His mentioning me as concerned in it, raised my curiosity once more to desire a relation of it. "Why should I relate it," says he, "if you are resolved not to fulfil it?"—I told him I had no resolution against anything that related to my own good, or that of my friends. "But the greatest question with me," says I, "is, whether I am at all concerned in it."—"Oh clearly, clearly!" says he, "there is no doubt of it; it must mean you or nobody."—I told him I must judge by the words of it that I was the person intended by it; and till that was apparent to my reason, it would be difficult to procure my consent to so perilous an undertaking.—"And," says he, "will you, upon hearing it, judge impartially, and go with me if you can take the application to yourself?"—"I cannot go quite so far as that," says I; "but this I'll promise you, I'll judge impartially, and if I can so apply it to myself, that it must necessarily mean me, and no other, and if you convince me I may go safely, I will go."
Nasgig was so rejoiced at this, he was at a loss how to express himself. "My dear Peter," says he, "you have given me new life! our state is free! our persons free! we are free! we are free! And, Peter," says he, "now I have given vent to my joy, you shall hear the prediction.
"You must know, this holy ragan lived four ages ago; and from certain dreams and revelations he had had, set himself to overturn our country-worship of the Great Image; and by his sanctity of life, and sound reasonings, had almost effected it under the assistance of Begsurbeck, then our king, who had fully embraced his tenets; but the rest of the ragans opposing him, and finding he could not advance his scheme, he withdrew from the ragans to a close retirement for several years; and just before his death, sending for the king and all the ragans, he told them he should certainly die that day, and that he could not die at peace till he had informed them what had been revealed to him; desiring them to take notice of it, not as a conjecture of his own, but a certain verity which should hereafter come to pass. Says he, 'you know you have rejected the alteration in your religion I proposed to you; and which Begsurbeck, here present, would have advanced; and now I must tell you what you have brought upon yourselves. As for Begsurbeck, he shall reign the longest and most prosperously of all your former and future kings; but in twice his time outrun, the west shall be divided from the east, and bring sorrow, confusion, and slaughter, till the waters of the earth shall produce a glumm, with hair round his head, swimming and flying without the graundee; who, with unknown fire and smoke, shall destroy the traitor of the west, settle the ancient limits of the monarchy, by common consent establish what I would have taught you, change the name of this country, introduce new laws and arts, add kingdoms to this state, and force tributes from the bowels of the earth of such things as this kingdom shall not know till then, and shall never afterwards want; and then shall return to the waters again. Take care,' says he, 'you miss not the opportunity when it may be had; for once lost, it shall never, never more return; and then, woe, woe, woe to my poor country!'—The ragan having said this, expired.
"This prediction made so great an impression on Begsurbeck, that he ordered all the ragans singly before him, and heard them repeat it; which having done, and made himself perfect in it, he ordered it to be pronounced twelve times in the year on particular days, in the moucherait, that the people might learn it by heart; that they and their children being perfect in it, might not fail of applying it, when the man from the waters should appear with proper description.
"Thus, Peter," says he, "has this prediction been kept up in our memories as perfectly as if it had but just been pronounced to us."—:"'Tis very true," says I, "here may have been a prediction, and it may have been, as you say, handed down very exactly from Begsurbeck's days till now; but how does that affect me? how am I concerned in it? Surely, if any marks would have denoted me to be the man, some of the colambs who have so lately left me, and were so long with me, would have found them out in my person, or among the several actions of my life I recounted to them."—"Upon the return of the colambs from you," says Nasgig, "they told his majesty what they had heard and seen at Graundevolet, and the story was conveyed through the whole realm: but every man has not the faculty of distinction. Now, one of the ragans, when he had heard of you, applying you to the prediction, and that to you, soon found our deliverer in you; and at a public moucheratt, after first pronouncing the prediction, declared himself thereon to the following effect:
"'May it please your majesty—and you the honourable colambs—the reverend ragans—and people of this state,' says he, 'you all know that our famous king Begsurbeck, who reigned at the time of this prediction, did live sixty years after it in the greatest splendour, and died at the age of one hundred and twenty years, having reigned full ninety of them; and herein you will all agree with me, no king before or since has done the like. You all likewise know, that within two hundred years after Begsurbeck's death, that is, about twice his reign of ninety years outrun, the rebellion in the west began, which has been carried on ever since; and our strength diminishing as theirs increases, we are now no fair match for them, but are fearful of being undone. So far you will agree matters have tallied with the prediction; and now, to look forward to the time to come, it becomes us to lay hold of the present opportunity for our relief, for that, once slipped, will never return; and if I have any skill in interpretations, now is the time of our deliverance.
"'Our prediction foretells the past evils, their increase and continuance, till the waters of the earth shall produce a glumm. Here I must appeal to the honourable colambs present, if the waters have not done so in the person of glumm Peter of Graundevolet, as they have received it from his own report.'
"All the colambs then rising, and making reverence to the king, declared it was most true.
"'The next part,' says the ragan, 'is, he is to be hairy round his head; and how his person in this respect agrees with the prediction, I beg leave to be informed by the colambs.'
"The colambs then rising, declared that having seen and conversed with him, they could not observe any hair on the fore part of his head; but I answered that when I left you I well remembered your having short stubbs of hair upon your cheeks and chin; which I had no sooner mentioned than your father arose and told the assembly that though he did not mind it whilst he was with you, yet he remembered that his daughter, a year before, had told him that you had hair on your face before as long as that behind.