The Three Perils of Man Volume Ii Part 8

A long discussion now commenced between the friar and the Master, on the principles which each of them professed. That colloquy is too serious, and too tedious, to be copied at full length in this place; but it amounted simply to this,--That the one considered the Christian Revelation as the source of all that is good, wise, or great among men.

The other had disbelieved it from his youth upward; and, not being able to come to any conclusion from ought he could learn among men, he had besought communion with the potent spirits of the elements; and, after seven years of unparalleled suffering, such as cannot be named, had attained what he sought. These had confirmed him in his infidelity. He had entered into a league with them, renouncing, for ever and ever, all right in a Redeemer, and signing the covenant with his own blood. That afterwards he had rejoiced in this fellows.h.i.+p, which had enabled him to do deeds such as no other man could perform, till by degrees he discovered that the meanest professor of the religion of Jesus, if influenced by faith and sincerity, had the power of counteracting these mighty spirits, and of frustrating their highest intents. That then his eyes were opened when it was too late, and he only believed in time to tremble and despair. The friar urged the inexhaustible riches of heavenly mercy; but the Master spurned at it, declaring his resolution to abide by his covenant, whatever his fate might be. He despised the very name and nature of repentance, and would rather suffer with the colleagues he had chosen, he said, than whine and cringe to another master,--"Though I now feel to my sorrow that they are subordinate,"

added he, "yet are they mighty and powerful, beyond what thou canst comprehend; and why may not I be a sharer in their energies in a future existence as well as in this?"

The friar gazed and trembled when he heard the wild and erratic ideas of this extraordinary man; and, ceasing to reason further with him, he enquired how it came that some of these mighty a.s.sociates of his were his enemies, and seemed but to watch an opportunity of tearing him in pieces.

"They are jealous of their rights, and capricious beyond all conception," said he. "The utmost circ.u.mspection is not fit to keep on fair and equal terms with them. Even yet I do not know but that this is to be my last night here. If I have gone beyond my commission in the orders I have given, then am I doomed to be their bond slave for ages: but if I am within my limited bounds, and the work is effected, then shall I still be obeyed for a time and a season. Would that it were morning that I might know the worst!"

"Scarcely dost thou need to express thy wish again," said the friar; "for, lo, the day dawneth in the east, and the shadows flee away before it; the winds have gone to their chambers to sleep, and the rains are over and gone. Let us walk forth and see how the darkness fadeth before the face of the day, and all that is stirring abroad on the fair face of the creation."

The Master did not move, for it was yet but twilight, and nothing could be seen distinctly; but the friar stepped down to the battlements, and Charlie, who looked on him as their only safeguard, followed. The poet would doubtless have followed also to have seen the dawn of the morning after a storm; but, like all the rhyming race to this day, he was enslaved by the eyes of a maid, languished in chains, and could not move but as she moved. Alas for the poor amorous poet! The others lay in a sluggish and restless slumber.

The friar and the bold yeoman strode together along the paved way, and looked abroad; but they could see only the clouds whitening in the eastern horizon, without being able to distinguish wood from waste, or land from water.

"Let us kneel down and pray, my son," said the friar, "even in this quiet place, where we shall be freed from the interruptions of the wicked one; for great and manifold are the dangers that surround us. I see not what remains for us, but either to throw ourselves from the walls and perish, or remain where we are and feed upon one another."

"It is an awsome eternitive, man," answered Charlie; "I'm sure an ye think praying will do ony good, I shall take off my bonnet and kneel down on my knees, and hearken weel; but what mair can I do?"

"You can join with me in spirit, my son," said the friar, "and pray with your heart."

"I am sure, gin I but kend the process, I am very willing," said Charlie. With that he took off his steel belted bonnet, and kneeled reverendly beside the friar, who prayed so fervently and sublimely for deliverance, that Charlie looked about every minute, not only then, but all that morning, to see by what means they were to be delivered; for he had no doubt but they would be set free to a certainty, and that in a very short time.

When they arose, the first word that the friar said was the following fervent exclamation--"Blessed Virgin! What do I see?"

Charlie looked all about for some approaching miracle; he had even some hopes of seeing a detachment from the warden's army; but his eye ranged the dusky fields in vain.

"What a strange world we live in!" rejoined the friar: "Yea surely there are things in heaven and in the earth, and in the waters,--yea many things, of which man knoweth nothing! Why art thou gazing abroad on all nature, my son? Turn thine eyes toward the east, and tell me what thou seest."

Charlie did so; and, on the instant, the two friends were standing fixed in amazement like two statues. They moved not, save, now and then, to steal a momentary glance at each other. The great mountain of Eildon was actually rent in pieces from the top to its very foundations, and piled up in three towering spiral mountains, as they remain to this day.

Only at that time they were taller, darker, and more uniform.

It was a scene of wonder not to be understood, and awfully impressive.

The two rivers flowed down their respective vallies, and met below the castle like two branching seas, and every little streamlet roared and foamed like a river. The hills had a wan, bleached appearance, many of the trees of the forest were s.h.i.+vered; and, towering up against the eastern sky, there stood the three romantic hills of Eildon, where before there was but one.

The friar was the first to move from his trance, stepping away in deep meditation. Charlie was by this time likewise released from the spell, and he ran to the door of the high chamber, calling aloud, "Come a' out, sirs, come a' out. The like o' this was never seen sin the warld stood up!"

They came forth accordingly, and their consternation was correspondent to the extraordinary event. But when the Master came out, and saw what was done, he shouted, and leaped on the battlement like one frantic, boasting, and uttering words of terrible blasphemy. He looked on the mountain of Cope-Law, and he could scarcely believe his eyes when he beheld it standing in one unskaithed unbroken cone, as it had done for ages. He looked again to the three mountains of Eildon, and his exultation and blasphemous boasting was redoubled.

"So, all that you and your master can effect," cried he, "is to throw a little glamour on the sight,--is to practise a little deception! I never weened the monkish art or profession to consist of more. See what my sovereign and master can do!"

"Hold there," said the friar. "Who was it that made these mountains at the first? Was that deception?"

"It was not thou," said the Master.

"But who was it, then, that sent up your wicked seneschal into the stormy clouds in a flame of fire?" added the friar. "And who was it that saved your life, but this morning, from a fiend that would have devoured you? Were these both deceptions?"

The Master's countenance fell. The friar said this, because, in their present perilous situation, he wished to keep a little awe over the wizard, and likewise to put a stop to the torrent of blasphemy that proceeded from his lips.

The morning advanced, the sun arose, but no a.s.sistance, no relief appeared to our hapless prisoners. They had tasted nothing for a day and night, save one cup of wine each, and they had not above as much more remaining. For all this the Master was so much elated, that his behaviour was rather like that of a person frantic with joy, than that of one shut up among others to perish of hunger. His companions in misfortune noted likewise that he was again disposed to be peremptory and tyrannical with them, and they dreaded that his familiars were again at his command.

The men wrought all the forenoon endeavouring to break up the iron door; but they neither had mattocks nor room to work in, and they made no more impression on it than as many mice would have done. They were now quite disconsolate; and, being unable to do aught else, they puzzled themselves in accounting for the late steward's motives for having locked it. They remembered that it was standing wide open when they brought him up a prisoner before the Master; and they likewise remembered of having seen him step into that stair for a minute or two, immediately before he began to brave the friar. Therefore, all that they could guess was, that it had been locked with some fatal intent.

The friar, perceiving that their efforts were vain, entreated them to come in from the open air, and keep themselves quiet and cheerful, that they might wear the longer. He trusted in Heaven, he said, that they would be delivered, but in the mean time it was absolutely necessary to use every precaution; and for that purpose, he added, if one of them would keep watch at each of the four windows, lest any pa.s.sengers or countrymen should come near, he would tell them a story, which would at least have the good effect of keeping them quiet. The Master was quite delighted with this proposal; and, taking the flagon of wine, he proposed that they should share it among them; but the rest opposed it, and contented themselves with half a cup each.

Charlie was most of all cast down. He had heard a word from the friar that morning that sunk deep on his heart. It was something about eating one another! And not being able to get rid of the thought, he brought it again overhead. The rest were all struck dumb; for they perceived that it was but too apparent it might come to that. The Master grinned darkly, and said it was well. But Gibbie said he hoped, "if things came that length, they wad draw cuts, that ilka ane might get a fair chance for his life." The poet begged, with tears in his eyes, that, out of respect to the tender s.e.x, they would leave Delany the last, or at least that, when the lot fell on her they would take him in her place. To this they all agreed with one voice: but an extraordinary thought striking on the Master's mind at that instant, he made a motion, and proposed to settle it off hand by a vote.

"This maid, whom you term beautiful, is mine on one condition," said he; "and as I can now in a very short time comply with that condition, I claim her as my own. I will therefore give her to the man among you who tells me the best tale. She shall be his, fully and freely, to do with her as seemeth him good. And the man among you who tells the worst shall, if need require it, be blooded and flayed in this same chamber for food to his a.s.sociates."

Charlie's blood ran cold within him at this proposal. He almost thought he felt the flaying knife and the teeth of the ravenous half-famished eaters; and when the Master called out, "Approve, or not approve?"

Charlie was the first to call out, "O! Not! not, not!" He was seconded by Tam Craik, but all the rest voted on the other side; so that they were left in the minority, and the matter was finally decided to be precisely as the Master had proposed. The poet stretched himself, so eager was he to begin; for his heart yearned within him to win the beautiful Delany. Gibbie was also uplifted, and sure of victory; but Tam and Charlie were both quite hopeless and cast down.

CHAPTER V.

And I said unto him, Can'st thou tell unto thy servant what is the meaning of this?

_Esdras._

The friar having volunteered a tale, the priority was unanimously awarded to him: So, after the watches were set and all quiet, he began the following singular narrative, without further ceremony:

The Friar's Tale.

CHAPTER I.

1. In the days of the years of my pilgrimage, it chanced to me that I sojourned in the great kingdom that is toward the south.

2. And I pa.s.sed through the city that lieth on the river of the hills, unto the house of Galli the scribe, who was a good man and a just.

3. And he had one only daughter, who was unto him as a treasure and an heritage, for her mother had been led unto her people before the maid could distinguish between her right hand and her left.

4. And the maiden was fair to look upon;

5. For her neck was as polished ivory, and her chin like the ripened peach basking on a wall that looketh toward the south.

6. Her lips also were like the honey-comb; her teeth were rows of pearl, and her breath was as sweet smelling incense, and myrrh, and ca.s.sia.

7. Her eyes were brighter than the dew of heaven, and her hair was like the beams of the moon streaming through the white clouds that are in the firmament of air.

8. And I loved the maiden exceedingly; and my heart burned within me; and I became as a dead man.

9. And I wist not what to do, or what would become of me; for the vows of the Lord were on me that I could not wed; and I said, Woe is me, for I am undone!

10. And I went in unto her, and communed with her of my great love; and when she had hearkened to my voice, she laughed me to scorn.

11. And I said, Why dost thou laugh me to scorn? Knowest thou not that I would lay down my life for thee? For I love thee so much above all things that are on the earth, that I would even lick the dust from off thy feet.