"Thou art right, Hobgoblin," replied the smith; and going to the little
thicket of gorse on the side nearest to the circle, and opposite to that
at which his customer had so lately crouched, he discovered a trap-door
curiously covered with bushes, raised it, and, descending into the
earth, vanished from their eyes. Notwithstanding Tressilian's curiosity,
he had some hesitation at following the fellow into what might be a den
of robbers, especially when he heard the smith's voice, issuing from the
bowels of the earth, call out, "Flibertigibbet, do you come last, and be
sure to fasten the trap!"
"Have you seen enough of Wayland Smith now?" whispered the urchin
to Tressilian, with an arch sneer, as if marking his companion's
uncertainty.
"Not yet," said Tressilian firmly; and shaking off his momentary
irresolution, he descended into the narrow staircase, to which the
entrance led, and was followed by Dickie Sludge, who made fast the
trap-door behind him, and thus excluded every glimmer of daylight. The
descent, however, was only a few steps, and led to a level passage of
a few yards' length, at the end of which appeared the reflection of a
lurid and red light. Arrived at this point, with his drawn sword in
his hand, Tressilian found that a turn to the left admitted him and
Hobgoblin, who followed closely, into a small, square vault, containing
a smith's forge, glowing with charcoal, the vapour of which filled the
apartment with an oppressive smell, which would have been altogether
suffocating, but that by some concealed vent the smithy communicated
with the upper air. The light afforded by the red fuel, and by a lamp
suspended in an iron chain, served to show that, besides an anvil,
bellows, tongs, hammers, a quantity of ready-made horse-shoes, and other
articles proper to the profession of a farrier, there were also stoves,
alembics, crucibles, retorts, and other instruments of alchemy. The
grotesque figure of the smith, and the ugly but whimsical features of
the boy, seen by the gloomy and imperfect light of the charcoal fire and
the dying lamp, accorded very well with all this mystical apparatus,
and in that age of superstition would have made some impression on the
courage of most men.
But nature had endowed Tressilian with firm nerves, and his education,
originally good, had been too sedulously improved by subsequent study to
give way to any imaginary terrors; and after giving a glance around him,
he again demanded of the artist who he was, and by what accident he came
to know and address him by his name.