Complete Short Works of George Meredith. George Meredith
sluggish scraps of iron scud detached from the swinging bulk of ruin, as heavily it ground on the atmosphere in the first thunder-launch of motion.
The heart of the youth was strong, but he could not view without quicker fawning throbs this manifestation of immeasurable power, which seemed as if with a stroke it was capable of destroying creation and the works of man. The bare aspect of the tempest lent terrors to the adventure he was engaged in, and of which he knew not the aim, nor might forecast the issue. Now there was nothing to illumine their path but such forked flashes as lightning threw them at intervals, touching here a hill with clustered cottages, striking into day there a May-blossom, a patch of weed, a single tree by the wayside. Suddenly a more vivid and continuous quiver of violet fire met its reflection on the landscape, and Farina saw the Rhine-stream beneath him.
‘On such a night,’ thought he, ‘Siegfried fought and slew the dragon!’
A blast of light, as from the jaws of the defeated dragon in his throes, made known to him the country he traversed. Crimsoned above the water glimmered the monster-haunted rock itself, and mid-channel beyond, flat and black to the stream, stretched the Nuns’ Isle in cloistral peace.
‘Halt!’ cried the Monk, and signalled with a peculiar whistle, to which he seemed breathlessly awaiting an answer. They were immediately surrounded by longrobed veiled figures.
‘Not too late?’ the Monk hoarsely asked of them.
‘Yet an hour!’ was the reply, in soft clear tones of a woman’s voice.
‘Great strength and valour more than human be mine,’ exclaimed the Monk, dismounting.
He passed apart from them; and they drew in a circle, while he prayed, kneeling.
Presently he returned, and led Farina to a bank, drawing from some hiding-place a book and a bell, which he gave into the hands of the youth.
‘For thy soul, no word!’ said the Monk, speaking down his throat as he took in breath. ‘Nay! not in answer to me! Be faithful, and more than earthly fortune is thine; for I say unto thee, I shall not fail, having grace to sustain this combat.’
Thereupon he commenced the ascent of Drachenfels.
Farina followed. He had no hint of the Monk’s mission, nor of the part himself was to play in it. Such a load of silence gathered on his questioning spirit, that the outcry of the rageing elements alone prevented him from arresting the Monk and demanding the end of his service there. That outcry was enough to freeze speech on the very lips of a mortal. For scarce had they got footing on the winding path of the crags, when the whole vengeance of the storm was hurled against the mountain. Huge boulders were loosened and came bowling from above: trees torn by their roots from the fissures whizzed on the eddies of the wind: torrents of rain foamed down the iron flanks of rock, and flew off in hoar feathers against the short pauses of darkness: the mountain heaved, and quaked, and yawned a succession of hideous chasms.
‘There’s a devil in this,’ thought Farina. He looked back and marked the river imaging lurid abysses of cloud above the mountain-summit—yea! and on the summit a flaming shape was mirrored.
Two nervous hands stayed the cry on his mouth.
‘Have I not warned thee?’ said the husky voice of the Monk. ‘I may well watch, and think for thee as for a dog. Be thou as faithful!’
He handed a flask to the youth, and bade him drink. Farina drank and felt richly invigorated. The Monk then took bell and book.
‘But half an hour,’ he muttered, ‘for this combat that is to ring through centuries.’
Crossing himself, he strode wildly upward. Farina saw him beckon back once, and the next instant he was lost round an incline of the highest peak.
The wind that had just screamed a thousand death-screams, was now awfully dumb, albeit Farina could feel it lifting hood and hair. In the unnatural stillness his ear received tones of a hymn chanted below; now sinking, now swelling; as though the voices faltered between prayer and inspiration. Farina caught on a projection of crag, and fixed his eyes on what was passing on the height.
There was the Monk in his brown hood and wrapper, confronting—if he might trust his balls of sight—the red-hot figure of the Prince of Darkness.
As yet no mortal tussle had taken place between them. They were arguing: angrily, it was true: yet with the first mutual deference of practised logicians. Latin and German was alternately employed by both. It thrilled Farina’s fervid love of fatherland to hear the German Satan spoke: but his Latin was good, and his command over that tongue remarkable; for, getting the worst of the argument, as usual, he revenged himself by parodying one of the Church canticles with a point that discomposed his adversary, and caused him to retreat a step, claiming support against such shrewd assault.
‘The use of an unexpected weapon in warfare is in itself half a victory. Induce your antagonist to employ it as a match for you, and reckon on completely routing him …’ says the old military chronicle.
‘Come!’ said the Demon with easy raillery. ‘You know your game—I mine! I really want the good people to be happy; dancing, kissing, propagating, what you will. We quite agree. You can have no objection to me, but a foolish old prejudice—not personal, but class; an antipathy of the cowl, for which I pardon you! What I should find in you to complain of—I have only to mention it, I am sure—is, that perhaps you do speak a little too much through your nose.’
The Monk did not fall into the jocular trap by retorting in the same strain.
‘Laugh with the Devil, and you won’t laugh longest,’ says the proverb.
Keeping to his own arms, the holy man frowned.
‘Avaunt, Fiend!’ he cried. ‘To thy kingdom below! Thou halt raged over earth a month, causing blights, hurricanes, and epidemics of the deadly sins. Parley no more! Begone!’
The Demon smiled: the corners of his mouth ran up to his ears, and his eyes slid down almost into one.
‘Still through the nose!’ said he reproachfully.
‘I give thee Five Minutes!’ cried the Monk.
‘I had hoped for a longer colloquy,’ sighed the Demon, jogging his left leg and trifling with his tail.
‘One Minute!’ exclaimed the Monk.
‘Truly so!’ said the Demon. ‘I know old Time and his habits better than you really can. We meet every Saturday night, and communicate our best jokes. I keep a book of them Down There!’
And as if he had reason to remember the pavement of his Halls, he stood tiptoe and whipped up his legs.
‘Two Minutes!’
The Demon waved perfect acquiescence, and continued:
‘We understand each other, he and I. All Old Ones do. As long as he lasts, I shall. The thing that surprises me is, that you and I cannot agree, similar as we are in temperament, and playing for the long odds, both of us. My failure is, perhaps, too great a passion for sport, aha! Well, ’tis a pity you won’t try and live on the benevolent principle. I am indeed kind to them who commiserate my condition. I give them all they want, aha! Hem! Try and not believe in me now, aha! Ho! … Can’t you? What are eyes? Persuade yourself you’re dreaming. You can do anything with a mind like yours, Father Gregory! And consider the luxury of getting me out of the way so easily, as many do. It is my finest suggestion, aha! Generally I myself nudge their ribs with the capital idea—You’re above bribes? I was going to observe—’
‘Three!’
‘Observe, that if you care for worldly honours, I can smother you with that kind of thing. Several of your first-rate people made a bargain with me when they were in the fog, and owe me a trifle. Patronage they call it. I hook the high and the low. Too-little and too-much serve me better than Beelzebub. A weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one. Consequently my kingdom