And for a moment he halted and stood, like one in two minds about a thing. Then the wizard clapped one cover to, in a jocular and insulting manner; and the sound of it came to the pilgrim's ear, about five miles in the distance, like a great gun fired at him.
'By our Lady,' he cried, 'I must see to this; although my poor feet have no skin below them. I will teach this heathen miscreant how to scoff at Glastonbury.'
Thereupon he turned his course, and ploughed along through the moors and bogs, towards the eight-sided palace. The wizard sat on his chair of comfort, and with the rankest contempt observed the holy man ploughing towards him. 'He has something good in his wallet, I trow,' said the black thief to himself;'these fellows get always the pick of the wine, and the best of a woman's money.' Then he cried, 'Come in, come in, good sir,' as he always did to every one.
'Bad sir, I will not come in,' said the pilgrim;'neither shall you come out again. Here are the bones of all you have slain; and here shall your own bones be.'
'Hurry me not,' cried the sorcerer; 'that is a thing to think about. How many miles hast thou travelled this day?'
But the pilgrim was too wide awake, for if he had spoken of any number, bearing no cross upon it, the necromancer would have had him, like a ball at bando-play. Therefore he answered, as truly as need be, 'By the grace of our Lady, nine.'
Now nine is the crossest of all cross numbers, and full to the lip of all crochets. So the wizard staggered back, and thought, and inquired again with bravery, 'Where can you find a man and wife, one going up-hill and one going down, and not a word spoken between them?'
'In a cucumber plant,' said the modest saint; blushing even to think of it; and the wizard knew he was done for.
'You have tried me with ungodly questions,' continued the honest pilgrim, with one hand still over his eyes, as he thought of the feminine cucumber; 'and now I will ask you a pure one. To whom of mankind have you ever done good, since God saw fit to make you?'
The wizard thought, but could quote no one; and he looked at the saint, and the saint at him, and both their hearts were trembling. 'Can you mention only one?' asked the saint, pointing a piece of the true cross at him, hoping he might cling to it; 'even a little child will do; try to think of some one.'
The earth was rocking beneath their feet, and the palace windows darkened on them, with a tint of blood, for now the saint was come inside, hoping to save the wizard.
'If I must tell the pure truth,' said the wizard, looking up at the arches of his windows, 'I can tell of only one to whom I ever have done good.'
'One will do; one is quite enough; be quick before the ground opens. The name of one--and this cross will save you. Lay your thumb on the end of it.'
'Nay, that I cannot do, great saint. The devil have mercy upon me.'
All this while the palace was sinking, and blackness coming over them.
'Thou hast all but done for thyself,' said the saint, with a glory burning round his head; 'by that last invocation. Yet give us the name of the one, my friend, if one there be; it will save thee, with the cross upon thy breast. All is crashing round us; dear brother, who is that one?'
'My own self,' cried the wretched wizard.
'Then there is no help for thee.' And with that the honest saint went upward, and the wizard, and all his palace, and even the crag that bore it, sank to the bowels of the earth; and over them was nothing left except a black bog fringed with reed, of the tint of the wizard's whiskers. The saint, however, was all right, after sleeping off the excitement; and he founded a chapel, some three miles westward; and there he lies with his holy relic and thither in after ages came (as we all come home at last) both my Lorna's Aunt Sabina, and her guardian Ensor Doone.
While yet I dwelled upon this strange story, wondering if it all were true, and why such things do not happen now, a man on horseback appeared as suddenly as if he had risen out of the earth, on the other side of the great black slough. At first I was a little scared, my mind being in the tune for wonders; but presently the white hair, whiter from the blackness of the bog between us, showed me that it was Uncle Reuben come to look for me, that way. Then I left my chair of rock, and waved my hat and shouted to him, and the sound of my voice among the crags and lonely corners frightened me.
Old Master Huckaback made no answer, but (so far as Icould guess) beckoned me to come to him. There was just room between the fringe of reed and the belt of rock around it, for a man going very carefully to escape that horrible pit-hole. And so I went round to the other side, and there found open space enough, with stunted bushes, and starveling trees, and straggling tufts of rushes.
'You fool, you are frightened,' said Uncle Ben, as he looked at my face after shaking hands: 'I want a young man of steadfast courage, as well as of strength and silence. And after what I heard of the battle at Glen Doone, I thought I might trust you for courage.'
'So you may,' said I, 'wherever I see mine enemy; but not where witch and wizard be.'
'Tush, great fool!' cried Master Huckaback; 'the only witch or wizard here is the one that bewitcheth all men. Now fasten up my horse, John Ridd, and not too near the slough, lad. Ah, we have chosen our entrance wisely. Two good horsemen, and their horses, coming hither to spy us out, are gone mining on their own account (and their last account it is) down this good wizard's bog-hole.'
With these words, Uncle Reuben clutched the mane of his horse and came down, as a man does when his legs are old; and as I myself begin to do, at this time of writing. I offered a hand, but he was vexed, and would have nought to do with it.
'Now follow me, step for step,' he said, when I had tethered his horse to a tree; 'the ground is not death (like the wizard's hole), but many parts are treacherous, I know it well by this time.'