George MacDonald - Wilfrid Cumbermede

‘What time do you dine?’ I asked, putting my hand to my watch-pocket.

‘Ah! you’ve got a watch—have you? But indeed, on a day like this, I dine when I can. You needn’t fear. I will take care of you.’

‘Mayn’t I go into the armoury?’

‘If you don’t mind the risk of meeting Mr Close. But he’s not likely to be there to-day.’

She left me with fresh injunctions not to stir till she came for me. But I now felt the place to be so like a rabbit-warren, that I dared not leave the library, if not for the fear of being lost, then for the fear of intruding upon some of the family. I soon nestled in a corner, with books behind, books before, and books all around me. After trying several spots, like a miner searching for live lodes, and finding nothing auriferous to my limited capacities and tastes, I at length struck upon a rich vein, instantly dropped on the floor, and, with my back against the shelves, was now immersed in ‘The Seven Champions of Christendom.’ As I read, a ray of light, which had been creeping along the shelves behind me, leaped upon my page. I looked up. I had not yet seen the room so light. Nor had I perceived before in what confusion and with what disrespect the books were heaped upon the shelves. A dim feeling awoke in me that to restore such a world to order would be like a work of creation; but I sank again forthwith in the delights of a feast provided for an imagination which had in general to feed itself. I had here all the delight of invention without any of its effort.

At length I became aware of some weariness. The sunbeam had vanished, not only from the page, but from the room. I began to stretch my arms. As the tension of their muscles relaxed, my hand fell upon the sword which I had carried with me and laid on the floor by my side. It awoke another mental nerve. I would go and see the armoury.

I rose, and wandered slowly through room after room of the library, dragging my sword after me. When I reached the last, there, in the corner next the outer wall of the house, rose the three stone steps leading to the little door that communicated with the treasury of ancient strife. I stood at the foot of the steps irresolute for a moment, fearful lest my black man, Mr Close, should be within, polishing his weapons perhaps, and fearful in his wrath. I ascended the steps, listened at the door, heard nothing, lifted the old, quaintly-formed latch, peeped in, and entered. There was the whole collection, abandoned to my eager gaze and eager hands! How long I stood, taking down weapon after weapon, examining each like an old book, speculating upon modes of use, and intention of varieties in form, poring over adornment and mounting, I cannot tell. Historically the whole was a sealed book; individually I made a thorough acquaintance with not a few, noting the differences and resemblances between them and my own, and instead of losing conceit of the latter, finding more and more reasons for holding it dear and honourable. I was poising in one hand, with the blade upright in the air—for otherwise I could scarcely have held it in both—a huge two-handed, double-hilted sword with serrated double edge, when I heard a step approaching, and before I had well replaced the sword, a little door in a corner which-I had scarcely noticed—the third door to the room—opened, and down the last steps of the narrowest of winding stairs a little man in black screwed himself into the armoury. I was startled, but not altogether frightened. I felt myself grasping my own sword somewhat nervously in my left hand, as I abandoned the great one, and let it fall back with a clang into its corner.

‘By the powers!’ exclaimed Mr Close, revealing himself an Irishman at once in the surprise of my presence, ‘and whom have we here?’

I felt my voice tremble a little as I replied,

‘Mrs Wilson allowed me to come, sir. I assure you I have not been hurting anything.’

‘Who’s to tell that? Mrs Wilson has no business to let any one come here. This is my quarters. There—you’ve got one in your hand now! You’ve left finger-marks on the blade, I’ll be bound. Give it me.’

He stretched out his hand. I drew back.

‘This one is mine,’ I said.

‘Ho, ho, young gentleman! So you’re a collector—are you? Already too! Nothing like beginning in time. Let me look at the thing, though.’

He was a little man, as I have said, dressed in black, with a frock coat and a deep white neckcloth. His face would have been vulgar, especially as his nose was a traitor to his mouth, revealing in its hue the proclivities of its owner, but for a certain look of the connoisseur which went far to redeem it. The hand which he stretched out to take my weapon, was small and delicate—like a woman’s indeed. His speech was that of a gentleman. I handed him the sword at once.

He had scarcely glanced at it when a strange look passed over his countenance. He tried to draw it, failed, and looking all along the sheath, saw its condition. Then his eyes flashed. He turned from me abruptly, and went up the stair he had descended. I waited anxiously for what seemed to me half an hour: I dare say it was not more than ten minutes. At last I heard him revolving on his axis down the corkscrew staircase. He entered and handed me my sword, saying—

‘There! I can’t get it out of the sheath. It’s in a horrid state of rust. Where did you fall in with it?’

I told him all I knew about it. If he did not seem exactly interested, he certainly behaved with some oddity. When I told him what my grandmother had said about some battle in which an ancestor had worn it, his arm rose with a jerk, and the motions of his face, especially of his mouth, which appeared to be eating its own teeth, were for a moment grotesque. When I had finished, he said, with indifferent tone, but eager face—

‘Well, it’s a rusty old thing, but I like old weapons. I’ll give you a bran new officer’s sword, as bright as a mirror, for it—I will. There now! Is it a bargain?’

‘I could not part with it, sir—not for the best sword in the country,’ I answered. ‘You see it has been so long in our family.’

‘Hm! hm! you’re quite right, my boy. I wouldn’t if I were you. But as I see you know how to set a right value on such a weapon, you may stay and look at mine as long as you like. Only if you take any of them from their sheaths, you must be very careful how you put them in again. Don’t use any force. If there is any one you can’t manage easily, just lay it on the window-sill, and I will attend to it. Mind you don’t handle—I mean touch—the blades at all. There would be no end of rust-spots before morning.’

I was full of gratitude for the confidence he placed in me.

‘I can’t stop now to tell you about them all, but I will—some day.’

So saying he disappeared once more up the little staircase, leaving me like Aladdin in the jewel-forest. I had not been alone more than half an hour or so, however, when he returned, and taking down a dagger, said abruptly,

‘There, that is the dagger with which Lord Harry Rolleston’—I think that was the name, but knowing nothing of the family or its history, I could not keep the names separate—‘stabbed his brother Gilbert. And there is—’

He took down one after another, and with every one he associated some fact—or fancy perhaps, for I suspect now that he invented not a few of his incidents.

‘They have always been fond of weapons in this house,’ he said. ‘There now is one with the strangest story! It’s in print—I can show it you in print in the library there. It had the reputation of being a magic sword—’

‘Like King Arthur’s Excalibur?’ I asked, for I had read a good deal of the history of Prince Arthur.

‘Just so,’ said Mr Close. ‘Well, that sword had been in the family for many years—I may say centuries. One day it disappeared, and there was a great outcry. A lackey had been discharged for some cause or other, and it was believed he had taken it. But before they found him, the sword was in its place upon the wall. Afterwards the man confessed that he had taken it, out of revenge, for he knew how it was prized. But in the middle of the next night, as he slept in a roadside inn, a figure dressed in ancient armour had entered the room, taken up the sword, and gone away with it. I dare say it was all nonsense. His heart had failed him when he found he was followed, and he had contrived by the help of some fellow-servant to restore it. But there are very queer stories about old weapons—swords in particular. I must go now,’ he concluded, ‘for we have company to-night, and I have a good many things to see to.’