“Noo, Cosmo, i’ the name o’ God, the giver o’ ilka guid an’ perfec’ gift, see gien ye can win at the entrails o’ the animal. It canna be fu’ o’ men like the Trojan horse, or they maun be enchantit sma’, like the deevils whan they war ower mony for the cooncil ha’; but what’s intil ’t may carry a heap waur danger to you an’ me nor ony nummer o’ airmit men!”
“Ye min’ the rime, father?” asked Cosmo.
“No sae weel as the twenty-third psalm,” replied the laird with a smile.
“Weel, the first line o’ ’t is, ‘Catch yer naig, an’ pu’ his tail.’ Wi’ muckle diffeeclety we hae catcht him, an’ noo for the tail o’ ’im!—There! that’s dune!—though there’s no muckle to shaw for ’t. The neist direction is—‘In his hin’ heel caw a nail:’ we s’ turn up a’ his fower feet thegither, ’cause they’re cooperant; an’ noo lat ’s see the proper spot whaur to caw the said nail!”
The horse’s shoes were large, and the hole where a nail was missing had not to be sought. Cosmo took a fine bradawl, and pushed it gently into the hoof. A loud, whirring noise followed, but with no visible result.
“The next direction,” said Cosmo, “is—‘Rug his lugs frae ane anither.’ Noo, father, God be wi’ ’s! an’ gien it please him we be disap’intit, may he gie ’s grace to beir ’t as he wad hae ’s beir ’t.’
“I pray the same,” said the laird.
Cosmo pulled the two ears of the animal in opposite directions. The back began to open, slowly, as if through the long years the cleft had begun to grow together. He sprang from his seat. The laird looked after him with a gentle surprise. But it was not to rush from the room, nor yet to perform a frantic dance with the horse for a partner.
One of the windows looked westward into the court, and at this season of the year, the setting sun looked in at that window. He was looking in now; his rays made a glowing pool of light in the middle of the ancient carpet. Beside this pool Cosmo dropped on the floor like a child with his toy, and pulled lustily at its ears. All at once into the pool of light began to tumble a cataract as of shattered rainbows, only brighter, flashing all the colours visible to human eye. It ceased. Cosmo turned the horse upside down, and a few stray drops followed. He shook it, and tapped it, like Grizzie when she emptied the basin of meal into the porridge-pot, then flung it from him. But the cataract had not vanished. There it lay heaped and spread, a storm of conflicting yet harmonious hues, with a foamy spray of spiky flashes, and spots that ate into the eyes with their fierce colour. In every direction shot the rays from it, blinding; for it was a mound of stones of all the shapes into which diamonds are fashioned. It makes my heart beat but to imagine the glorious show of deep-hued burning, flashing, stinging light! The heaviest of its hues was borne light as those of a foam-bubble on the strength of its triumphing radiance. There pulsed the mystic glowing red, heart and lord of colour; there the jubilant yellow, light-glorified to ethereal gold; there the loveliest blue, the truth unfathomable, profounder yet than the human red; there the green, that haunts the brain with Nature’s soundless secrets! all together striving, yet atoning, fighting and fleeing and following, parting and blending, with illimitable play of infinite force and endlessly delicate gradation. Scattered here and there were a few of all the coloured gems—sapphires, emeralds, and rubies; but they were scarce of note in the mass of ever new-born, ever dying colour that gushed from the fountains of the light-dividing diamonds.
Cosmo rose, left the glory where it lay, and returning to his father, sat down beside him. For a few moments they regarded in silence the shining mound, where, like an altar of sacrifice, it smoked with light and colour. The eyes of the old man as he looked seemed at once to sparkle with pleasure, and quail with some kind of fear. He turned to Cosmo and said,