The Printer's Devil Read Online Free PDF

and a phial of viscous liquid he mixed all together and anointed his face with a portion of the resulting unguent, a dab on each chap and one on his front, and one more at his throat. Amazed I beheld his features change, not as one might suppose a melting and re-forming as of tallow heated, but a little disturbance of the air like unto that which one may see above a road in summertime.
    In but an instant I beheld standing before me the semblance of a handsome lord, as unlike Roger as could be: no more the scowling visage but a face as comely as any man might wish, an he were vain about his appearance, which I am not.
    —Just so will I woo Ann Pakeman, quoth a voice which was not Roger’s neither; I could not speak a word being confounded and stricken utterly dumb.
    —What thinkest thou, Fabian? asked he.
    —Tis wondrous strange, I replied.
    —No, he said, it is strange and wondrous too, and laughed. Wouldst thou go with me, he said.
    —Whither, I asked.
    —Why, to speak with Mistress Ann, when I go thither. I will have need of aid, an my plan progress as it should.
    So doth our understanding of the world increase, as we apprise new things; so did I learn that Roger Southwell is a very mage, and that such magic as he hath shewn me is a thing any man can accomplish an he but have the knowledge and the cunning and the will withall.
    1 You can trust a man when it comes to his own art
    So doth the art of ringing increase, and mayhap will ever continue, parvus et parvus . 2 Philosophers say, No number is infinite, because it can be numbered; for infinite is a quantity that cannot be taken or assigned, but there is (infinitum quoad nos 3 ) as they term it, that is, infinite in respect of our apprehension.
    Now I do not remember how may sennights passed after I apprised of Roger Southwell’s intent that he put his plan into hand; there was a great moil in the city and the churches all filled of folk affrighted of the Puritan-laws.
    By which time there were certain of us young men who pledged ourselves to his cause, as it were, acolytes as you might say; nor will I deny it although it sheweth me in a bad light. I can but say I was young (as were we all) and youth and lust do not combine to make sober gentlemen.
    We had not been denied the details of Roger’s wooing of Mistress Ann; how he had captivated her in his strange guise (and did he have other means at his disposal, conjectured I, thinking of love-philtres and such like); how she had been much enamoured of his semblance, not knowing that it was merely a seeming brought about by the art of magic; how she knew him under the name of Walter Kyd of Grayes Inn (being so bemused by his arts as not to wonder what such an one might be at, a-wooing the daughter of a printer); much of her sighs he hath told us, and of how she spake of even his name as beloved, though as we knew it was no name of his.
    On such sand is faith built, by men who think it be a rock.
    However he had not yet had from this dell her maidenhead; until one night he did consider that she was so far in affection for him that she would be sure to go away from her father his house with Roger. To this end Roger hath told off his acolytes (the which include myself) to accompany him, in a guise which he himself hath crafted.
    We met five accomplices, Roger, myself, and three other ringers of our acquaintance, Thomas Audley (a clerk in the office of the Audit of Excise), Hugh Bishop, of Spittle-fields, and Matthew Boys, a writer of music and airs sore idle under the rule of the Puritan-folk (though they say the Usurper doth joy in church music there’s little enow of employment in that trade); none of us were amazed by Roger’s transformation, having all now been made acquainted of it.
    More to concern us was our own: for Roger gave to each of us a talisman to wear and a small phial containing a portion of his efficacious unguent, and bade us each to touch his face with it in that certain way which he hath shewn us