St. George and St. Michael by George MacDonald (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📕

her enchanted armour so long as the country is unknown to her. But it would be hard if she were to suffer for her modesty. You shall be welcome to my cave. I trust you will not find it as the cave of Trophonius to you. If I am not there-and it is not now as it has been, when you might have found me in it every day, and almost every hour of the day; but if I be not there, do not fear Caspar Kaltoff, who is a worthy man, and as my right hand to do the things my brain deviseth. I will speak to him of thee. He is full of trust and worthiness, and, although not of gentle blood, is sprung from a long race of artificers, the cloak of whose gathered skill seems to have fallen on him. He hath been in my service now for many years, but you will be the first lady, gentle cousin, who has ever in all that time wished us good speed in our endeavours. How few know,' he went on thoughtfully, after a pause, 'what a joy lies in making things obey thoughts! in calling out of the mind, as from the vasty-deep, and setting in visible presence before the bodily eye, that which till then had neither local habitation nor name! Some such marvels I have to show-for marvels I must call them, although it is my voice they have obeyed to come; and I never lose sight of the marvel even while amusing myself with the merest toy of my own invention.'

He paused, and Dorothy ventured to speak.

'I thank you, my lord, with all my heart. When have I leave to visit those marvels?'

'When you please. If I am not there, Caspar will be. If Caspar is not there, you will find the door open, for to enter that chamber without permission would be a breach of law such as not a soul in Raglan would dare be guilty of. And were it not so, there are few indeed in the place who would venture to set foot in it if I were absent, for it is not outside the castle walls only that I am looked upon as a magician. The armourer firmly believes that with a word uttered in my den there, I could make the weakest wall of the castle impregnable, but that it would be at too great a cost. If you come to-morrow morning you will find me almost certainly. But in case you should find neither of us-do not touch anything; be content with looking-for fear of mischance. Engines are as tickle to meddle with as incantations them selves.'

'If I know myself, you may trust me, my lord,' said Dorothy, to which he replied with a smile of confidence.


CHAPTER XVI.

DOROTHY'S INITIATION.


There was much about the castle itself to interest Dorothy. She had already begun the attempt to gather a clear notion of its many parts and their relations, but the knowledge of the building could not well advance more rapidly than her acquaintance with its inmates, for little was to be done from the outside alone, and she could not bear to be met in strange places by strange people. So that part of her education-I use the word advisedly, for to know all about the parts of an old building may do more for the education of minds of a certain stamp than the severest course of logic-must wait upon time and opportunity.

Every day, often twice, sometimes thrice, she would visit the stable-yard, and have an interview first with the chained Marquis, and then with her little horse. After that she would seldom miss looking in at the armourer's shop, and spending a few minutes in watching him at his work, so that she was soon familiar with all sorts of armour favoured in the castle. The blacksmiths' and the carpenters' shops were also an attraction to her, and it was not long before she knew all the artisans about the place. There were the farm and poultry yards too, with which kinds of place she was familiar-especially with their animals and all their ways. The very wild beasts in their dens in the solid basement of the kitchen tower-a panther, two leopards, an ounce, and a toothless old lion had already begun to know her a little, for she never went near their cages without carrying them something to eat. For all these visits there was plenty of room, lady Margaret never requiring much of her time in the early part of the day, and finding the reports she brought of what was going on always amusing. And now the orchards and gardens would soon be inviting, for the heart of the world was already sending up its blood to dye the apple blossoms.

But all the opportunities she yet had were less than was needful for the development of such a mind as Dorothy's, which, powerful in itself, needed to be roused, and was slow in its movements except when excited by a quick succession of objects, or the contact of a kindred but busier nature. It was lacking not only in generative, but in self-moving energy. Of self-sustaining force she had abundance.

There was a really fine library in the castle, to which she had free access, and whence, now and then, lady Margaret would make her bring a book from which to read aloud, while she and her other ladies were at work; but books were not enough to rouse Dorothy, and when inclined to read she would return too exclusively to what she already knew, making little effort to extend her gleaning-ground.

From this fragment of analysis it will be seen that the new resource thus opened to her might prove of more consequence than, great as were her expectations from it, she was yet able to anticipate. But infinitely greater good than any knowledge of his mechanical triumphs could bring her, was on its way to Dorothy along the path of growing acquaintance with the noble-minded inventor himself.

The next morning, then, she was up before the sun, and, sitting at her window, awaited his arrival. The moment he shone upon the gilded cock of the bell tower, she rose and hastened out, eager to taste of the sweets promised her; stood a moment to gaze on the limpid stream ever flowing from the mouth of the white horse, and wonder whence that and the whale-spouts he so frequently sent aloft from his nostrils came; then passing through the archway and over the bridge, found herself at the magician's door. For a moment she hesitated: from within came such a tumult of hammering, that plainly it was of no use to knock, and she could not at once bring herself to enter unannounced and uninvited. But confidence in lord Herbert soon aroused her courage, and gently she opened the door and peeped in. There he stood, in a linen frock that reached from his neck to his knees, already hard at work at a small anvil on a bench, while Caspar was still harder at work at a huge anvil on the ground in front of a forge. This, with the mighty bellows attached to it, occupied one of the six sides of the room, and the great roaring, hissing thing that had so frightened lady Margaret, now silent and cold, occupied another. Neither of the men saw her. So she entered, closed the door, and approached lord Herbert, but he continued unaware of her presence until she spoke. Then he ceased his hammering, turned, and greeted her with his usual smile of sincerity absolute.

'Are you always as true to your appointments, cousin?' he said, and resumed his hammering.

'It was hardly an appointment, my lord, and yet here I am,' said Dorothy.

'And you mean to infer that--?'

'An appointment is no slight matter, my lord, or one that admits of breaking.'

'Right,' returned his lordship, still hammering at the thin plate of whitish metal growing thinner and thinner under his blows. Dorothy glanced around her for a moment.

'I would not be troublesome, my lord,' she said; 'but would you tell me in a few words what it is you make here?'

'Had I three tongues, and thou three ears,' answered lord Herbert, 'I could not. But look round thee, cousin, and when thou spiest the thing that draws thine eye more than another, ask me concerning that, and I will tell thee.'

Hardly had Dorothy, in obedience, cast her eyes about the place, ere they lighted on the same huge wheel which had before chiefly attracted her notice.

'What is that great wheel for, with such a number of weights hung to it?' she asked.

'For a memorial,' replied lord Herbert, 'of the folly of the man who placeth his hopes in man. That wonderful engine; it is now nearly three years since I showed it to his blessed majesty in the Tower of London, also with him to the dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, and two extraordinary ambassadors besides, but of them all no man hath ever sought to look upon it again. It is a form of the Proteus-like perpetuum mobile-a most incredible thing if not seen.'

He then proceeded to show her how, as every spoke passed the highest point, the weight attached to it immediately hung a foot farther from the centre of the wheel, and as every spoke passed the lowest point, its weight returned a foot nearer to the centre, thus causing the leverage to be greater always on one and the same side of the wheel. Few of my readers will regret so much as myself that I am unable to give them the constructive explanation his lordship gave Dorothy as to the shifting of the weights. Whether she understood it or not, I cannot tell either, but that is of less consequence. Before she left the workshop that morning, she had learned that a thousand knowledges are needed to build up the pyramid on whose top alone will the bird of knowledge lay her new egg.

When he had finished his explanation, lord Herbert returned to his work, leaving Dorothy again to her own observations. And now she would gladly have questioned him about the huge mass of brick and iron, which, now standing silent, cold, and motionless as death, had that night seemed alive with the fierce energy of flame, and yet sorely driven, sighing, and groaning, and furiously hissing; but as it was not now at work, she thought it would be better to wait an opportunity when it should be in the agony of its wrestle with whatever unseen enemy it coped withal. She did not know that, the first of its race, it was not quite equal to the task the magician had imposed upon it, but that its descendants would at length become capable of doing a thousand times as much, with the swinging joy of conscious might, with the pant of the giant, not the groan of the overtasked stripling urging his last effort.

She was standing by a chest, examining the strangely elaborate and mysterious-looking scutcheon of its lock, when his lordship's hammering ceased, and presently she found that he was by her side.

'That escutcheon is the best thing of the kind I have yet made,' he said. 'A humour I have, never to be contented to produce any invention the second time, without appearing refined. The lock and key of this are in themselves a marvel, for the little triangle screwed key weighs no more than a shilling, and yet it bolts and unbolts an hundred bolts through fifty staples round about the chest, and