Volume Ii Part 6 (1/2)
With every pair the scene was much the same. Tam was so much astonished that he turned to his second self, cowered down, leaning his hands upon his knees, and made a staunch point at him. The other took precisely the same posture, so that their long noses almost met. The maid, the poet, and the boy screamed with laughter. Both of the Tams laughed too, so that they very much resembled an ideot looking at himself in a gla.s.s.
”Friend, I canna say but ye're very like me,” said Gibbie to his partner; ”But, though nane o' us be great beauties, ye look rather the warst o' the twae.”
”It brings me a-mind o' a story I hae heard my mother tell,” said the other, ”of a lady and her twa Blackamores”--
”What the deil man!” exclaimed the first; ”Did your mother tell that story too?”
”Ay; wha else but she tauld it? I say my mother, auld Effy Blakely of the Peatstacknowe.”
”Eh?--She your mother? It is gayan queer if we be baith ane after a'!
for I never had a billy.”
The two Gibbies then both began to tell stories, which each claimed as originally his, so that the perplexity still increased. Nor was it better when the parties began to mix and address each other. All spoke of themselves as the right and proper persons, and of the others as beings in their likenesses, and the most complete uncertainty prevailed.
But, just as the novelty and interest of the drama began to subside, Michael, by a wave of his hand annihilated the three additional personages, and all remained as it was before the grand exhibition commenced, save that our group had got a new topic of conversation and merriment.
”Primate of Douay, so celebrated for thy mighty enchantments, how thinkest thou of this?” said the Master.
”That thou hast done what no man could have done beside,” said the friar; ”and that thy power even surpa.s.seth that of the magicians of Egypt, and of those of the countries in the lands of the east. But in one thing my power is even as thy power. Dost thou know that I could have prevented thy charm, and put a period to thy enchantment at my will and pleasure?”
”It is not the power of prevention that we are trying,” said the Master.
”Suffer my servants to do their work, as I shall suffer thine, and we shall then see who are most punctually obeyed, and who shall perform the greatest works. Only, if I prevail in all things, you will surely have the generosity to acknowledge that my master is greater than thine?”
”Wo be unto me if such a confession proceed out of my lips!” said the friar: ”Who can be greater than he who builded the stories of heaven, and laid the foundations of this earth below; who lighted up the sun, sending him abroad in brightness and in glory, and placed the moon and the stars in the firmament on high? Who is greater than he who hath made the mountains to stand, the seas to roll, and the winds to blow? who hath not only made the souls of men, but all the spirits of the upper and nether world--”
”Peace, thou maniac!” cried the Master, interrupting the friar, in a voice that made him leap from the floor: ”Comest thou here to babble treason against the master whom I serve, and the mighty spirits with whom I am in league? Do what thou canst do, and cease from speaking evil of dignities. What knowest thou of the princ.i.p.alities and powers that inhabit and rule over the various regions of the universe? No more than the mole that grovelleth beneath the sward.--What further canst thou do in proof of thy profound art?”
”Behold with thine eyes, O thou who accountest thyself the greatest among the children of men!” said the friar, with a waggish air; ”that I will but speak the word, and the mountains shall be rent asunder, and the tops of the everlasting hills stand in opposition. Knowest thou the proper name, figure, and dimensions of that peaked mountain over against the castle, to the west?”
”Well may I know it,” said the Master, ”for I have looked out on it these fifty years, and many a hundred times have I followed the chase around it. It is named Cope-Law, and the mountain is my own.”
”Mountain of Cope-Law, hear my voice,” cried the friar in the same waggish tone, in which there was an affectation of sublime command: ”Thou hast borne the footsteps of thy great master and his black horse Beelzebub, yet hast thou neither been scorched nor rent. Yea though he hath cursed thee in the bitterness of ire, yet hath thy grey head never been shaken.--But, behold, a greater than thy master is here. Mountain of Cope-Law, hear my voice:--Be thou rent asunder and divided into three, that thy owner may look on thee and be astonied. If it please thee, mighty magician, look out on thy mountain of Cope-Law now.”
Many a thousand times had the Master looked out at that circular window; every bush and grey stone on the hill were familiar to him; and, all unsuspicious of the simple deceit that had been practised on him, he went and looked forth from the window, when, in the place where one round peaked mountain was wont to be, he actually saw three, all of the same dimensions; and, as he weened, each of them more steep, tall, and romantic than the original one had been. He looked, and looked again--the optical delusion was complete. He paced the floor in sullen mood; muttered some sentences to himself in an under tone, and once more looked forth on the singular phenomenon. The mountains remained the same. They could not be seen from any other window, and no one thought of descending to the great balcony; so that in the eyes of all the friar remained triumphant.
The Master could not brook this. He strode the floor in gloomy indignation; and at length they heard him saying, ”If I should venture to demand it--But is it then to be my last great work? The demand is dreadful!--I will--I'll demand it. Never shall it be said that Michael Scott was out-done in his own art, and that by a poor peddling friar.
Come all of you hither,” added he in a louder tone. ”Look at that mountain to the east. It is known to you all--the great hill of Eildon.
You see and know that it is one round, smooth, and unbroken cone.”
”We all know it, and have known it from infancy,” was the general answer.
The Master gave three strokes with his heel, and called the names of his three elfin pages, who in an instant stood before him.--”Work, Master, work,--what work now?”
”Look at that mountain to the east,” said he, ”ycleped the hill of Eildon. Go and twist me it into three.”
The pages grinned, looking at him with eyes of a devilish gleam, as a ravenous creature eyes its prey.
”The hill is a granite rock,” said one,--”and five arrow-flights high,”
said another,--”and seventy round the base,” said the first.
”All the powers of earth, and h.e.l.l to boot, are unmeet to the task,”