DOROTHY'S INITIATION.
There was much about the castle itself to interest Dorothy. She had
already begun the attempt to gather a clear notion of its many parts and
their relations, but the knowledge of the building could not well
advance more rapidly than her acquaintance with its inmates, for little
was to be done from the outside alone, and she could not bear to be met
in strange places by strange people. So that part of her education--I
use the word advisedly, for to know all about the parts of an old
building may do more for the education of minds of a certain stamp than
the severest course of logic--must wait upon time and opportunity.
Every day, often twice, sometimes thrice, she would visit the
stable-yard, and have an interview first with the chained Marquis, and
then with her little horse. After that she would seldom miss looking in
at the armourer's shop, and spending a few minutes in watching him at
his work, so that she was soon familiar with all sorts of armour
favoured in the castle. The blacksmiths' and the carpenters' shops were
also an attraction to her, and it was not long before she knew all the
artisans about the place. There were the farm and poultry yards too,
with which kinds of place she was familiar--especially with their
animals and all their ways. The very wild beasts in their dens in the
solid basement of the kitchen tower--a panther, two leopards, an ounce,
and a toothless old lion had already begun to know her a little, for she
never went near their cages without carrying them something to eat. For
all these visits there was plenty of room, lady Margaret never requiring
much of her time in the early part of the day, and finding the reports
she brought of what was going on always amusing. And now the orchards
and gardens would soon be inviting, for the heart of the world was
already sending up its blood to dye the apple blossoms.
But all the opportunities she yet had were less than was needful for the
development of such a mind as Dorothy's, which, powerful in itself,
needed to be roused, and was slow in its movements except when excited
by a quick succession of objects, or the contact of a kindred but busier
nature. It was lacking not only in generative, but in self-moving
energy. Of self-sustaining force she had abundance.
There was a really fine library in the castle, to which she had free
access, and whence, now and then, lady Margaret would make her bring a
book from which to read aloud, while she and her other ladies were at
work; but books were not enough to rouse Dorothy, and when inclined to
read she would return too exclusively to what she already knew, making
little effort to extend her gleaning-ground.
From this fragment of analysis it will be seen that the new resource
thus opened to her might prove of more consequence than, great as were
her expectations from it, she was yet able to anticipate. But infinitely
greater good than any knowledge of his mechanical triumphs could bring
her, was on its way to Dorothy along the path of growing acquaintance
with the noble-minded inventor himself.
The next morning, then, she was up before the sun, and, sitting at her
window, awaited his arrival. The moment he shone upon the gilded cock of
the bell tower, she rose and hastened out, eager to taste of the sweets
promised her; stood a moment to gaze on the limpid stream ever flowing
from the mouth of the white horse, and wonder whence that and the
whale-spouts he so frequently sent aloft from his nostrils came; then
passing through the archway and over the bridge, found herself at the
magician's door. For a moment she hesitated: from within came such a
tumult of hammering, that plainly it was of no use to knock, and she
could not at once bring herself to enter unannounced and uninvited. But
confidence in lord Herbert soon aroused her courage, and gently she
opened the door and peeped in. There he stood, in a linen frock that
reached from his neck to his knees, already hard at work at a small
anvil on a bench, while Caspar was still harder at work at a huge anvil
on the ground in front of a forge. This, with the mighty bellows
attached to it, occupied one of the six sides of the room, and the great
roaring, hissing thing that had so frightened lady Margaret, now silent
and cold, occupied another. Neither of the men saw her. So she entered,
closed the door, and approached lord Herbert, but he continued unaware
of her presence until she spoke. Then he ceased his hammering, turned,
and greeted her with his usual smile of sincerity absolute.
'Are you always as true to your appointments, cousin?' he said, and
resumed his hammering.
'It was hardly an appointment, my lord, and yet here I am,' said
Dorothy.
'And you mean to infer that----?'
'An appointment is no slight matter, my lord, or one that admits of
breaking.'
'Right,' returned his lordship, still hammering at the thin plate of
whitish metal growing thinner and thinner under his blows. Dorothy
glanced around her for a moment.
'I would not be troublesome, my lord,' she said; 'but would you tell me
in a few words what it is you make here?'
'Had I three tongues, and thou three ears,' answered lord Herbert, 'I
could not. But look round thee, cousin, and when thou spiest the thing
that draws thine eye more than another, ask me concerning that, and I
will tell thee.'
Hardly had Dorothy, in obedience, cast her eyes about the place, ere
they lighted on the same huge wheel which had before chiefly attracted
her notice.
'What is that great wheel for, with such a number of weights hung to
it?' she asked.
'For a memorial,' replied lord Herbert, 'of the folly of the man who
placeth his hopes in man. That wonderful engine; it is now nearly three
years since I showed it to his blessed majesty in the Tower of London,
also with him to the dukes of Richmond and Hamilton, and two
extraordinary ambassadors besides, but of them all no man hath ever
sought to look upon it again. It is a form of the Proteus-like perpetuum
mobile--a most incredible thing if not seen.'
He then proceeded to show her how, as every spoke passed the highest
point, the weight attached to it immediately hung a foot farther from
the centre of the wheel, and as every spoke passed the lowest point, its
weight returned a foot nearer to the centre, thus causing the leverage
to be greater always on one and the same side of the wheel. Few of my
readers will regret so much as myself that I am unable to give them the
constructive explanation his lordship gave Dorothy as to the shifting of
the weights. Whether she understood it or not, I cannot tell either, but
that is of less consequence. Before she left the workshop that morning,
she had learned that a thousand knowledges are needed to build up the
pyramid on whose top alone will the bird of knowledge lay her new egg.
When he had finished his explanation, lord Herbert returned to his work,
leaving Dorothy again to her own observations. And now she would gladly
have questioned him about the huge mass of brick and iron, which, now
standing silent, cold, and motionless as death, had that night seemed
alive with the fierce energy of flame, and yet sorely driven, sighing,
and groaning, and furiously hissing; but as it was not now at work, she
thought it would be better to wait an opportunity when it should be in
the agony of its wrestle with whatever unseen enemy it coped withal. She
did not know that, the first of its race, it was not quite equal to the
task the magician had imposed upon it, but that its descendants would at
length become capable of doing a thousand times as much, with the
swinging joy of conscious might, with the pant of the giant, not the
groan of the overtasked stripling urging his last effort.
She was standing by a chest, examining the strangely elaborate and
mysterious-looking scutcheon of its lock, when his lordship's hammering
ceased, and presently she found that he was by her side.
'That escutcheon is the best thing of the kind I have yet made,' he
said. 'A humour I have, never to be contented to produce any invention
the second time, without appearing refined. The lock and key of this are
in themselves a marvel, for the little triangle screwed key weighs no
more than a shilling, and yet it bolts and unbolts an hundred bolts
through fifty staples round about the chest, and as many more from both
sides and ends, and at the self-same time shall fasten it to a place
beyond a man's natural strength to take it away. But the best thing is
the escutcheon; for the owner of it, though a woman, may with her own
delicate hand vary the ways of coming to open the lock ten millions of
times, beyond the knowledge of the smith that made it, or of me who
invented it. If a stranger open it, it setteth an alarm agoing, which
the stranger cannot stop from running out; and besides, though none
should be within hearing, yet it catcheth his hand, as a trap doth a
fox; and though far from maiming him, yet it leaveth such a mark behind
it, as will discover him if suspected; the escutcheon or lock plainly
showing what moneys he hath taken out of the box to a farthing, and how
many times opened since the owner hath been at it.'
He then showed her how to set it, left the chest open, and gave her the
key off his bunch that she might use it more easily. Ere she returned
it, she had made herself mistress of the escutcheon as far as the mere
working of it was concerned, as she proved to the satisfaction of the
inventor.
Her docility and quickness greatly pleased him. He opened a cabinet, and
after a search in its drawers, took from it a little thing, in form and
colour like a plum, which he gave her, telling her to eat it. She saw
from his smile that there was something at the back of the playful
request, and for a moment hesitated, but reading in his countenance that
he wished her at least to make the attempt, she put it in her mouth.
She was gagged. She could neither open nor shut her mouth a hair's
breadth, could neither laugh, cry out, nor make any noise beyond an ugly
one she would not make twice. The tears came into her eyes, for her
position was ludicrous, and she imagined that his lordship was making
game of her. A girl less serious or more merry would have been moved
only to laughter.
But lord Herbert hastened to relieve her. On the application of a tiny
key, fixed with a joint in a finger-ring, the little steel bolts it had
thrown out in every direction returned within the plum, and he drew it
from her mouth.
'You little fool!' he said, with indescribable sweetness, for he saw the
tears in her eyes; 'did you think I would hurt you?'
'No, my lord; but I did fear you were going to make game of me. I could
not have borne Caspar to see me so.'
'Alas, my poor child!' he rejoined, 'you have come to the wrong house if
you cannot put up with a little chafing. There!' he added, putting the
plum in her hand, 'it is an untoothsome thing, but the moment may come
when you will find it useful enough to repay you for the annoyance of a
smile that had in it ten times more friendship than merriment.'
'I ask your pardon, my lord,' said Dorothy, by this time blushing deep
with shame of her mistrust and over-sensitiveness, and on the point of
crying downright. But his lordship smiled so kindly that she took heart
and smiled again.
He then showed her how to raise the key hid in the ring, and how to
unlock the plum.
'Do not try it on yourself,' he said, as he put the ring on her finger;
'you might find that awkward.'
'Be sure I shall avoid it, my lord,' returned Dorothy.
'And do not let any one know you have such a thing,' he said, 'or that
there is a key in your ring.'
'I will try not, my lord.'
The breakfast bell rang.
'If you will come again after supper,' he said, as he pulled off his
linen frock, 'I will show you my fire-engine at work, and tell you all
that is needful to the understanding thereof;--only you must not publish
it to the world,' he added, 'for I mean to make much gain by my
invention.'
Dorothy promised, and they parted--lord Herbert for the marquis's
parlour, Dorothy for the housekeeper's room, and Caspar for the third
table in the great hall.
After breakfast Dorothy practised with her plum until she could manage
it with as much readiness as ease. She found that it was made of steel,
and that the bolts it threw out upon the slightest pressure were so
rounded and polished that they could not hurt, while nothing but the key
would reduce them again within their former sheath.
END OF VOLUME I.
START OF VOLUME II