. For her own part she had a leaning to thepuritans, chiefly from respect to the memory of a good-hearted, weak,but intellectually gifted, and, therefore, admired husband; but theridicule of her yet more gifted son had a good deal shaken thispredilection, so that she now spent what powers of discrimination andchoice she possessed solely upon persons, heedless of principles inthemselves, and regarding them only in their vital results. Hence, itwas a matter of absolute indifference to her which of the parties nowdividing the country was in the right, or which should lose, which win,provided no personal evil befel the men or women for whom she cherisheda preference. Like many another, she was hardly aware of thejurisdiction of conscience, save in respect of immediate personalrelations.