The Unfortunate Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  “Come here,” he said kindly.

  Albert shambled over to the edge of the bed. Fursey put out his hand and patted him on the head. Albert wagged his hindquarters delightedly, and his smoky red eyes lit up with expectancy.

  “Breakfast?” he repeated hopefully.

  “No,” reiterated Fursey.

  Albert looked aggrieved. “If you expect nimble and courteous service from me,” he asserted plaintively, “you’ll have to keep me fed. I’m that thirsty, the tongue is fair hanging out of my mouth for a drop of blood.”

  “That’s enough of that,” rejoined Fursey.

  “You’ll find that you have acquired a supplementary nipple,” pleaded Albert.

  “I have not,” replied Fursey.

  “At least have a look,” begged Albert coaxingly.

  Fursey ignored the creature’s request. “Where’s Cuthbert?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Albert.

  “Well, put your head around the door and see if he’s in sight.”

  Albert did as he was told. “He’s not in the kitchen,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Well, look outside.”

  Albert disappeared from view into the outer room. In a few moments he was back.

  “Cuthbert’s up at the end of the garden,” he reported. “He has a stick in his hand and a sort of skipping rope. He’s putting a gargoyle through its tricks.”

  Fursey concluded that the sexton was at a safe distance, so he slipped out of bed and pulled on his sandals.

  “Listen, Albert,” he said, “I want to get out of this place as quickly as possible. Can’t you take me on your back and fly out through the far door and across the hills without Cuthbert knowing anything about it?”

  “I cannot,” retorted Albert shortly. “What do you think I am, a bloody bird?”

  Fursey gazed at his familiar with exceeding distaste.

  “Well, how am I to get away?” he asked at last.

  “There are only two ways,” replied Albert, “either by walking or by flying on your broom.”

  “If I walk, Cuthbert will see me.”

  “He most certainly will,” agreed Albert.

  “And he probably doesn’t want me to leave.”

  “You can rest assured that he does not. For one thing, you know too much about the demise of my late mistress, The Gray Mare. What’s to prevent you going to the authorities and denouncing him as a sorcerer?”

  “What would he do if he caught me trying to escape?”

  “That’s hard to say,” replied Albert judiciously. “He might turn you into a toad and keep you indefinitely in a jar in a half-pickled state, or he might compound your ingredients with the white juice of a sea-lettuce and keep you for making love philtres. On the other hand, your bones, if ground to powder and mixed with pulverised flints——”

  “Stop it,” commanded Fursey as he seated himself on the edge of the bed and wiped the sweat from his face with the ragged sleeve of his habit. “It’ll have to be the broom. You had better start teaching me how to fly on a broom.”

  “I can’t,” rejoined Albert. “I don’t know how. You don’t seem to have quite grasped our relationship. You’re the master-brain, I’m only your servant.”

  “It seems to me,” said Fursey shrilly, “that as a familiar you’re pretty well useless. Here, in the first crisis in my affairs since I became a sorcerer, you’re not able to afford me the slightest assistance.”

  “I’m doing my best,” replied Albert sulkily. “What exactly do you want?”

  “I want to get away from here without Cuthbert knowing it.”

  “Well, get Cuthbert himself to teach you how to ride on a broom, and then when he’s not looking, you can make your getaway.”

  “Do you think it would work?” asked Fursey hopefully.

  “It’ll probably end by him turning you into an asp or a hyaena; but if you exercise enough guile, you may manage it.”

  “Guile?” repeated Fursey.

  “Yes,” said Albert shortly. “Doesn’t your own Christian teaching urge you to be not only as innocent as a dove, but as wise as a serpent?”

  “So it does,” confessed Fursey, astonished at the possibility of the practical application of Christian principles to the matter in hand. He sat for a long time in thought, wondering whether he could squeeze up enough guile to deceive the wily sexton. Albert’s voice broke in on his reflections.

  “I hope I’m not being unreasonable,” said the familiar. “About a quarter-pint of blood would do for to-day, just enough to keep my coat in condition.”

  “Disappear,” ordered Fursey.

  Albert opened his mouth to protest, but he melted away before he had time to express his resentment. Still seated on the bed Fursey calculated with a coolness of mind that astonished himself. He must win the sexton’s confidence; he must convince Cuthbert that he was a genuine apprentice sorcerer eager to learn the craft and excel in wickedness. He must impress the sexton and gain his admiration and respect by pretending to be a character of more than ordinary depravity. The events that had led up to his expulsion from Clonmacnoise would be a great help. Cuthbert was sure to enquire as to his history, and a little alteration here and there in the Clonmacnoise story would make him appear a very evil fellow indeed. No need, for instance, to mention the one-time impediment in his speech; he would pretend that he had willingly harboured the demons in his cell because they were friends of his. That was sure to impress the sexton.

  Fursey rose to his feet marvelling at his own ingenuity. Before leaving the room he practised a couple of evil laughs, which were so effective that he found himself shuddering at the hideous sounds which he was able to produce. Then he tiptoed out into the kitchen. There was a pleasant smell of cooking from a cauldron which was suspended over the peat fire. He observed with gratification that the broom which he had brought from The Gray Mare’s cottage, was still propped in its place in the corner; and he remembered that he had a box of ointment in his pocket for use, should it be necessary to anoint it further. He hesitated for a moment in the doorway; then with a beating heart he stepped out into the open air and went round the corner of the house to meet the sexton.

  It was a day of shifting sunshine and shadow. Fursey was surprised to observe that the sun had long passed its zenith and was leaning down towards the west. It was therefore late in the afternoon; no wonder he felt hungry. At the back of the house was a yard across which four ducks waddled determinedly in single file on their way to a small quagmire of filth and ooze. They crossed his path, making no attempt to get out of his way. In fact, as he approached, they quacked alarmingly and cast malevolent eyes in his direction. Fursey gave them a wide berth: you never knew in a place like this what was going to happen next—in one moment one of those ducks might have him by the throat.

  At the other side of the yard was a blasted oak. Fursey carefully avoided its shadow and found himself at the edge of a small orchard. He shuddered and hesitated, for he remembered that orchards were peculiarly connected with sorcery due to the Devil’s well-known interest in apples. Before he had summoned up courage to enter and walk down the avenue of fatal trees, he observed Cuthbert at the far end. The sexton waved to him cheerily and began at once to approach, not seeming to walk, but to glide with a curious smooth motion about a foot off the ground. As he alighted beside Fursey the latter put down his hand in an attempt to stay the knocking of his knees beneath his habit. To the sexton’s polite enquiry as to how he had slept, Fursey replied hoarsely that he had slept very well indeed. The ex-monk had by now fallen into so languid a state that when Cuthbert invited him to walk through the orchard with him and view his domain, Fursey experienced considerable difficulty in putting one foot before the other without falling on the ground. As they slowly paced the patterned sunlight and shadow beneath the trees, Cuthbert emitted a deep, long-drawn, unearthly sigh.

  “How I envy you,” he said. “There’s something beautiful about a man at the threshold
of his career. And what a career! By magic felicity can be conferred on one’s friends and destruction wrought on one’s enemies. The skies will be yours to command, you will ride the winds and the hurricane. It will be in your power to bring madness, and to countenance or thwart fertility. You will pass through the gates of midnight to the caverns of the dead, there to learn the awful secrets of existence. Ah, Fursey, my friend, forgive me if I repeat myself; but my heart is full of joy for you. I cannot understand why, with this immense heritage in your grasp, you still remain languid and apparently reluctant. Is it that you are a man with a natural superabundance of melancholy?”

  Fursey’s reply came from his throat in a husky whistle: “I think I have not yet fully realised my good fortune.”

  Cuthbert nodded understandingly, and when he spoke again his voice was heightened with enthusiasm.

  “You will have intercourse with sylphs and salamanders,” he declared. “You will learn the virtue of herb, wood and stone. You will learn to raise spirits by conjured circles. Circles, you must understand, are made round, triangular, quadrangular, single, double, or treble according to the form of apparition that you crave. Much you will learn by studying the entrails of beasts, by the singing of fowls and by their actions in the air.”

  “It sounds very interesting,” quavered Fursey.

  “Interesting!” shouted Cuthbert. “Do you realise the fierce joy of hidden knowledge and secret power? To the magician nothing is impossible. He knows the language of the stars and directs the planetary courses. The elements obey him. When he speaks, the moon falls blood-red from heaven, the dead arise in their shrouds and mutter ominous words as the night wind whistles through their skulls. The wizard at his pleasure can dispense joy or misery to mankind. He is the master of past, present and future. And this you speak of as ‘interesting’!”

  Fursey passed his tongue over his parched lips.

  “Is it not the case,” he enquired feebly, “that sorcerers usually end their lives in a violent and dishonourable manner?”

  “No,” thundered Cuthbert. “Given ordinary guile and cunning, the sorcerer is master of his own safety. With the exercise of reasonable care he can be neither surprised by misfortune nor overwhelmed by disaster.”

  “I see,” said Fursey.

  “Well,” asked Cuthbert more affably. “What kind of a sorcerer do you think you’ll make?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need a good deal of practice and instruction,” replied Fursey. “I must get you to teach me how to fly on a broom to begin with.”

  “All in good time,” answered Cuthbert. “You will certainly need practice and careful instruction, but what you require most of all is courage. Neither skill nor courage must fail you; if they do, there will be disaster. A sorcerer who is afraid of water, will never command the Undines; one who is timid of fire, will never impress his will on salamanders. If one is liable to giddiness, one must leave the sylphs alone and forbear from irritating gnomes; for you must know that inferior spirits will only obey a power that has overcome them in their own element.”

  “Have no fear that you will find me lacking in courage,” squeaked Fursey.

  Cuthbert threw a quick look at him, but did not reply. Fursey’s heart began to hammer beneath his habit, and he plunged into a halting account of his adventures in Clonmacnoise. They had reached the further end of the orchard and stood at the fence gazing out over the sexton’s garden, which stretched from where they stood to the hedge that bounded The Gray Mare’s property. There were a few hazel trees and chestnuts and neat rows of deadly nightshade, wild parsley and sage. Fursey observed peaches and bitter almonds, and against the graveyard wall fungi noted for their deadly and narcotic properties. As he related the dark and mysterious tale of the invasion of Clonmacnoise, he noted with gratification that the sexton seemed impressed. Fursey’s courage grew with his narration, and he talked glibly of his acquaintance with incubi, hydras and gryphons; and boasted that when the legions of Hell had been all but defeated, he was the one who had saved them from expulsion from the monastery.

  “You acted very well,” said Cuthbert at last. “It’s true that demons are inferior spiritual intelligences, with whom I have little to do. They are a creation of Christianity, while I am the servant of a more venerable religion; still, demons are all right in their own place. I have more liking for them than for monks and religious jugglers. You tell me that you are acquainted with Satan himself?”

  “Acquainted!” echoed Fursey indignantly. “He’s a very dear friend of mine.”

  “Good,” said Cuthbert with a tinge of respect in his voice.

  Fursey realised that now was the moment to win the master sorcerer’s full confidence. He emitted an evil laugh and leered wickedly at the sexton.

  “Well, what’s doing to-day?” he asked throatily.

  Cuthbert’s eyes expressed well-bred surprise.

  “I beg your pardon,” he replied.

  “What’s doing in the way of iniquity?” demanded Fursey, rubbing his hands in his best sinister fashion.

  “Oh,” responded Cuthbert. “Perhaps to-night we’ll sacrifice a live cock at the crossroads by way of initiating you.”

  Fursey’s eyes expressed his disappointment. He stuck out his underlip.

  “Aren’t there any women around?” he asked harshly. “I’d like to make the acquaintance of a lively and engaging female vampire. Couldn’t you conjure up one for me?”

  Cuthbert became very grave. Fursey’s heart missed a beat as he thought for a moment that his request was going to be granted. The sexton took him by the arm.

  “My dear Fursey,” he said, “you must learn to walk before you can fly. I must warn you that the activities of vampires are very destructive of the health of their acquaintances. In fact, visits from the tribe are fraught with danger.”

  “Ah, who minds danger?” retorted Fursey lustily. “We must have courage.”

  Cuthbert shook his head gravely.

  “If you take my advice,” he said, “you’ll lay off the vampires. I had one staying with me here once for the week-end, a rather cadaverous gentleman. I distinctly recollect that when he took his departure on the Monday morning, he left me somewhat debilitated as a result of his attentions. I never invited one since. After all, that was no way to repay hospitality.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” admitted Fursey.

  They moved away from the fence and started to walk slowly back along a path that bordered the orchard.

  “Strange thing,” said Cuthbert. “When you were telling me just now of the demons in the shape of fabulous beasts with whom you are acquainted, your story recalled to my mind an incident that happened to me when I was a young man. I had forgotten it these many years.”

  “Yes,” said Fursey politely.

  “I suppose you’ve never met a basilisk?” asked Cuthbert.

  Fursey thought rapidly and decided that it was safer to say “no.”

  “Just as well for you,” observed Cuthbert. “You’d scarcely be here if you had. Instead there would be a fine stone statue to you in Clonmacnoise. This story of mine has a moral, so you might as well hear it. The moral is: ‘Keep your wits about you and always act with expedition in a crisis’.”

  “Act with expedition in a crisis,” repeated Fursey. “I’ll make a note of it.”

  “When I was quite a young man,” began Cuthbert, “I was out walking one evening along a country road, when on turning a corner I came suddenly on a basilisk rambling along by himself enjoying, I suppose, the mild evening air. Fortunately I recognised him at once for what he was, and knowing that the gaze of a basilisk turns one to stone if one is so foolish as to meet it, I immediately dropped my eyes and fixed them on a spot on the road midway between his front two hooves. At the same time I bent rapidly and picked up from the ground a piece of straight stick which was lying to hand.”

  “And did you feel no ill-effect from his gaze?” asked Fursey breathlessly.

  “I felt a
certain chill,” conceded Cuthbert, “and I cannot say but that an occasional twinge of rheumatism which I get to the present day is not the result of his survey. However, my whole being told me that I must act with the utmost despatch; so, holding the piece of stick vertically at arm’s length, I advanced it rapidly to the tip of his nose. I did not dare look up, but I judged accurately where the tip of his nose must be, by keeping my eyes directed on a spot on the road midway between his front hooves. As you know, the instinct of both animal and human is to keep the eyes fixed on any object that is rapidly approaching. A basilisk’s eyes are protuberant, so that by the time the vertical stick had reached his nose, his two protuberant eyes were looking inward at one another, and he effectively turned himself into stone. When I ventured to look up, there was a very fine specimen of a young bull basilisk in stone with his eyes crossed.”

  “Dear me,” ejaculated Fursey.

  “He remained there for many years, much admired by the besotted peasantry, and an object of great interest to visitors. Finally he was discovered by an archaeologist who had lost his way one night. A learned paper was written, and a whole school of archaeologists descended on the neighbourhood from the monastery of Cong. They took measurements and drew pictures of him, and wrote several shelves of learned volumes. I understand that they argued his presence proved the early inhabitants of this island to have come from the land of Egypt, where such monuments abound. The fact that his eyes were looking into one another interested them greatly; and they deduced from that fact that the religion of our Egyptian forefathers laid great stress on the virtues of introspection.”

  “Is he there still?” asked Fursey.

  “Unfortunately,” replied Cuthbert, “some years later the local authority broke him up for road metal. As you are no doubt aware, material considerations in this country always outweigh considerations of antiquarian interest. I thought it was a pity myself. He was an interesting and unusual monument of our past and was of considerable importance to the local tourist industry.”