The Devil's Recruit Read Online Free PDF Page A

continued. ‘What I plan, you see, is a
diaeta
such as Raphael planned for Cardinal Medici,’ – here I thought I might choke – ‘a pleasant place in winter for civilised discussions.’
    I did not wish to dent his enthusiasms, but I felt someone should open his eyes to the reality of the thing.
    ‘But George,’ I said, ‘these gentlemen are, or were, Italians.’
    ‘Indeed,’ he agreed.
    ‘Had they been Scotsmen, they would certainly not have spoken so blithely about sitting out in winter. Look around you, man, for pity’s sake.’
    George did, and gradually the incomprehension on his face was replaced by a broad grin, then outright laughter.
    ‘Alexander, my friend, I was trying to explain the purpose of these structures, not suggesting that we should sit out there in the wind and snow. But all the same, the sun even shines occasionally on this benighted corner ofGod’s creation, and would it not be pleasant if you and I and other friends could sit out of a summer’s evening and discuss the wonders of philosophy and the beauty God has laid at our door? What think you?’
    I smiled at my friend. ‘I think you are the wisest fool in Christendom, and the kindest.’
    He looked a little abashed, then slapped me on the shoulder. ‘And come tell me what you think to this, and what your kirk session might say to it.’
    He led me to a workbench where there was laid out a diagram describing a machine of some complexity.
    ‘What is it?’ I asked.
    ‘It is an idea I have adapted from the French. I had thought to put a fountain in the middle of the pond, near the spring, have a statue in the middle, perhaps Diana, the Huntress.’
    ‘Not bathing,’ I interrupted.
    ‘No, no, of course not, but perhaps pulling back her bow, and releasing jets of water as she does so.’
    ‘It would certainly be a … curiosity,’ I said.
    ‘But not objected to?’
    ‘Oh, you may be sure it would be objected to, but if you were able to show that the movement was the result of means mechanical and not diabolical, it would be allowed.’
    He nodded, and I saw that this was only half the story. Emboldened, he added casually, ‘And around the pond I thought, perhaps, a nymphaeum.’
    I looked at him. ‘George, you are in jest.’
    ‘No, I am not. It would be perfectly respectable, a series of modestly clad nymphs in …’
    I could not help but laugh. ‘Modestly clad nymphs? Carvings of young women scarcely covered by a film of gauze, you mean. No, that would not be permitted in this burgh. All your time in the homes of the great has loosened your morals, and your memory, I think. There are to be no nymphs, George. Perhaps something such as is to be found at Edzell would be permitted.’ The gardens of Lord Lindsay’s castle in the Mearns, laid out in the last century, were a horticultural and astrological wonder, marrying a vision of planting with panelled stone walls depicting the Virtues, the Muses, and the mythology of the heavens.
    ‘I am already ahead of you there. I have poached two of Lindsay’s gardeners, you know.’
    ‘I met your gardeners today,’ I said.
    He seemed surprised. ‘I cannot think they were in the college. Or do not tell me Dr Dun has a mind to ape my schemes?’
    I laughed. ‘Would that the college could afford it.’
    ‘Ach, it will not be as expensive as it looks. The main thing is to get the well fixed, and then the walls built up, and then I will not perhaps be beset with marauding college regents in the dead of night.’
    ‘Nor their students,’ I said, and told him of the disappearance of Seoras MacKay and Hugh Gunn.
    He was thoughtful, looking out over the dark mass where his dream of a garden lay. ‘If they are lying there injured,which I doubt from the silence that descended on the place after our own little scrap, Charpentier and St Clair will find them: they are determined on knowing every inch of the place.’
    ‘Well,’ I said, straightening myself and stretching my arms,