"Without doubt;" said he, "Is it not very likely that I shall be able?"
"Take that then," said the Master, "and put it above the lock-hole of the door; it shall serve you as a summons, and Prig, Prim, and Pricker shall marshal your array." With that he gave him a small piece of parchment written in red characters, which the steward snatched angrily out of his hand, and going down the stair did as the Master had ordered him.
The charm was effective, and its effects momentary. The bustling and the screaming of rats were heard in every corner of the castle, and forthwith a whole column of men marched out into the court in three files, led by the three pages, and headed by the incensed seneschal in his grey mantle and cap.
Our messengers looked mightily astonished when they beheld such a retinue, and Charlie observed that "it was a confounded shame for Mr Michael no to join the warden, and had sae mony idle men lying tholing starvation beside him." But then looking wildly around on both sides to his friends, he added, "God's grace be about us! wha kens but a' thae may be spirits or elves in the shapes o'men? I think they hae unco queer musty-like looks. An I had Corby here he wad soon tell me wi' a vengeance."
Old Gourlay, now at the head of his corps, demanded what the strangers wanted; and on being informed who they were, and that they came on a special commission to the Master, they were admitted, and walked up a lane between two ranks of armed men in full caparison.
The Master beheld them from his casement, and was mightily diverted by the whimsical appearance of the various individuals that formed the group, two of whom he conceived to be the most beautiful creatures he had ever seen. Whoever reads this will at once guess who these two lovely beings were; but if he does, he will at once guess wrong. It would seem that a wizard sees every thing in this fair and beautiful creation through an inverted medium, and that all the common and fine feelings of nature are in him changed and distorted. The beauty of the two young captives appeared, in Michael's eyes, hateful, and even affected him with loathing; but two more lovely and engaging creatures than Jordan and the Deil's Tam he had never seen on earth. The hooked nose, wrinkled face, and mouth from ear to ear of the laird, he thought exquisite; but Tam's long coulter nose, turned up in front, his small grey eyes, and shapeless physiognomy, were beyond all expression engaging. So, from the time that the Master got the first look of them, he determined, contrary to his usual custom, to see and converse with his guests.
They were soon conducted to the door of the vault, in which their friend the friar was immured; and, as soon as the door opened, he exclaimed, with a loud voice, "I charge you, O my brethren, and my companions, that ye come not into this place, nor set a foot within its boundaries; for the place is a place of death, and the bones of the dead men are in it."
There is no deciding what these words might have produced, had they been pronounced in time; but as soon as Charlie and the laird, who were foremost, heard the friar's voice, they rushed towards him without thought or fear of the consequences, and, ere he had done, the hindmost were pushed in by the relentless arm of the seneschal, and the iron door closed behind them. Perceiving how matters stood, the friar straight lifted up his hands, and continued to declaim in a still more fervent stile.
"Hout! Gude Lord, friar man, haud your tongue," said Charlie interrupting him: "What signifies making sic a frase as a' this? or what good will it do? I hae run mysel into mony a priminary in my life, but I never fand that mony words did muckle good. I trowed that ye had mair art about ye than to be feared for a stane an' lime wa,' an' twa or three airn staincheons. Pith can do muckle, but art can do mair."