“Setting aside the darkness,” said Thompson, “the result of accident, or an addition of the chroniclers, a little clever mechanism will account for the movable bridge of Gerbert.”
“The same explanation applies to the ever-burning lamp of the Rosicrucians, held in the hand of a figure armed with a mace, with which he dashes the lamp to atoms, on the entrance of any person into the secret vault.”
“Most undoubtedly, Herbert,” said Thompson; “for in this instance, the legend describes the figure as raising his hand at the first step of the intruder, preparing to strike as he draws nearer and nearer, and at last, when almost within reach, the secret springs on which he is walking dash down the armed hand of the figure, and the lamp and the secret perish in darkness.”
“The tales of natural magic,” said Herbert, “remind me of the legends of one of the Jameses of Scotland, in the subterraneous cavern of Halidon Hill.”
“I hardly know to what legend you allude,” replied Lathom.
“The one in which the king enters a long hall, where a hundred knights stand on either side, each with his armor on, and his horse ready caparisoned by his side. At the end of the hall stand a bugle and a sword. All is silence; the knights stand as statues, and their warhorses do not seem to breathe. The whole charm depends upon which is performed first, the bugle blown, or the sword drawn from its scabbard. The king seizes the bugle; the effect is that the whole melts into darkness, and the charm is gone.”
“As you have led the way to traditions of the northern part of our island,” said Lathom, “one form, if not the original one of the legend, which Scott has worked up in his Marmion, will not be out of place. I allude to the encounter of Marmion with De Wilton, under the guise of the spectral champion of the Pictish camp.”
“Your old monk’s book would have been a treasure to Sir Walter Scott,” said Herbert.
“That he would duly have appreciated its contents, no one can doubt,” replied Lathom, “but he was so well read in the later forms of the legends, which he would have found in its pages, that though apparently unknown to him, he required but little of its aid. Our writer would wish his readers to see in this legend an allegory of the discomfiture of the Devil armed with pride, by the Christian armed with faith. I will call it by the name of