“’I thank you much for the offer, Sir
Ralph, and will bear it in mind should there be an
occasion, but I think that I may be able to manage
without need for bloodshed. You are a vastly more
formidable enemy than I am, but I imagine that they
have a greater respect for my supposed magical powers
than they have for the weight of your arm, heavy though
it be.’
“‘Perhaps it is so, my friend,’
Sir Ralph said, grimly, ’for they have not felt
its full weight yet, though I own that I myself would
rather meet the bravest knight in battle than raise
my hand against a man whom I believed to be possessed
of magical powers.’
“I laughed, and said that so far as I knew no
such powers existed. ’Your magicians are
but chemists,’ I said. ’Their object
of search is the Elixir of Life or the Philosopher’s
Stone; they may be powerful for good, but they are
assuredly powerless for evil.’
“‘But surely you believe in the power
of sorcery?’ he said. ’All men know
that there are sorcerers who can command the powers
of the air and bring terrible misfortunes down on
those that oppose them.’
“‘I do not believe that there are men
who possess such powers,’ I said. ’There
are knaves who may pretend to have such powers, but
it is only to gain money from the credulous.
In all my reading I have never come upon a single
instance of any man who has really exercised such powers,
nor do I believe that such powers exist. Men
have at all times believed in portents, and even a
Roman army would turn back were it on the march against
an enemy, if a hare ran across the road they were following;
I say not that there may not be something in such
portents, though even of this I have doubts.
Still, like dreams, they may be sent to warn us, but
assuredly man has naught to do with their occurrence,
and I would, were I not a peaceful man, draw my sword
as readily against the most famous enchanter as against
any other man of the same strength and skill, with
his weapon.’
“I could see that the good knight was shocked
at the light way in which I spoke of magicians; and,
indeed, the power of superstition over men, otherwise
sensible, is wonderful. However, he took his leave
without saying more than that he and the men-at-arms
would be ready if I sent for them.”
WAT TYLER
That evening Mr. Ormskirk continued the subject of
his talk of the afternoon.
“You looked surprised, Edgar, when I said that
I told Sir Ralph I had made some preparations for
defence, and that some of the compounds in my laboratory
are as dangerous as the common people regard them,
although that danger has naught to do with any magical
property. You must know that many substances,
while wholly innocent in themselves, are capable of
dealing wide destruction when they are mixed together;
for example, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, which,
as Friar Bacon discovered, make, when mixed together,
a powder whose explosive power is well-nigh beyond
belief, and which is now coming into use as a destructive
agent in war. Many other compounds can be produced
of explosive nature, some indeed of such powerful
and sudden action that we dare not even make experiments
with them.
