"Methinks I could live any where, and be void of fear, if but suffered to be in your presence," said Delany: "There is something in what you have told me that goes to my heart, and on it I think I can rely."
"Blessed be thou, my daughter!" said he; "yea, and blessed shalt thou be in thy generation"—
"Hear to that!" said the poet aside: "Still on one subject! It is all over with some body!"
—"But thou art perhaps going into a place of danger, and evil things may await thee. Here, take thou this, and keep it in thy bosom; and, by the blessing of the Holy Virgin, it shall shield thee from all malevolent spirits, all enchantments, and all dangers of the wicked one; the time may come when thou shalt more thoroughly understand the great things contained in this book."
As he said this, he put into her hand a small gilded copy of the Four Evangelists, which she kissed and put into her bosom. All the rest saw this, and took it for a book of the Black Art.
By this time they were drawing near to the gate at Aikwood, where all continued silent and still as formerly. Notwithstanding of this, Charlie's horse, Corby, began to cock his ears and snort in a terrible manner. Stout-hearted as Charlie war, his countenance began to alter; but he uttered not a word farther than coaxing Corby to proceed. The mule leading the way altogether regardless, the horses jogged on after him, example going farther than precept, whether with man or beast. All the horses were, however, become restive, though none of them was half so fierce as Corby. He continued to force down his head, as if smelling the ground; anon capering and snuffing the air, snorting aloud, and moving with an elasticity rather like a thing of spirit than of joints and bones. "Gude faith, Corby, my man," said Charlie, as he patted his mane, "a' isna right here! Wend on, ye camstairy thief: what the deil ails ye? But, gude sauf us! ane should take care wha they name here. They say, an speak o' the deil he'll appear."
The old proverb had scarcely left Charlie's lips, when, all at once, they beheld three pages in black livery standing ranged before the gate, although the moment before there was no living creature there. They seemed to have arisen out of the ground, and as they rose they bowed their heads in a sarcastic way to the embassy. The appearance of the pages, and the motion that they made were both accomplished in the same moment of time, and at the motion every one of the horses broke away, like so many scared wildfowl, some one way, and some another. Charlie tried to restrain Corby with the whole might of his capacious arm; but the impatient animal plunged and bounded into the air with such violence, that his rider was obliged to give him head, and away he sprung like a roe over field and river, straining every nerve to be out of sight of Aikwood, while Charlie's warrior cloak, that hung only by the shoulder clasp, flapped so far behind him that he appeared like a black cloud skimming the valley. Though none of the other horses made equal speed with Corby, every one ran as fast as it could, and all to the eastward, though far asunder.
The mule, on the contrary, never moved nor concerned himself about the matter. He indeed held forward his long ears, and took a serious look of the pages, as of some sort of beings he did not more than generally understand. Nevertheless he despised them, and looked about with apparent astonishment and derision at the madness and folly of his associates. The friar, finding himself left with his mule and the three pages thus unaccountably, began to address the latter; but they only imitated his motions, and made wry faces, without returning him any answer. The mule had by this time taken another serious look at them, and disliking them exceedingly, he sidled towards them with all his mettle, and tried to hit them with his heels. The urchins then raised such an eldritch laugh that they made the arches of the castle to ring, and, skipping about and about, provoked the mule to farther violence. He, on his part, was nothing loth to attack; he ran open-mouthed at one, kicked at another, and tried to crush another up against the gate, all to the great annoyance of the friar, who, with the utmost difficulty kept his seat for a good while, in spite of the mad evolutions of his provoked and provoking beast. But the game once begun was not suffered to subside. The giggling elves, with the swiftness of lightning, skipped about, and, in whatever direction the mule darted, one of them was always pricking him behind. The worthy friar waxed very wroth, and swore by the life of Pharaoh that he would execute vengeance on them. But the noise of mirth and mischief waxed louder and louder, until the austere inmates of the castle heard; and the great Master said to his only attendant, "Gourlay, what is the meaning of all this uproar?"
"It is only Prig, Prim, and Pricker," said he, "making sport with a mendicant friar and his ass."
"Are they killing him?" enquired his Master, with the greatest composure, and without lifting his eyes from a large book that lay before him.