," said Charlie interrupting him: "What signifies making sic a frase as a' this? or what good will it do? I hae run myself into mony a priminary in my life, but I never fand that mony words did muckle good. I trowed that ye had mair art about ye than to be feared for a stane an' lime wa,' an' twa or three airn staincheons. Pith can do muckle, but art can do mair."
Charlie meant the black art; but the friar taking him up in another meaning, shook him by the hand and blessed him.
It may not have occurred to the reader and it is not likely it should, that this same friar was an English monk, the most celebrated man of that age, then exiled from his country, and obliged to skulk in disguise, for fear of being apprehended and burnt as a wizard and necromancer. He was the greatest philosopher and chemist of the age, the real inventor of gun-powder, and many other wonderful discoveries, and, withal, a pious and good man,—al[31]though one whose character was tinctured with peculiarities so striking, that some took him for a man crazed in his mind, but far more for a powerful necromancer. His name is familiar to every man in the least acquainted with the literature or the science of that age; but while he remained in Scotland being always denominated the gospel friar, we have judged it best to call him by that name. If the reader has not discovered this, it is time he should know it; and whether the friar was a necromancer or not, will appear in the sequel.
When the party got leisure to converse together, their first words were expressive of the astonishment they laboured under at sight of the warlike force kept up by the Master. Charlie only testified his regret that there was not a right and mutual understanding between him and the warden; but the maid Delany was the first to remark that she did not think they were right men, because their faces were all alike, and their eyes were not like the eyes of any human being she had ever before looked on. In this every one present acquiesced,[32] and great was their wonder how or whence that mighty armed force had sprung; but they agreed that there was no contending with such numbers, of whatsoever nature they might be, and that there was nothing for it but submitting to the Master's will.
The day light was by this time quite extinguished, but the moon was up; and it being a hard frost, with a slight