CHAPTER XXI
"Now, look you hore, sir," the old philosopher began, tak. ing me by
a
tassel on my satin doublet, and working himsedf up until his eyes shone
with pleasure, as he u~lfolded his mad visions to me -- "look you here,
sir;
this bare and dingy dungeon that you rightly frown at is a cell more
pregnant with ingenuiEy than ever was the forge of the lame smith of
Lemnos. Vulcan! Vulcan never had such teeming fancies as I have
harbored in my head for twenty years. Vulcan ~~ever coaxed into being
such a lovely mouster as I have hidden yonder. I tell you, young man,"
gasped the old fellow, perspiring with enthusiasm, "Prometheus was a
tawdry charlatan i'his service to mankind, compared with what I will be.
He gave us fire -- crcl~le, rough, unrmy fire -- mlstable, dangerous --
a
bare, naked giLt, spoiled even in the giving by incompleteness; but I,
sir, I
have tamed what the bold SOtl of Cl~7nlelle only touched. Ah, by the
blessed gods! I think I have tamed it -- fire and water, I have wed then,
at
yon black altar -- deadly foes though some do call them, I have made
them work together, the one with the other. Oh, sir, such servants were
ever yet enlisted by our kind since the great day of Cyclops. And to think
these feeble, shaking hands, whose poor sinews stapd from the wasted
flesh lilte ivy strands ~`bout a wintc~
284
tree, have done it -- and this poor head has thought it, persist. eut and
at
last successful, thro;Zgh bitter months of toil and anguished
disappointment!"
"llut, sir," I said, gently, as the old man ched~ed his incohercut speech
for
breath -- "this monster, sir, this 'lovely monster,' what is it?"
"Ah! I was forgetting you did not know. Look, then! and though you had
been unfamous all your other life, this moment of precedent knowledge
above your fellows shall make you forerer famous. "And the old man, like
a devotee walking to a silrine, like a lover with hushed breath and
brightly 1<illdling eye stealing to his mistress's hiding-place, led
me up to
a cavernous recess near the forge, and there lay hands npon a rcnt and
tattered drapery of rough sail-cloth, stained and old, and, making a
gesture of silence, pulled it back.
In the tlim, weird enchantment of that place, I had heen prepared fGr
anything. It was a knightly fashion of the times to be credulous, and that
black cobwebbed den, that mad philosophor so eloquently raving, and all
the late circumstances of my arrival fitted me to look for wonders. I had
followed him across the grimy floor, pitted with gray pools of furnace
water, through the reek and twining strands of smoke that filled that
nether hall; and lastly, when he laid a finger to hia lips, and, so reverent
and awTul, drew back that ancient tattered screen, I frowned a little,
stepping back a pace, and drow my ready sword six inches from its
scabbard, and watched expectarlt to see some hideous, horrid, living form
chained there; some foul offspring of darkness ard accursed ingenuity;
some hateful spawn of wizard art and black mother night; some squat,
fol~l, misshapen ( ;aliban; some loathsome thing -- I scaree I,new what,
but strong and sullch and monstrous, for certain. And, instead, the screen
ran rattling back, and there before me, in a neat-swept spaca, and on a
platform of oaken planks, glossy in new-forged metal, shiny with
untarni£lled filings, gleaming in the burnished brass and rivets,
high,
bulby, complicated, a maze of pistons and levers and wheels, was a great
machine!
Somehow, as I saw that ponderous monster, so full of cunning although
so lifeless, a tremor of wondering appreciation ran through my mind; that
souness body fascinated me with a prophetic fear and awe which at
another time and in another place I should have laughed at.
I put back my sword, smiling to think it had heen so nearly ~irawh, but
yet stood expectant, half wondering, half hoping I knew not what, and
gazing raptly on that mighty iron carcas'
285
perched there like some black incubus, almost fancN7ing all the ove and
fear and l~ope that had gone to fashion its steol limbs or iron sinews
might indeed have filled it with a soul that should, as I looked, become
articulate and manifest beneatl my eyes; half hoping, ill my ignorance,
that indeed the quintessence of human lahor, here consummate, might
have got on all that plastic, dull material some wondrotls lirstling spirit
of
a new estate, some link between the worlds oL substance and of shadow.
And if it so fascinated me, that old man, to whom it owed its boing, was
even more inthralled. He stood before the shrhle with locked hands and
bent head, apostrophizing the silent work. "Oh, child of hlfinitely paillful
conception," he muttered, "surely -- surcly you can not disappolut me
now! Nearly twenty years have I given to you -- twenty years of toil and
sweat and ungrunging hope. Long, hot summers have I worked npon
you, and dank, dull winters, making and unmakUlg, building and taking
~lown again, C0lltriving, hoping, despairing, living with you bydayand
dreaming of you through nights of iitful slumber -- surely, dear heir of
all
my hopes, the reward is at hand, and the consummation comes! See!" he
cried, "how perieet it is. Here in this great round cylinder is room for
fire
and water. The fire lies all along in that gully trench that vou can note
here
through this open trap, and those curling pipes take the hot flsme up
through that void that will be filled with the other element. Now, when
water boils the vapor that comes from off the top ~s choleric and fiery
past conception. '~his has been known for long, and John Homersham
tried to utilize it by letting the vapor on the spread digits of a wheel;
Farinelli of Angouleme suffered it to escape behind his engine -- both
ways so wasteful that no mortal furnace could keep up power sufficient
to
be of useful service. Elut I have bettered these and many others; nothing
is wasted here -- the hot gases are stored and stodied as they rise above
the boiling liquid mltil they are as strong as the blustering SOI1 of
Astraeus and Aurora, and then, by turning one single tap, I suffer them
to
escape down yonder iron way, there to fall upon the head of that piston
that with a mighty send gives before them and spins the great wheel
above, and comes back on the impetus, and takes another buffet from the
laboring vapor, and back it goes again, now this way and now that,
twirling with fiery zeal those notched wheels above and working all those
bars and rods and pistons. Not one thing of all this complicated structure
but has its purpose; not one rivet in yonder thousands but means a month
of patient, toilsome thought and labor. More"
286
over, because it is so strong and heavy, I have put the whole upon that
iron carriage, which took me a year to forge, and those solid back-wheels
are locked with the gear above, and from the axle of that front wheel two
chains run up and turu upon a cylinder, so that my s``veet one can move
at sL~cl~ a pace as vet I can not even think of, and guide himself -- in
brief,
is boru and cousuinthate!"
Then, presently, he turned from babbling to his " child," and spcaLring
loufler, with frerzied gostures, the while he strode up and down before
it,
we~it wil.1 ~pon the wounrous things it should do. "It will not fail, I
know
it! my head is fairly mazed when I forecast all that here with ihis begins,
as
possible. It shall run, sir," he cried, turning raoturously to me, "and
fly ant1
walk, and ham and pull a~un ~ew wood~ and draw water, aZld be a giant
stro~lger thun a thousand mell, and a craftsman in a hLIunred crafts of
such subtilityand gentleness and cunning as no other master craftsman
ever was. Down, into ages not yet fomed in the void wolub of the future,
this knowledge I have mastered shall exteun, widening at it goes, and
men shall no lollger stri`-e or sutTer; there stands the patient beast
on
whose broad back another age shall put all its burdens. There is the true
winged horse of some other time that shall mock the slow patter of our
laggard feet, and knit together the most distant corners of the world
within its gisut stride. Oh! I can sce a happy age, when base material
labor
shall be over, and man shall lie about and take their fill of restfulness
as
they have not done since the gates of Eden were shut Upon their ancient
father's back. I do see, down the long perspectives of the future, such
as
yoll achieving all things both by sea and shore, plowing their fields f~r
rmborn peoples, and drawing nets, carrying, fetching, far and near, swift,
patient, indomitable! All! and winging glorious argosies -- mighty vessels
such as no man dares dream of now; vast, noble bodies inspirited each
with such a soul as lies impatient yonder; and those shall plow the green
sea-waves in scorn of storm and weather, pouring the wealth of far
Cathay and ind into our ready lap, making those things happy necessaries
which now uone but some few may dare to hope for; bringing the spice
the Persian picked this moruing to our doors to-morrow, bringing the
grape and olivo unwithered on their stoms, bringing fair eastorn stuffs
still wet from out their dye-vats -- "
"Jove, old man! that moves me. I was a merchant once. Your words de stir
my blood down to the most Btaguant corner of my veins!"
287
': -- bringing pearls from Oman! still speckled with the green sea-dew
upon them, ;md sapphires from rugged Ural mines still smelling of their
fresh native mother earth; bringing, in s`;ift, tireless keels, Xovaia
Zemblian furs and costly feathered trophies from the Sonth; b~inging
Biafra's hoards of ivory and Benil~'s stores of blood-red gold; bringing
gems warn1 from tepid sands of Ar~ acan, and sandal-wood from seagirt
Nicobar. Ah! pouring thR. yellow-scented corn of every fertile flat from
Manfalout to aucient .`bbasi~~eh; pouring the Tal'tar'S millOt and the
Elill~lOO'S riCII intO our hungry western mouths; making those rich who
once were poor, and those noble who OUCO were only rich; beitefiting
both great and little -- benefiting both near and far! and I shall have
done
this -- I, poor Master Andrew Farllkeller, a man so shabby and so seeming
mean no one of worih or quality would walk i' the same side of the road
with him."
So spol~e that good fal~atic, and as he stopped there came a gentle tap
npOII the door, and a fair face in the sunlight, and there was ~istress
t~izabeth saving, with a merry laugh, "I'ather, the cloth is laid, and
the
meal is spread, and old Malgery bids me acld that, if to-day's roast is
spoiled by waiting, as the last one was, silc'll never cook capon for theo
again;" and, coming down, the maid laid a hand of gentle insistence upou
her father's sleeve, and led him sighing and often looking back up the
greell stone steps, I following close behind.
We crossed the sunny court-yard, entering on the further side the other
rambling buttress-wing of that ancient pile. Thence we went by clean
white flagstoned possages and open oaken door-ways to what was once
the long servants'dining-hall. At the near end of the middIe table of well-
scrubbed board3, so thick and heavy they might have come from the
SitlO of some great ship, a clean white ship-cloth was laid, with high-
backed chairs, one at the head for Adam Faulkener, and two or1 cither
si~le for me and her, and lower down again were put, below the great
oaken salt-cellar, two other places. By one of these stood Dame Margery,
fair Elizabeth's old nurse, an ancient dame in black velvet cap and spotless
ruff and lineu, with a comely, honest old country face above them,
w.inl~led and colored like a rosy pippill that has mellowed through the
winter on a kitchen cornice shelf. such was IJanl3 Margery, and, while
she
courtesied low with folded hands, I bowed as one of m'J quality might
bow in respect to her ancient faithfuness. At 'I.e other chair stood their
Spanish steward, black Emanuel Marcetla. Yec, and, as you may
288
by this time have guessed, that steward was, in flesh and blood, none
other but the midnigtlt visitor who nad disturbed my rest the night
before. I could not doubt it. He wore the same clothes, his swarthy, sullell
face was only a little more life-like now in the daylight, and, if more
evidence were want~ ing, one finger of his le£t haun -- that haun
that had
held the bloody handkelellief -- was done up with coDwebs and linen
threads. I know hirll on the instant, and stopped and stared to see my
vagrant shadow so prosaically standing there at his dinner-plaee, picl~iiig
his yellow teeth and sniffing the ready. roast like a h~u~gry dog. And
when he saw me he too started, for I also n~ed bscu drea!lfth to him. I
was the exact coullterpart of tiatt ambel g.illant that had strode out
upon
his moanlit heeis and sc.arod hin1 with a sholtt, where, no doubt, he
fancied no shouters d~velt, and now here vre were face to face, guests
at
the same tabl~; surely it was strange enough to make us stare!
But, over a;,d above the prejunice of our evening meeting, I alrea~ly
distrnsted and disliked hmantlel Marcena~ Why it was I do not l~nc~v,
but so nluch is certain, if one may love, no less surelg m.iy one hate
at first
sight, and, as our eyes met, hatro!1 was surely born in his, while mine,
as
like as notj
¥ told throu,,rlt their slcady stare of aversion and dislike. He was
a
sulie~~, yellow ttho.v, lean and tall, with black, cra£ty eyes set
near
together; a thill nose, shaped like a vulture's beak; a small peaked bcard,
and black haircloselycroliped -- ~a crafty, cunning, cruel, ungenerous-
looking fellow, who had somehow, it afterward tulned out, grown rich as
his master's fortunes failed. He had come into Faull,ener's service whe
a boy, had flourished ~bile he flourished, and learned a hundred shifts
of
cruelty and pride from the gay company who once were proun to call his
master comrade, and now, like the black fungus that he was, had swelled
with conceit and avarice past all conscionable proportions.
Well, we exchan,~~ed grim salutations, and sat, and the meal commenced.
But all the while we eat and talked I could not help turning to that crafty
steward, and each time I did so I found his kee?l, restless black eves
nandering fugitive among us. ~ow he would glance at me over his
porringer, and then a hhlf-unconscious scowl dropped dov,tn over those
dark Cordovian brows. Then perhaps it was the old man he looked at,
and a scarce-hid smile of contemlyt played about the corners of that
southerne;'s mouth to hear his m'tster babble or answer our talk at
random. Lastly, my sleek Iberian would set his ~a.nee on sweet eeuntry
Bess as she sat at her father's side,
289
and then there burned under his yellow skin such a flush of passion, such
a shine of sickly love and asl~iration as needed no interpreting, and made
me frown -- small ns my staL~e was in that game I saw was plaving~as
black as intis~ night. But what did it matter to me who picked that Iinglish
blossom? W Ily should she nDt lie on that meail Spanish bosom iorever if
she would -- 'twas less than nothing to me, who would so Sooll pass o~l
to
otner venthres -- and yet no man W3S ever born WilO was not jealous,
and, reme~mbering how we had met, how sweet she was and simple,
what native courtesy gilded Ler country mam~ers) what music there was
in her voice, and how black that villah1 looked beside her, l, in spite
of
mysclf, resented the first knowledge of the love he bore as keenly as
though I had myself a right to her.
Pious, sanctimonious Fmanuel NIarcena! he stood 1~p saying his grace for
meat long after all of ns were scatc~l, and crossed his doublet a score
of
times ere he fell 0ll the viands like a hungry pil~e. And he was cruel,
too.
A little thing may show nOW big things go. lIe caught a I.y while we
waited between two courses, and, thinking himself urlwatched, hold it a
moment nicely between his lean, loug fingers, then, drawing a straight
fine pin from his sleeve, slowly thrust it through the body of that buzzing
thing. lIe stuck the pin up before him, by his pewter mug, and
watched~with lowering pleasure his victim gyrate. That amused him
much, and when the creature's pahl was reduced to numbness he ntatly
tore one prismatic wing from oR its shoulder, and smiled a sour smile to
watch how that awoke it. Then, presently, the other wing was wrenched
palpitating from the damp and quivering socket, and the victim SpUll
round upon the iron stake that pierced its body. And all this under cover
of his dinner-mug, ingenious, light-fingered tmanuel ~Iarcena!
Such was the steward of that curious household. Over against him sat the
excehen t old countr.y dame, whose mind wandered no further than to
speculate upon the price of eggs next market-day, or how her bleaching
lthen fared; above was the wise-mad scholar, bent and visionary;
and by
him, .undy in her country beauty, that wild hedge-rose of his. And as I
looked from one to the other, and thought of what I was and had been, all
seemed strange, unreal, fantastic, and I could only wait with dull patience
for what fortune might have next in store.
t was a pleasant, peaceful place, that manor hall. When we had finished
our midday meal, and the servitors had gone to their duties, Master
Faulkener said a walk in the green
290
fields might do him good -- he would go out and talse the aountry air.
It
was a wise resolve, and he made a show of carly" ing it through, but he
had not crossed the court-yard toward the SUImy meadows when he got
a Shiff of his owu smolderi~,g furuace fires. That was too much for him.
The scholar s rustic resolutiou Jnelted, and, glanciTjg fugitively behil?d,
we
saw him presently steal away towurd his cellar, and then drop down the
stairs, and bar the door, and SOO~I the curling smoke and daucing sparks
told that wondrous thing of his was growing once again.
Thus I and the maid were left aloue, and for a little space we stooct silent
by the diamond-latticed window, scarce knowilig what to say -- I looking
down upon that virgiu bosom, so smoothly heaving under its veil of
eoutltry lawn, she thinlsing I know not what, but pulling a leaf or two
to
pieces from her window vine. And so we stood .for a tirue, until the lady
broke the silence by asking if I would wibh to sce the house and p:.?rdens
witl-l her? It wi?S a good suggestion and a comely s~uiclo, so we s.t out
at
once.
She led me Erst l~at lc through her garden again, naming ever>- f.crer
iSNIId bush by conntry names as we went along, and this brought us to
the empty house-front, which we entered. She took me from room to
room, and dustN~ ce,rllilor to corridor, chatting and laughing all the
way,
t-a~l ing c,f great lsiilsmen and l?oluc, fi~kle ~,ue£ts Who or~ct?
Ii~ld
cailGtl her father frielid--all with suGII a ligTht, co'?tented htart it
sounded
more like fairy story than slern material fact. 'l~he
that tri,?ping guide slrowe d Ino tl?o o,?e door I ila-l ~zot fou'?d whi~ll
led nli'0ll~.? ;;?LO tl?O rOarn'al'd .It?usC. I-Iere ~ig.lirl I tolu ~ICI'
of t?ow
I lu~d linil(e~l~i?l vain for such a p.ts£agc' ~u;d she laughed until
those
ancient corridors resonuned to her
7 glee. This door adll~itted to another region, whith NN'E cntered, autl
SOOil Etzal>eth led oi~ dow,.1 a dust: Hight Ot tNNTilight wooderl stai,s,
until a portal stunded with iron barrtd our way. At this, pu ting a finger
to
her rmouTh ilr mysterious manner, the daulEd asked if I dared enter, to
which my answer was that, with sword in hand, and her to WP.ttli, I
would not hesitate to prize the gates of hell. So we pulled the heavy suhen
bolts, and the door turned slowly on its hinges. There before us W .'S
dist~laved ~t 1Onto dusty corridor, lighted by high narrow col,wc!>bcil
laiticed whinows down one side, and dim wiTh nu,, s a;~ul slaiu of wind
uul weather. Frunr cun to elld 0t that soundlt'SS V.'7tiblil? rtre slatLed
at;d
l-'iitd and hung such mighty stores of various lumber, rare, curious,
dreadful, as never surely were brought together before.
291
It was Andrew Faulkencr's mtZseum-room -- the place where he put by
all the strange shredci of life and death he collected when the scholar's
farvor was ui~on him, and nOW, as his swcet daughter laid one finger ml
my arm an;l softly bid me listen, directly down below and undei us we
heitrd him hammeZing at his forge.
"Oh. sir," began that mai`.l, wi.lispeling in my ear and sweeping her
expressive arrll ar `-'und itZ The direction of those tnounds and shelves,
"did ever clfild have such a father? This is the one room that is forbiddell
nle, and it is the one roonl of our hundreds that; I take a most fcarful
pleasure in. I do wroug to show it, and, indeed I had not 1~rought you
here but that something tells me yoa a;e agood corurttde, true and silent
both in great and little. Therefore step lightly and spcali small; there
is
nothing in all the world that stirs my fathsr's choler but this -- to hear
a
vagrant foot overhead amehg his treasures,"
Softly, therefore, as QlZV midllight thieves we trod the dustcarpeted
floor, and Inow hGre, Inow thoro, the damsd lGd ms. Now it was ac one
oriel recess where stood a black oak iahle and open chests piled with
vellum books, all cPacked and bOUnd wit.h goli1 and iroa, thitt we
parlsed in. And I ol~cnttI some of these great tomes, a~:d rettd, in
Rorman-Latin or old Frankish-French, the misty reeord of those things of
long ago that once had been so new to me. I spelled out how the monkish
scribe was stumbling through a pitsiSilge of tlhitt dii1ry that I had seen
Caesar write -- saw him rGpi at, as visionaty aura incredible, in qllairlt
and
cra1~bisc't cloister scrawl, the story of the Saxon coming, and how King
Harold tlistl. I turned to another book, a little newer, and read, amid
gorgeous uncurls, the story of that remote fight above Crecy, "when
good King Edward. with a scanty band of liegemeil, was matciled a~ili~~st
two hundred thousand French about yc ville of Crecy, and by the grace of
God withstood therll upon an AtlCust c1aN; " -- and I could have read on
and on without stop or pause down those musty memory-rousing pages,
but for the geatle inteerul?ter at my side, who laughed to see me so
engrossed, and shut the covers to, little knowing of the thoughts that
I
was thinking, and took me on ag`fill.
Then she wmlld halt at a pile of splendid staffs, half henl?ed upon the
floor, half naile4 against the wall, iLe hi3agings of courtly rooms and
thrones; and, as her sympathetic f~nlalo fingers spread out the folds of
all
those ruined wells, I rc.rd again upon them, in tartlisl~eLl gold and
filigree, in sii1.ell stitching and patient cunning embroidery, more stories
of olt1
292
kings and qncens I once was comrado to; on again, to piles and racks of
weapons of every age and time. All these I kr~ew, and poised the javelill
some 53axou hand had borne in war, and shook, like a dry roed, the long
Norman spear, and whirled a mshy pirate cimeter above mg huad until it
hum~ued again an old forgottell taue of blood and lust and pillage, aun,
wiTh a stifled shriek, the frightened ~irl cowered from me.
Oh! a very curions treasure-llouse, indeed! And here the scholar had iaid
up skius and furs of animals, an1 there horns and hoofs and talons. IIere,
grim, melaricholy, great birds were standing as though in life, and
crumbling, as they waited, with negloct and age. 'l~here, in a twilight
corner, glim~uered the green glassy eyes of an old Thebeiall crocodile,
and there the shining ivory jaws of monstrous fishes, with warty hides
of
toads, and shriveled forms of small beasts dried in the kiln of long-silent
ages, and now black, shrunkell, and ghastly. Or1 the walls were pendent
enough simples and electrices to stocl~ twenty witches' dens, enough
mandrake, helleborc, blue monkshood, purple-tinted uightshade to
Ullpeople half a shiie; and alo~~g by them were withered twigs and leaves
would banish every kiun of rheum; samples of W0ndrous shrubs and
roots, all neatly docketed, would cure a wife of scolding or a war-horse
of
a sprain, would cure an adder's bite, or by the same physic mend a
broken limb; ah, and bring you certain luck in peace and war, or light,
all
out of th~e same virtue, the files of love in icy, virgin bosoms!
In tl-lat quaint anteroom, dimly illuminated by its cobwebbed wirldows,
were astroboles and herlispheres from the cabin-poops of sankell
merchantmen; chllrts whereon great beasts shared with pictured savages
whole continents of land, and dolphins and whales did sport where seas
ran out into unknowh vagueness. There were models of harrmless things
of foreigu art and commerce, and cruel iron jaws and w heels with bloody
spikes or beaks for breaking borles or tearing ilesh, and teaching the
ways
of fair civility to heretics. That old man had got together twenty images
of
Baal from as many lands, and half a hundred bits of divers saints. I:lere,
tied with the strand of the rope that hanged him, was the skin of a dead
felou, and near was the true sh~ht of a martyr whom the church had
canonized a thousand years before. In some way, too, the scholar had
possessed hini of a Pharaoh still swaddled with his Memphian robes, and
there he was propped np against the wall, that kingly ash with mouth
locked tight, whose lightest whisper once had made or marred in every
court or camp from dusty Ababdah to green Euphrates, and brows set
293
rigid, whose frowu had once cost twent;s- thousand lives, made twenty
thousand wives to wirlows, and eyes shut fast that seemed still to drearll
of shadowy empery -- of golden afternoons iZI gohlen .1gCS -- a most
aucient, a most curions fellow, and I stared hard at him, feeling wonnrous
neighborly.
But I can not tell all there was in that strallge place. I?rom end to eun
it
iN'.IS stocked with learue.L lumbrr: from end to end my sweet gaide led
me, pointing, whisr~ering, and shundering, al; orl tiptoe and in silence;
and then, ere I was neurly satished, or hal samliled one quarter of that
dusty treasure hall, she led me thror~:'h a little wiel~ct, down twonty
stairs, alil SO OllCO HlOrO intO the fresh open air.
"There, sir," she saiu, "Inow I ha~e laid bare my father's riches to you.
Is it
uot a wonderful corridor? Oh! what a full place the worlrl must be, itc
o~le
mall can gather so much strange of it!',
I told her that indeed it was and had been full, right back into the
illimitable, of those hopes and fancies to which all yonc'Zer shreds rlid
hint
of; and thus talking, I of infi~lite experience watching the sweet wonner
and `-ague speculation dawhing in thoso unruffled child eyes of hers, we
sauntered about the gartlens and pleasant patils, and spent a sunny after.
oon in her ambient lielrls.
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Chapter 22
