It does indeed appear so, said the colonel. I know you don’t invent the fable; I should like to know your authority for it.
My authority, replied De Lancaster, in this case is the same as in that of Becket’s mule; Martinus Delrius is my authority for both; and when we find this gravely set forth by a writer of such high dignity and credit, himself a doctor of theology, and public professor of the Holy Scriptures in the university of Salamanca, who is bold enough to question it?
I am not bold enough to believe it, said Wilson.
CHAPTER III.
An Accession to the ancient Family of De Lancaster.
When the good man of the house perceived that the Salamanca doctor and his anecdotes only moved the ridicule of his friend Wilson, and even staggered the credulity of his son Philip, he pursued the subject no further, but wearied with the exertions and agitations of the day leaned back in his easy chair, and fell asleep. The parties, that were still awake, seemed mutually disposed to enjoy their meditations in silence, till upon the Castle clock’s striking eleven, Philip appositely remarked that it wanted but an hour to twelve—
And then, said Wilson, the first of March will have become the second of March, so that if your boy don’t make haste into the world, saint David’s day will be over, and he will not have the privilege of being born with a leek in his bonnet, and Martin Luther will keep the field of wonders to himself.
The story is very extraordinary, said Philip; but do you think it is true?
Do I think it is true, replied Wilson, that this gentleman, (pointing to a picture over the chimney) whom I take to be Icarus, came into the world, as the painter has described him, with his wings at full stretch? If you can give credit to the one, you may believe the other.
I think the safest way is to believe neither, Philip observed; but the gentleman you point at is not what you suppose: I believe he is some King: It is a family piece, and my father can explain it to you.
That I will do directly, cried the father, who had waked just in time to hear what his son had been saying. The personage you enquire about is not Icarus, but King Bladud of unfortunate memory, and the incident being historically connected with the records of my family, I have had the picture cleaned and repaired, and conspicuously hung, as you see, over the chimney piece of my library. He with the wings is, as I told you, King Bladud: He has miscarried in his experiment, and fallen to the ground from the topmost pinnacle of the Temple of Apollo. The venerable old man in the sacerdotal habit is the priest of Apollo, and the Philosopher in the saffron-coloured mantle is my ancestor, the ingenious contriver of the unlucky pinions. From him it is I date the privilege of attaching wings to my more ancient bearing of the Harp, as you see it displayed on the banners in the hall, and in sundry other parts of the castle, with the appropriate motto underwritten—Dum cœlum peto, cantum edo.