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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Monastery, by Sir Walter Scott
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Monastery
+
+Author: Sir Walter Scott
+
+
+Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6406]
+This file was first posted on December 8, 2002
+Last Updated: June 30, 2013
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONASTERY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alan Millar, David Moynihan, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Halbert Glendinning Invoking The White Lady]
+
+[Illustration: WAVERLEY NOVELS ABBOTSFORD EDITION]
+
+             THE WAVERLY NOVELS
+                    by
+              SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+                 Complete
+             In Twelve Volumes
+
+                 Printed
+       from the latest English Editions
+                Embracing
+ The Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes.
+
+
+              THE MONASTERY.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION--(1830.)
+
+It would be difficult to assign any good reason why the author of
+Ivanhoe, after using, in that work, all the art he possessed to remove
+the personages, action, and manners of the tale, to a distance from
+his own country, should choose for the scene of his next attempt the
+celebrated ruins of Melrose, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own
+residence. But the reason, or caprice, which dictated his change of
+system, has entirely escaped his recollection, nor is it worth while to
+attempt recalling what must be a matter of very little consequence.
+
+The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that
+bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave
+them different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with the
+same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the one to
+the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to
+the establishment of the Reformed doctrines. It was supposed that some
+interesting subjects for narrative might be derived from opposing two
+such enthusiasts to each other in the path of life, and contrasting the
+real worth of both with their passions and prejudices. The localities
+of Melrose suited well the scenery of the proposed story; the ruins
+themselves form a splendid theatre for any tragic incident which might
+be brought forward; joined to the vicinity of the fine river, with all
+its tributary streams, flowing through a country which has been the
+scene of so much fierce fighting, and is rich with so many recollections
+of former times, and lying almost under the immediate eye of the author,
+by whom they were to be used in composition.
+
+The situation possessed farther recommendations. On the opposite bank of
+the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures, surrounded by
+sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had once formed the
+crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a single hut, the
+abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The cottages, even the
+church which once existed there, have sunk into vestiges hardly to
+be traced without visiting the spot, the inhabitants having gradually
+withdrawn to the more prosperous town of Galashiels, which has
+risen into consideration, within two miles of their neighbourhood.
+Superstitious eld, however, has tenanted the deserted groves with aerial
+beings, to supply the want of the mortal tenants who have deserted it.
+The ruined and abandoned churchyard of Boldside has been long believed
+to be haunted by the Fairies, and the deep broad current of the Tweed,
+wheeling in moonlight round the foot of the steep bank, with the
+number of trees originally planted for shelter round the fields of
+the cottagers, but now presenting the effect of scattered and detached
+groves, fill up the idea which one would form in imagination for a scene
+that Oberon and Queen Mab might love to revel in. There are evenings
+when the spectator might believe, with Father Chaucer, that the
+
+  --Queen of Faery,
+  With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
+  Were dwelling in the place.
+
+Another, and even a more familiar refuge of the elfin race, (if
+tradition is to be trusted,) is the glen of the river, or rather brook,
+named the Allen, which falls into the Tweed from the northward, about a
+quarter of a mile above the present bridge. As the streamlet finds its
+way behind Lord Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the Pavilion, its
+valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or rather the Nameless
+Dean, because of the supposed ill luck attached by the popular faith of
+ancient times, to any one who might name or allude to the race, whom our
+fathers distinguished as the Good Neighbours, and the Highlanders called
+Daoine Shie, or Men of Peace; rather by way of compliment, than on
+account of any particular idea of friendship or pacific relation which
+either Highlander or Borderer entertained towards the irritable beings
+whom they thus distinguished, or supposed them to bear to humanity.
+[Footnote: See Rob Roy, Note, p. 202.]
+
+In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this
+time, little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a
+flood, which either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies of
+the brook among the stones, have formed into a fantastic resemblance of
+cups, saucers, basins, and the like, in which children who gather them
+pretend to discern fairy utensils.
+
+Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, _mea paupera regna_
+(as Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of Drumthwacket) are
+bounded by a small but deep lake, from which eyes that yet look on the
+light are said to have seen the waterbull ascend, and shake the hills
+with his roar.
+
+Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic
+beauty than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many
+associations of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes
+delight, as might well induce one even less attached to the spot than
+the author, to accommodate, after a general manner, the imaginary scenes
+he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But it would
+be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in general
+pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the Monastery
+in the circumstances of the drawbridge, the milldam, and other points of
+resemblance, that therefore an accurate or perfect local similitude
+is to be found in all the particulars of the picture. It was not the
+purpose of the author to present a landscape copied from nature, but a
+piece of composition, in which a real scene, with which he is familiar,
+had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the resemblance of the
+imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the Allen, is far from being
+minute, nor did the author aim at identifying them. This must appear
+plain to all who know the actual character of the Glen of Allen, and
+have taken the trouble to read the account of the imaginary Glendearg.
+The stream in the latter case is described as wandering down a romantic
+little valley, shifting itself, after the fashion of such a brook,
+from one side to the other, as it can most easily find its passage, and
+touching nothing in its progress that gives token of cultivation. It
+rises near a solitary tower, the abode of a supposed church vassal, and
+the scene of several incidents in the Romance.
+
+The real Allen, on the contrary, after traversing the romantic ravine
+called the Nameless Dean, thrown off from side to side alternately, like
+a billiard ball repelled by the sides of the table on which it has been
+played, and in that part of its course resembling the stream which pours
+down Glendearg, may be traced upwards into a more open country, where
+the banks retreat farther from each other, and the vale exhibits a
+good deal of dry ground, which has not been neglected by the active
+cultivators of the district. It arrives, too, at a sort of termination,
+striking in itself, but totally irreconcilable with the narrative of
+the Romance. Instead of a single peel-house, or border tower of defence,
+such as Dame Glendinning is supposed to have inhabited, the head of the
+Allen, about five miles above its junction with the Tweed, shows three
+ruins of Border houses, belonging to different proprietors, and each,
+from the desire of mutual support so natural to troublesome times,
+situated at the extremity of the property of which it is the principal
+messuage. One of these is the ruinous mansion-house of Hillslap,
+formerly the property of the Cairncrosses, and now of Mr. Innes of Stow;
+a second the tower of Colmslie, an ancient inheritance of the Borthwick
+family, as is testified by their crest, the Goat's Head, which exists on
+the ruin; [Footnote: It appears that Sir Walter Scott's memory was not
+quite accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq. in a note to the
+publisher, (June 11, 1813.) says that _Colmslie_ belonged to Mr. Innes
+of Stow, while _Hillslap_ forms part of the estate of Crookston. He
+adds--"In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have taken measures
+to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as the tower of
+_Glendearg,_ when writing the Monastery, I may mention that, on one of
+the occasions when I had the honour of being a visiter at Abbotsford,
+the stables then being full, I sent a pony to be put up at our tenant's
+at Hillslap:--'Well.' said Sir Walter, 'if you do that, you must trust
+for its not being _lifted_ before to-morrow, to the protection of
+Halbert Glendinning: against Christie of the Clintshill.' At page 58,
+vol. iii., the first edition, the '_winding_ stair' which the monk
+ascended is described. The winding stone stair is still to be seen in
+Hillslap, but not in either of the other two towers" It is however,
+probable, from the Goat's-Head crest on Colmslie, that that tower also
+had been of old a possession of the Borthwicks.] a third, the house of
+Langshaw, also ruinous, but near which the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of
+Jerviswood and Mellerstain, has built a small shooting box.
+
+All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary spot,
+have recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them bear
+the most distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance of
+the Monastery; and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly
+regarding a spot within a morning's ride of his own house, the inference
+is, that no resemblance was intended. Hillslap is remembered by the
+humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies, of the
+class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old Manor House, though less important by
+birth and fortune. Colmslie is commemorated in song:--
+
+  Colmslie stands on Colmslie hill.
+  The water it flows round Colmslie mill;
+  The mill and the kiln gang bonnily.
+  And it's up with the whippers of Colmslie.
+
+Langshaw, although larger than the other mansions assembled at the head
+of the supposed Glendearg, has nothing about it more remarkable than the
+inscription of the present proprietor over his shooting lodge--_Utinam
+hane eliam viris impleam amicis_--a modest wish, which I know no one
+more capable of attaining upon an extended scale, than the gentleman who
+has expressed it upon a limited one.
+
+Having thus shown that I could say something of these desolated towers,
+which the desire of social intercourse, or the facility of mutual
+defence, had drawn together at the head of this Glen, I need not add any
+farther reason to show, that there is no resemblance between them
+and the solitary habitation of Dame Elspeth Glendinning. Beyond these
+dwellings are some remains of natural wood, and a considerable portion
+of morass and bog; but I would not advise any who may be curious in
+localities, to spend time in looking for the fountain and holly-tree of
+the White Lady.
+
+While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the
+imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the village
+of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw or heard of. To give some
+individuality to this personage, he is described as a character which
+sometimes occurs in actual society--a person who, having spent his life
+within the necessary duties of a technical profession, from which he
+has been at length emancipated, finds himself without any occupation
+whatever, and is apt to become the prey of ennui, until he discerns some
+petty subject of investigation commensurate to his talents, the study of
+which gives him employment in solitude; while the conscious possession
+of information peculiar to himself, adds to his consequence in society.
+I have often observed, that the lighter and trivial branches of
+antiquarian study are singularly useful in relieving vacuity of such a
+kind, and have known them serve many a Captain Clutterbuck to
+retreat upon; I was therefore a good deal surprised, when I found the
+antiquarian Captain identified with a neighbour and friend of my own,
+who could never have been confounded with him by any one who had read
+the book, and seen the party alluded to. This erroneous identification
+occurs in a work entitled, "Illustrations of the Author of Waverley,
+being Notices and Anecdotes of real Characters, Scenes, and Incidents,
+supposed to be described in his works, by Robert Chambers." This work
+was, of course, liable to many errors, as any one of the kind must be,
+whatever may be the ingenuity of the author, which takes the task of
+explaining what can be only known to another person. Mistakes of place
+or inanimate things referred to, are of very little moment; but the
+ingenious author ought to have been more cautious of attaching real
+names to fictitious characters. I think it is in the Spectator we
+read of a rustic wag, who, in a copy of "The Whole Duty of Man," wrote
+opposite to every vice the name of some individual in the neighbourhood,
+and thus converted that excellent work into a libel on a whole parish.
+
+The scenery being thus ready at the author's hand, the reminiscences of
+the country were equally favourable. In a land where the horses remained
+almost constantly saddled, and the sword seldom quitted the warrior's
+side--where war was the natural and constant state of the inhabitants,
+and peace only existed in the shape of brief and feverish truces--there
+could be no want of the means to complicate and extricate the incidents
+of his narrative at pleasure. There was a disadvantage, notwithstanding,
+in treading this Border district, for it had been already ransacked by
+the author himself, as well as others; and unless presented under a
+new light, was likely to afford ground to the objection of _Crambe bis
+cocta_.
+
+To attain the indispensable quality of novelty, something, it was
+thought, might be gained by contrasting the character of the vassals of
+the church with those of the dependants of the lay barons, by whom they
+were surrounded. But much advantage could not be derived from this.
+There were, indeed, differences betwixt the two classes, but, like
+tribes in the mineral and vegetable world, which, resembling each other
+to common eyes, can be sufficiently well discriminated by naturalists,
+they were yet too similar, upon the whole, to be placed in marked
+contrast with each other.
+
+Machinery remained--the introduction of the supernatural and marvellous;
+the resort of distressed authors since the days of Horace, but whose
+privileges as a sanctuary have been disputed in the present age, and
+well-nigh exploded. The popular belief no longer allows the possibility
+of existence to the race of mysterious beings which hovered betwixt
+this world and that which is invisible. The fairies have abandoned
+their moonlight turf; the witch no longer holds her black orgies in the
+hemlock dell; and
+
+  Even the last lingering phantom of the brain,
+  The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.
+
+From the discredit attached to the vulgar and more common modes in which
+the Scottish superstition displays itself, the author was induced to
+have recourse to the beautiful, though almost forgotten, theory of
+astral spirits, or creatures of the elements, surpassing human beings
+in knowledge and power, but inferior to them, as being subject, after
+a certain space of years, to a death which is to them annihilation,
+as they have no share in the promise made to the sons of Adam. These
+spirits are supposed to be of four distinct kinds, as the elements from
+which they have their origin, and are known, to those who have
+studied the cabalistical philosophy, by the names of Sylphs, Gnomes,
+Salamanders, and Naiads, as they belong to the elements of Air, Earth,
+Fire, or Water. The general reader will find an entertaining account
+of these elementary spirits in the French book entitled, "Entretiens de
+Compte du Gabalis." The ingenious Compte de la Motte Fouqu? composed,
+in German, one of the most successful productions of his fertile
+brain, where a beautiful and even afflicting effect is produced by the
+introduction of a water-nymph, who loses the privilege of immortality by
+consenting to become accessible to human feelings, and uniting her lot
+with that of a mortal, who treats her with ingratitude.
+
+In imitation of an example so successful, the White Lady of Avenel was
+introduced into the following sheets. She is represented as connected
+with the family of Avenel by one of those mystic ties, which, in ancient
+times, were supposed to exist, in certain circumstances, between the
+creatures of the elements and the children of men. Such instances
+of mysterious union are recognized in Ireland, in the real Milosian
+families, who are possessed of a Banshie; and they are known among the
+traditions of the Highlands, which, in many cases, attached an immortal
+being or spirit to the service of particular families or tribes. These
+demons, if they are to be called so, announced good or evil fortune to
+the families connected with them; and though some only condescended to
+meddle with matters of importance, others, like the May Mollach, or Maid
+of the Hairy Arms, condescended to mingle in ordinary sports, and even
+to direct the Chief how to play at draughts.
+
+There was, therefore, no great violence in supposing such a being as
+this to have existed, while the elementary spirits were believed in;
+but it was more difficult to describe or imagine its attributes and
+principles of action. Shakespeare, the first of authorities in such a
+case, has painted Ariel, that beautiful creature of his fancy, as only
+approaching so near to humanity as to know the nature of that sympathy
+which the creatures of clay felt for each other, as we learn from the
+expression--"Mine would, if I were human." The inferences from this
+are singular, but seem capable of regular deduction. A being, however
+superior to man in length of life--in power over the elements--in
+certain perceptions respecting the present, the past, and the future,
+yet still incapable of human passions, of sentiments of moral good and
+evil, of meriting future rewards or punishments, belongs rather to
+the class of animals, than of human creatures, and must therefore be
+presumed to act more from temporary benevolence or caprice, than from
+anything approaching to feeling or reasoning. Such a being's superiority
+in power can only be compared to that of the elephant or lion, who are
+greater in strength than man, though inferior in the scale of creation.
+The partialities which we suppose such spirits to entertain must be like
+those of the dog; their sudden starts of passion, or the indulgence of a
+frolic, or mischief, may be compared to those of the numerous varieties
+of the cat. All these propensities are, however, controlled by the
+laws which render the elementary race subordinate to the command of
+man--liable to be subjected by his science, (so the sect of Gnostics
+believed, and on this turned the Rosicrucian philosophy,) or to be
+overpowered by his superior courage and daring, when it set their
+illusions at defiance.
+
+It is with reference to this idea of the supposed spirits of the
+elements, that the White Lady of Avenel is represented as acting a
+varying, capricious, and inconsistent part in the pages assigned to her
+in the narrative; manifesting interest and attachment to the family with
+whom her destinies are associated, but evincing whim, and even a species
+of malevolence, towards other mortals, as the Sacristan, and the
+Border robber, whose incorrect life subjected them to receive petty
+mortifications at her hand. The White Lady is scarcely supposed,
+however, to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do
+more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is also subjected
+by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution, and mental energy,
+could assert superiority over her. In these particulars she seems to
+constitute a being of a middle class, between the _esprit follet_
+who places its pleasure in misleading and tormenting mortals, and the
+benevolent Fairy of the East, who uniformly guides, aids, and supports
+them.
+
+Either, however, the author executed his purpose indifferently, or the
+public did not approve of it; for the White Lady of Avenel was far from
+being popular. He does not now make the present statement, in the view
+of arguing readers into a more favourable opinion on the subject, but
+merely with the purpose of exculpating himself from the charge of having
+wantonly intruded into the narrative a being of inconsistent powers and
+propensities.
+
+In the delineation of another character, the author of the Monastery
+failed, where he hoped for some success. As nothing is so successful a
+subject for ridicule as the fashionable follies of the time, it occurred
+to him that the more serious scenes of his narrative might be relieved
+by the humour of a cavaliero of the age of Queen Elizabeth. In every
+period, the attempt to gain and maintain the highest rank of society,
+has depended on the power of assuming and supporting a certain
+fashionable kind of affectation, usually connected with some vivacity of
+talent and energy of character, but distinguished at the same time by
+a transcendent flight, beyond sound reason and common sense; both
+faculties too vulgar to be admitted into the estimate of one who claims
+to be esteemed "a choice spirit of the age." These, in their different
+phases, constitute the gallants of the day, whose boast it is to drive
+the whims of fashion to extremity.
+
+On all occasions, the manners of the sovereign, the court, and the time,
+must give the tone to the peculiar description of qualities by which
+those who would attain the height of fashion must seek to distinguish
+themselves. The reign of Elizabeth, being that of a maiden queen,
+was distinguished by the decorum of the courtiers, and especially
+the affectation of the deepest deference to the sovereign. After the
+acknowledgment of the Queen's matchless perfections, the same devotion
+was extended to beauty as it existed among the lesser stars in her
+court, who sparkled, as it was the mode to say, by her reflected lustre.
+It is true, that gallant knights no longer vowed to Heaven, the peacock,
+and the ladies, to perform some feat of extravagant chivalry, in which
+they endangered the lives of others as well as their own; but although
+their chivalrous displays of personal gallantry seldom went farther in
+Elizabeth's days than the tilt-yard, where barricades, called barriers,
+prevented the shock of the horses, and limited the display of the
+cavalier's skill to the comparatively safe encounter of their lances,
+the language of the lovers to their ladies was still in the exalted
+terms which Amadis would have addressed to Oriana, before encountering a
+dragon for her sake. This tone of romantic gallantry found a clever but
+conceited author, to reduce it to a species of constitution and form,
+and lay down the courtly manner of conversation, in a pedantic book,
+called Euphues and his England. Of this, a brief account is given in the
+text, to which it may now be proper to make some additions.
+
+The extravagance of Euphuism, or a symbolical jargon of the same class,
+predominates in the romances of Calprenade and Scuderi, which were read
+for the amusement of the fair sex of France during the long reign of
+Louis XIV., and were supposed to contain the only legitimate language of
+love and gallantry. In this reign they encountered the satire of Moliere
+and Boileau. A similar disorder, spreading into private society, formed
+the ground of the affected dialogue of the _Praecieuses_, as they were
+styled, who formed the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and afforded
+Moliere matter for his admirable comedy, _Les Praecieuses Ridicules_. In
+England, the humour does not seem to have long survived the accession of
+James I.
+
+The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose peculiarities
+should turn on extravagances which were once universally fashionable,
+might be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of affording
+amusement to the existing generation, who, fond as they are of looking
+back on the actions and manners of their ancestors, might be also
+supposed to be sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly acknowledge
+that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from being
+accounted a well drawn and humorous character of the period, was
+condemned as unnatural and absurd. It would be easy to account for this
+failure, by supposing the defect to arise from the author's want of
+skill, and, probably, many readers may not be inclined to look farther.
+But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to acquiesce
+in this final cause, if any other can be alleged, he has been led to
+suspect, that, contrary to what he originally supposed, his subject was
+injudiciously chosen, in which, and not in his mode of treating it, lay
+the source of the want of success.
+
+The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore
+the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathize with
+them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian dissertations, to
+enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments and diction of
+the characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to strip off our
+lendings--to set aside the factitious principles and adornments which we
+have received from our comparatively artificial system of society, and
+our natural feelings are in unison with those of the bard of Chios and
+the heroes who live in his verses. It is the same with a great part of
+the narratives of my friend Mr. Cooper. We sympathize with his Indian
+chiefs and back-woodsmen, and acknowledge, in the characters which he
+presents to us, the same truth of human nature by which we should feel
+ourselves influenced if placed in the same condition. So much is this
+the case, that, though it is difficult, or almost impossible, to reclaim
+a savage, bred from his youth to war and the chase, to the restraints
+and the duties of civilized life, nothing is more easy or common than
+to find men who have been educated in all the habits and comforts of
+improved society, willing to exchange them for the wild labours of the
+hunter and the fisher. The very amusements most pursued and relished
+by men of all ranks, whose constitutions permit active exercise, are
+hunting, fishing, and, in some instances, war, the natural and necessary
+business of the savage of Dryden, where his hero talks of being
+
+  --"As free as nature first made man,
+  When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
+
+But although the occupations, and even the sentiments, of human beings
+in a primitive state, find access and interest in the minds of the more
+civilized part of the species, it does not therefore follow, that the
+national tastes, opinions, and follies of one civilized period, should
+afford either the same interest or the same amusement to those of
+another. These generally, when driven to extravagance, are founded, not
+upon any natural taste proper to the species, but upon the growth of
+some peculiar cast of affectation, with which mankind in general,
+and succeeding generations in particular, feel no common interest or
+sympathy. The extravagances of coxcombry in manners and apparel are
+indeed the legitimate and often the successful objects of satire, during
+the time when they exist. In evidence of this, theatrical critics
+may observe how many dramatic _jeux d'esprit_ are well received every
+season, because the satirist levels at some well-known or fashionable
+absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, "shoots folly as it flies." But
+when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no longer, it is reckoned
+but waste of powder to pour a discharge of ridicule on what has ceased
+to exist; and the pieces in which such forgotten absurdities are made
+the subject of ridicule, fall quietly into oblivion with the follies
+which gave them fashion, or only continue to exist on the scene, because
+they contain some other more permanent interest than that which connects
+them with manners and follies of a temporary character.
+
+This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson, founded
+upon system, or what the age termed humours,--by which was meant
+factitious and affected characters, superinduced on that which was
+common to the rest of their race,--in spite of acute satire, deep
+scholarship, and strong sense, do not now afford general pleasure, but
+are confined to the closet of the antiquary, whose studies have assured
+him that the personages of the dramatist were once, though they are now
+no longer, portraits of existing nature.
+
+Let us take another example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself,
+who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole
+sum of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers
+peruse, without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances of
+temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holofernes,
+even Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by the mass of the
+public, being portraits of which we cannot recognize the humour, because
+the originals no longer exist. In like manner, while the distresses of
+Romeo and Juliet continue to interest every bosom, Mercutio, drawn as
+an accurate representation of the finished fine gentleman of the period,
+and as such received by the unanimous approbation of contemporaries, has
+so little to interest the present age, that, stripped of all his puns,
+and quirks of verbal wit, he only retains his place in the scene, in
+virtue of his fine and fanciful speech upon dreaming, which belongs
+to no particular age, and because he is a personage whose presence is
+indispensable to the plot.
+
+We have already prosecuted perhaps too far an argument, the tendency of
+which is to prove, that the introduction of an humorist, acting like Sir
+Piercie Shafton, upon some forgotten and obsolete model of folly, once
+fashionable, is rather likely to awaken the disgust of the reader,
+as unnatural, than find him food for laughter. Whether owing to this
+theory, or whether to the more simple and probable cause of the author's
+failure in the delineation of the subject he had proposed to himself,
+the formidable objection of _incredulus odi_ was applied to the
+Euphuist, as well as to the White Lady of Avenel; and the one was
+denounced as unnatural, while the other was rejected as impossible.
+
+There was little in the story to atone for these failures in two
+principal points. The incidents were inartificially huddled together.
+There was no part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to
+apply; and the conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising
+out of the story itself, but in consequence of public transactions,
+with which the narrative has little connexion, and which the reader had
+little opportunity to become acquainted with.
+
+This, if not a positive fault, was yet a great defect in the Romance.
+It is true, that not only the practice of some great authors in this
+department, but even the general course of human life itself, may be
+quoted in favour of this more obvious and less artificial practice of
+arranging a narrative. It is seldom that the same circle of personages
+who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in life, continue
+to have an interest in his career till his fate comes to a crisis. On
+the contrary, and more especially if the events of his life be of a
+varied character, and worth communicating to others, or to the world,
+the hero's later connexions are usually totally separated from those
+with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual has outsailed,
+or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage. This hackneyed
+comparison holds good in another point. The numerous vessels of so many
+different sorts, and destined for such different purposes, which are
+launched in the same mighty ocean, although each endeavours to pursue
+its own course, are in every case more influenced by the winds and
+tides, which are common to the element which they all navigate, than by
+their own separate exertions. And it is thus in the world, that, when
+human prudence has done its best, some general, perhaps national, event,
+destroys the schemes of the individual, as the casual touch of a more
+powerful being sweeps away the web of the spider.
+
+Many excellent romances have been composed in this view of human life,
+where the hero is conducted through a variety of detached scenes, in
+which various agents appear and disappear, without, perhaps, having any
+permanent influence on the progress of the story. Such is the structure
+of Gil Blas, Roderick Random, and the lives and adventures of many other
+heroes, who are described as running through different stations of life,
+and encountering various adventures, which are only connected with each
+other by having happened to be witnessed by the same individual, whose
+identity unites them together, as the string of a necklace links the
+beads, which are otherwise detached.
+
+But though such an unconnected course of adventures is what most
+frequently occurs in nature, yet the province of the romance writer
+being artificial, there is more required from him than a mere compliance
+with the simplicity of reality,--just as we demand from the scientific
+gardener, that he shall arrange, in curious knots and artificial
+parterres, the flowers which "nature boon" distributes freely on hill
+and dale. Fielding, accordingly, in most of his novels, but especially
+in Tom Jones, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, has set the distinguished example
+of a story regularly built and consistent in all its parts, in which
+nothing occurs, and scarce a personage is introduced, that has not some
+share in tending to advance the catastrophe.
+
+To demand equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in
+the track of that illustrious novelist, would be to fetter too much the
+power of giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules; since of
+this sort of light literature it may be especially said--_tout genre est
+permis, hors le genre ennuyeux_. Still, however, the more closely and
+happily the story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the
+catastrophe, the nearer such a composition will approach the perfection
+of the novelist's art; nor can an author neglect this branch of his
+profession, without incurring proportional censure.
+
+For such censure the Monastery gave but too much occasion. The intrigue
+of the Romance, neither very interesting in itself, nor very happily
+detailed, is at length finally disentangled by the breaking out of
+national hostilities between England and Scotland, and the as sudden
+renewal of the truce. Instances of this kind, it is true, cannot in
+reality have been uncommon, but the resorting to such, in order to
+accomplish the catastrophe, as by a _tour de force_, was objected to as
+inartificial, and not perfectly, intelligible to the general reader.
+
+Still the Monastery, though exposed to severe and just criticism, did
+not fail, judging from the extent of its circulation, to have some
+interest for the public. And this, too, was according to the ordinary
+course of such matters; for it very seldom happens that literary
+reputation is gained by a single effort, and still more rarely is it
+lost by a solitary miscarriage.
+
+The author, therefore, had his days of grace allowed him, and time, if
+he pleased, to comfort himself with the burden of the old Scots song,
+
+  "If it isna weel bobbit.
+  We'll bob it again."
+
+ABBOTSFORD, _1st November_, 1830.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE
+
+FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS MAJESTY'S ---- REGIMENT OF
+INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
+
+Sir,
+
+Although I do not pretend to the pleasure of your personal acquaintance,
+like many whom I believe to be equally strangers to you, I am
+nevertheless interested in your publications, and desire their
+continuance;-not that I pretend to much taste in fictitious composition,
+or that I am apt to be interested in your grave scenes, or amused by
+those which are meant to be lively. I will not disguise from you, that I
+have yawned over the last interview of MacIvor and his sister, and fell
+fairly asleep while the schoolmaster was reading the humours of Dandie
+Dinmont. You see, sir, that I scorn to solicit your favour in a way
+to which you are no stranger. If the papers I enclose you are worth
+nothing, I will not endeavour to recommend them by personal flattery, as
+a bad cook pours rancid butter upon stale fish. No, sir! what I
+respect in you is the light you have occasionally thrown on national
+antiquities, a study which I have commenced rather late in life, but to
+which I am attached with the devotions of a first love, because it is
+the only study I ever cared a farthing for.
+
+You shall have my history, sir, (it will not reach to three volumes,)
+before that of my manuscript; and as you usually throw out a few lines
+of verse (by way of skirmishers, I suppose) at the head of each
+division of prose, I have had the luck to light upon a stanza in the
+schoolmaster's copy of Burns which describes me exactly. I love it
+the better, because it was originally designed for Captain Grose, an
+excellent antiquary, though, like yourself, somewhat too apt to treat
+with levity his own pursuits:
+
+  'Tis said he was a soldier bred,
+  And ane wad rather fa'en than fled;
+  But now he's quit the spurtle blade,
+                   And dog-skin wallet,
+  And ta'en the--antiquarian trade,
+                I think, they call it.
+
+I never could conceive what influenced me, when a boy, in the choice of
+a profession. Military zeal and ardour it was not, which made me stand
+out for a commission in the Scots Fusiliers, when my tutors and curators
+wished to bind me apprentice to old David Stiles, Clerk to his Majesty's
+Signet. I say, military zeal it was _not_; for I was no fighting boy in
+my own person, and cared not a penny to read the history of the heroes
+who turned the world upside down in former ages. As for courage, I had,
+as I have since discovered, just as much of it as serve'd my turn, and
+not one frain of surplus. I soon found out, indeed, that in action there
+was more anger in running away than in standing fast; and besides, I
+could not afford to lose my commission, which was my chief means of
+support. But, as for that overboiling valour, which I have heard many of
+_ours_ talk of, though I seldom observed that it influenced them in
+the actual affair---that exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a
+bride,--truly my courage was of a complexion much less ecstatical.
+
+Again, the love of a red coat, which, in default of all other aptitudes
+to the profession, has made many a bad soldier and some good ones,
+was an utter stranger to my disposition. I cared not a "bodle" for the
+company of the misses: Nay, though there was a boarding-school in the
+village, and though we used to meet with its fair inmates at Simon
+Lightfoot's weekly Practising, I cannot recollect any strong emotions
+being excited on these occasions, excepting the infinite regret with
+which I went through the polite ceremonial of presenting my partner with
+an orange, thrust into my pocket by my aunt for this special purpose,
+but which, had I dared, I certainly would have secreted for my own
+personal use. As for vanity, or love of finery for itself, I was such a
+stranger to it, that the difficulty was great to make me brush my coat,
+and appear in proper trim upon parade. I shall never forget the rebuke
+of my old Colonel on a morning when the King reviewed a brigade of which
+ours made part. "I am no friend to extravagance, Ensign Clutterbuck,"
+said he; "but, on the day when we are to pass before the Sovereign of
+the kingdom, in the name of God I would have at least shown him an inch
+of clean linen."
+
+Thus, a stranger to the ordinary motives which lead young men to make
+the army their choice, and without the least desire to become either a
+hero or a dandy, I really do not know what determined my thoughts that
+way, unless it were the happy state of half-pay indolence enjoyed
+by Captain Doolittle, who had set up his staff of rest in my native
+village. Every other person had, or seemed to have, something to do,
+less or more. They did not, indeed, precisely go to school and learn
+tasks, that last of evils in my estimation; but it did not escape my
+boyish observation, that they were all bothered with something or other
+like duty or labour--all but the happy Captain Doolittle. The minister
+had his parish to visit, and his preaching to prepare, though perhaps he
+made more fuss than he needed about both. The laird had his farming
+and improving operations to superintend; and, besides, he had to
+attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and head-courts, and
+meetings of justices, and what not--was as early up, (that I detested,)
+and as much in the open air, wet and dry, as his own grieve. The
+shopkeeper (the village boasted but one of eminence) stood indeed pretty
+much at his ease behind his counter, for his custom was by no means
+overburdensome; but still he enjoyed his _status_, as the Bailie calls
+it, upon condition of tumbling all the wares in his booth over and over,
+when any one chose to want a yard of muslin, a mousetrap, an ounce of
+caraways, a paper of pins, the Sermons of Mr. Peden, or the Life of
+Jack the Giant-Queller, (not Killer, as usually erroneously written and
+pronounced.--See my essay on the true history of this worthy, where real
+facts have in a peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all
+in the village were under the necessity of doing something which they
+would rather have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked
+every morning in the open street, which formed the high mall of our
+village, in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole
+evening, when he could make up a party. This happy vacuity of all
+employment appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary
+hint, which, according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says,
+determined my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to
+illustrate.
+
+But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in
+this deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession,
+before I discovered, that if the independent indolence of half-pay was
+a paradise, the officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and
+service in order to gain admission to it. Captain Doolittle might brush
+his blue coat with the red neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his pleasure;
+but Ensign Clutterbuck had no such option. Captain Doolittle might go
+to bed at ten o'clock, if he had a mind; but the Ensign must make the
+rounds in his turn. What was worse, the Captain might repose under the
+tester of his tent-bed until noon, if he was so pleased; but the Ensign,
+God help him, had to appear upon parade at peep of day. As for duty,
+I made that as easy as I could, had the sergeant to whisper to me the
+words of command, and bustled through as other folks did. Of service, I
+saw enough for an indolent man--was buffeted up and down the world, and
+visited both the East and West Indies, Egypt, and other distant places,
+which my youth had scarce dreamed of. The French I saw, and felt too;
+witness two fingers on my right hand, which one of their cursed hussars
+took off with his sabre as neatly as an hospital surgeon. At length, the
+death of an old aunt, who left me some fifteen hundred pounds, snugly
+vested in the three per cents, gave me the long-wished-for opportunity
+of retiring, with the prospect of enjoying a clean shirt and a guinea
+four times a-week at least.
+
+For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for
+my residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland,
+celebrated for the ruins of its magnificent Monastery, intending there
+to lead my future life in the _otium cum dignitate_ of half-pay and
+annuity. I was not long, however, in making the grand discovery, that in
+order to enjoy leisure, it is absolutely necessary it should be preceded
+by occupation. For some time, it was delightful to wake at daybreak,
+dreaming of the reveill?--then to recollect my happy emancipation from
+the slavery that doomed me to start at a piece of clattering parchment,
+turn on my other side, damn the parade, and go to sleep again. But even
+this enjoyment had its termination; and time, when it became a stock
+entirely at my own disposal, began to hang heavy on my hand.
+
+I angled for two days, during which time I lost twenty hooks, and
+several scores of yards of gut and line, and caught not even a minnow.
+Hunting was out of the question, for the stomach of a horse by no means
+agrees with the half-pay establishment. When I shot, the shepherds, and
+ploughmen, and my very dog, quizzed me every time that I missed, which
+was, generally speaking, every time I fired. Besides, the country
+gentlemen in this quarter like their game, and began to talk of
+prosecutions and interdicts. I did not give up fighting the French to
+commence a domestic war with the "pleasant men of Teviotdale," as the
+song calls them; so I e'en spent three days (very agreeably) in cleaning
+my gun, and disposing it upon two hooks over my chimney-piece.
+
+The success of this accidental experiment set me on trying my skill in
+the mechanical arts. Accordingly I took down and cleaned my landlady's
+cuckoo-clock, and in so doing, silenced that companion of the spring for
+ever and a day. I mounted a turning-lathe, and in attempting to use
+it, I very nearly cribbed off, with an inch-and-half former, one of the
+fingers which the hussar had left me.
+
+Books I tried, both those of the little circulating library, and of the
+more rational subscription collection maintained by this intellectual
+people. But neither the light reading of the one, nor the heavy
+artillery of the other, suited my purpose. I always fell asleep at
+the fourth or fifth page of history or disquisition; and it took me a
+month's hard reading to wade through a half-bound trashy novel, during
+which I was pestered with applications to return the volumes, by every
+half-bred milliner's miss about the place. In short, during the time
+when all the town besides had something to do, I had nothing for it, but
+to walk in the church-yard, and whistle till it was dinner-time.
+
+During these promenades, the ruins necessarily forced themselves on my
+attention, and, by degrees, I found myself engaged in studying the
+more minute ornaments, and at length the general plan, of this noble
+structure. The old sexton aided my labours, and gave me his portion of
+traditional lore. Every day added something to my stock of knowledge
+respecting the ancient state of the building; and at length I made
+discoveries concerning the purpose of several detached and very ruinous
+portions of it, the use of which had hitherto been either unknown
+altogether or erroneously explained.
+
+The knowledge which I thus acquired I had frequent opportunities of
+retailing to those visiters whom the progress of a Scottish tour brought
+to visit this celebrated spot. Without encroaching on the privilege of
+my friend the sexton, I became gradually an assistant Cicerone in the
+task of description and explanation, and often (seeing a fresh party of
+visiters arrive) has he turned over to me those to whom he had told half
+his story, with the flattering observation, "What needs I say ony mair
+about it? There's the Captain kens mair anent it than I do, or any
+man in the town." Then would I salute the strangers courteously, and
+expatiate to their astonished minds upon crypts and chancels, and naves,
+arches, Gothic and Saxon architraves, mullions and flying buttresses. It
+not unfrequently happened, that an acquaintance which commenced in the
+Abbey concluded in the inn, which served to relieve the solitude as
+well as the monotony of my landlady's shoulder of mutton, whether roast,
+cold, or hashed.
+
+By degrees my mind became enlarged; I found a book or two which
+enlightened me on the subject of Gothic architecture, and I read now
+with pleasure, because I was interested in what I read about. Even my
+character began to dilate and expand. I spoke with more authority at
+the club, and was listened to with deference, because on one subject, at
+least, I possessed more information than any of its members. Indeed,
+I found that even my stories about Egypt, which, to say truth, were
+somewhat threadbare, were now listened to with more respect than
+formerly. "The Captain," they said, "had something in him after
+a',--there were few folk kend sae muckle about the Abbey."
+
+With this general approbation waxed my own sense of self-importance, and
+my feeling of general comfort. I ate with more appetite, I digested with
+more ease, I lay down at night with joy, and slept sound till morning,
+when I arose with a sense of busy importance, and hied me to measure, to
+examine, and to compare the various parts of this interesting structure.
+I lost all sense and consciousness of certain unpleasant sensations of
+a nondescript nature, about my head and stomach, to which I had been in
+the habit of attending, more for the benefit of the village apothecary
+than my own, for the pure want of something else to think about. I
+had found out an occupation unwittingly, and was happy because I had
+something to do. In a word, I had commenced local antiquary, and was not
+unworthy of the name.
+
+Whilst I was in this pleasing career of busy idleness, for so it might
+at best be called, it happened that I was one night sitting in my little
+parlour, adjacent to the closet which my landlady calls my bedroom, in
+the act of preparing for an early retreat to the realms of Morpheus.
+Dugdale's Monasticon, borrowed from the library at A------, was lying
+on the table before me, flanked by some excellent Cheshire cheese,
+(a present, by the way, from an honest London citizen, to whom I had
+explained the difference between a Gothic and a Saxon arch,) and a glass
+of Vanderhagen's best ale. Thus armed at all points against my old enemy
+Time, I was leisurely and deliciously preparing for bed--now reading
+a line of old Dugdale--now sipping my ale, or munching my bread and
+cheese--now undoing the strings at my breeches' knees, or a button or
+two of my waistcoat, until the village clock should strike ten, before
+which time I make it a rule never to go to bed. A loud knocking,
+however, interrupted my ordinary process on this occasion, and the voice
+of my honest landlord of the George was heard vociferating, [Footnote:
+The George was, and is, the principal inn in the village of Kennaquhair,
+or Melrose. But the landlord of the period was not the same civil
+and quiet person by whom the inn is now kept. David Kyle, a Melrose
+proprietor of no little importance, a first-rate person of consequence
+in whatever belonged to the business of the town, was the original owner
+and landlord of the inn. Poor David, like many other busy men, took so
+much care of public affairs, as in some degree to neglect his own. There
+are persons still alive at Kennaquhair who can recognise him and his
+peculiarities in the following sketch of mine Host of the George.]
+"What the deevil, Mrs. Grimslees, the Captain is no in his bed? and
+a gentleman at our house has ordered a fowl and minced collops, and a
+bottle of sherry, and has sent to ask him to supper, to tell him all
+about the Abbey."
+
+"Na," answered Luckie Grimslees, in the true sleepy tone of a Scottish
+matron when ten o'clock is going to strike, "he's no in his bed, but
+I'se warrant him no gae out at this time o' night to keep folks sitting
+up waiting for him--the Captain's a decent man."
+
+I plainly perceived this last compliment was made for my hearing, by way
+both of indicating and of recommending the course of conduct which Mrs.
+Grimslees desired I should pursue. But I had not been knocked about
+the world for thirty years and odd, and lived a bluff bachelor all
+the while, to come home and be put under petticoat government by my
+landlady. Accordingly I opened my chamber-door, and desired my old
+friend David to walk up stairs.
+
+"Captain," said he, as he entered, "I am as glad to find you up as if
+I had hooked a twenty pound saumon. There's a gentleman up yonder that
+will not sleep sound in his bed this blessed night unless he has the
+pleasure to drink a glass of wine with you."
+
+"You know, David," I replied, with becoming dignity, "that I cannot with
+propriety go out to visit strangers at this time of night, or accept of
+invitations from people of whom I know nothing."
+
+David swore a round oath, and added, "Was ever the like heard of? He has
+ordered a fowl and egg sauce, a pancake and minced collops and a bottle
+of sherry--D'ye think I wad come and ask you to go to keep company with
+ony bit English rider that sups on toasted cheese, and a cheerer of
+rum-toddy? This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a
+clean virtuoso-a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the
+curled back of a mug-ewe. The very first question he speered was about
+the auld drawbrig that has been at the bottom of the water these
+twal score years--I have seen the fundations when we were sticking
+saumon--And how the deevil suld he ken ony thing about the old drawbrig,
+unless he were a virtuoso?" [Footnote: There is more to be said about
+this old bridge hereafter. See Note, p. 57.]
+
+David being a virtuoso in his own way, and moreover a landholder and
+heritor, was a qualified judge of all who frequented his house, and
+therefore I could not avoid again tying the strings of my knees.
+
+"That's right, Captain," vociferated David; "you twa will be as thick
+as three in a bed an ance ye forgather. I haena seen the like o' him
+my very sell since I saw the great Doctor Samuel Johnson on his tower
+through Scotland, whilk tower is lying in my back parlour for the
+amusement of my guests, wi' the twa boards torn aff."
+
+"Then the gentleman is a scholar, David?"
+
+"I'se uphaud him a scholar," answered David: "he has a black coat on, or
+a brown ane, at ony-rate."
+
+"Is he a clergyman?"
+
+"I am thinking no, for he looked after his horse's supper before he
+spoke o' his ain," replied mine host.
+
+"Has he a servant?" demanded I.
+
+"Nae servant," answered David; "but a grand face o' his ain, that wad
+gar ony body be willing to serve him that looks upon him."
+
+"And what makes him think of disturbing me? Ah, David, this has been
+some of your chattering; you are perpetually bringing your guests on my
+shoulders, as if it were my business to entertain every man who comes to
+the George."
+
+"What the deil wad ye hae me do, Captain?" answered mine host; "a
+gentleman lights down, and asks me in a most earnest manner, what man of
+sense and learning there is about our town, that can tell him about the
+antiquities of the place, and specially about the auld Abbey--ye wadna
+hae me tell the gentleman a lee? and ye ken weel eneugh there is naebody
+in the town can say a reasonable word about it, be it no yoursell,
+except the bedral, and he is as fou as a piper by this time. So, says
+I, there's Captain Clutterbuck, that's a very civil gentleman and has
+little to do forby telling a' the auld cracks about the Abbey, and
+dwells just hard by. Then says the gentleman to me, 'Sir,' says he,
+very civilly, 'have the goodness to step to Captain Clutterbuck with my
+compliments, and say I am a stranger, who have been led to these parts
+chiefly by the fame of these Ruins, and that I would call upon him, but
+the hour is late.' And mair he said that I have forgotten, but I weel
+remember it ended,--'And, landlord, get a bottle of your best sherry,
+and supper for two.'--Ye wadna have had me refuse to do the gentleman's
+bidding, and me a publican?"
+
+"Well, David," said I, "I wish your virtuoso had taken a fitter
+hour--but as you say he is a gentleman--"
+
+"I'se uphaud him that--the order speaks for itsell--a bottle of
+sherry--minched collops and a fowl--that's speaking like a gentleman, I
+trow?--That's right, Captain, button weel up, the night's raw--but the
+water's clearing for a' that; we'll be on't neist night wi' my Lord's
+boats, and we'll hae ill luck if I dinna send you a kipper to relish
+your ale at e'en." [Footnote: The nobleman whose boats are mentioned
+in the text, is the late kind and amiable Lord Sommerville, an intimate
+friend of the author. David Kyle was a constant and privileged
+attendant when Lord Sommerville had a party for spearing salmon; on such
+occasions, eighty or a hundred fish were often killed between Gleamer
+and Leaderfoot.]
+
+In five minutes after this dialogue, I found myself in the parlour of
+the George, and in the presence of the stranger.
+
+He was a grave personage, about my own age, (which we shall call about
+fifty,) and really had, as my friend David expressed it, something
+in his face that inclined men to oblige and to serve him. Yet this
+expression of authority was not at all of the cast which I have seen
+in the countenance of a general of brigade, neither was the stranger's
+dress at all martial. It consisted of a uniform suit of iron-gray
+clothes, cut in rather an old-fashioned form. His legs were defended
+with strong leathern gambadoes, which, according to an antiquarian
+contrivance, opened at the sides, and were secured by steel clasps.
+His countenance was worn as much by toil and sorrow as by age, for it
+intimated that he had seen and endured much. His address was singularly
+pleasing and gentlemanlike, and the apology which he made for disturbing
+me at such an hour, and in such a manner, was so well and handsomely
+expressed, that I could not reply otherwise than by declaring my
+willingness to be of service to him.
+
+"I have been a traveller to-day, sir," said he, "and I would willingly
+defer the little I have to say till after supper, for which I feel
+rather more appetized than usual."
+
+We sate down to table, and notwithstanding the stranger's alleged
+appetite, as well as the gentle preparation of cheese and ale which
+I had already laid aboard, I really believe that I of the two did the
+greater honour to my friend David's fowl and minced collops.
+
+When the cloth was removed, and we had each made a tumbler of negus, of
+that liquor which hosts call Sherry, and guests call Lisbon, I perceived
+that the stranger seemed pensive, silent, and somewhat embarrassed,
+as if he had something to communicate which he knew not well how to
+introduce. To pave the way for him, I spoke of the ancient ruins of the
+Monastery, and of their history. But, to my great surprise, I found I
+had met my match with a witness. The stranger not only knew all that
+I could tell him, but a great deal more; and, what was still more
+mortifying, he was able, by reference to dates, charters, and other
+evidence of facts, that, as Burns says, "downa be disputed," to
+correct many of the vague tales which I had adopted on loose and vulgar
+tradition, as well as to confute more than one of my favourite theories
+on the subject of the old monks and their dwellings, which I had sported
+freely in all the presumption of superior information. And here I cannot
+but remark, that much of the stranger's arguments and inductions rested
+upon the authority of Mr. Deputy Register of Scotland, [Footnote:
+Thomas Thomson, Esq., whose well-deserved panegyric ought to be found
+on another page than one written by an intimate friend of thirty
+years' standing.] and his lucubrations; a gentleman whose indefatigable
+research into the national records is like to destroy my trade, and that
+of all local antiquaries, by substituting truth instead of legend and
+romance. Alas! I would the learned gentleman did but know how difficult
+it is for us dealers in petty wares of antiquity to--
+
+  Pluck from our memories a rooted "legend,"
+  Raze out the written records of our brain.
+  Or cleanse our bosoms of that perilous stuff--
+
+and so forth. It would, I am sure, move his pity to think how many old
+dogs he hath set to learn new tricks, how many venerable parrots he hath
+taught to sing a new song, how many gray heads he hath addled by vain
+attempts to exchange their old _Mumpsimus_ for his new _Sumpsimus_.
+But let it pass. _Humana perpessi sumus_--All changes round us, past,
+present, and to come; that which was history yesterday becomes fable
+to-day, and the truth of to-day is hatched into a lie by to-morrow.
+
+Finding myself like to be overpowered in the Monastery, which I had
+hitherto regarded as my citadel, I began, like a skilful general, to
+evacuate that place of defence, and fight my way through the adjacent
+country. I had recourse to my acquaintance with the families and
+antiquities of the neighbourhood, ground on which I thought I might
+skirmish at large without its being possible for the stranger to meet me
+with advantage. But I was mistaken.
+
+The man in the iron-gray suit showed a much more minute knowledge of
+these particulars than I had the least pretension to. He could tell the
+very year in which the family of De Haga first settled on their ancient
+barony.
+
+[Footnote: The family of De Haga, modernized into Haig, of Bemerside, is
+of the highest antiquity, and is the subject of one of the prophecies of
+Thomas the Rhymer:--
+
+  Betide, betide, whate'er betide.
+  Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside. ]
+
+Not a Thane within reach but he knew his family and connexions, how many
+of his ancestors had fallen by the sword of the English, how many
+in domestic brawl, and how many by the hand of the executioner for
+march-treason. Their castles he was acquainted with from turret to
+foundation-stone; and as for the miscellaneous antiquities scattered
+about the country, he knew every one of them, from a _cromlech_ to a
+_cairn_, and could give as good an account of each as if he had lived in
+the time of the Danes or Druids.
+
+I was now in the mortifying predicament of one who suddenly finds
+himself a scholar when he came to teach, and nothing was left for me but
+to pick up as much of his conversation as I could, for the benefit of
+the next company. I told, indeed, Allan Ramsay's story of the Monk and
+Miller's Wife, in order to retreat with some honour under cover of a
+parting volley. Here, however, my flank was again turned by the eternal
+stranger.
+
+"You are pleased to be facetious, sir," said he; "but you cannot be
+ignorant that the ludicrous incident you mentioned is the subject of a
+tale much older than that of Allan Ramsay."
+
+I nodded, unwilling to acknowledge my ignorance, though, in fact, I knew
+no more what he meant than did one of my friend David's post-horses.
+
+"I do not allude," continued my omniscient companion, "to the curious
+poem published by Pinkerton from the Maitland Manuscript, called the
+Fryars of Berwick, although it presents a very minute and amusing
+picture of Scottish manners during the reign of James V.; but rather
+to the Italian novelist, by whom, so far as I know, the story was first
+printed, although unquestionably he first took his original from some
+ancient _fabliau_." [Footnote: It is curious to remark at how little
+expense of invention successive ages are content to receive amusement.
+The same story which Ramsay and Dunbar have successively handled, forms
+also the subject of the modern farce, No Song, no Supper.]
+
+"It is not to be doubted," answered I, not very well understanding,
+however, the proposition to which I gave such unqualified assent.
+
+"Yet," continued my companion, "I question much, had you known my
+situation and profession, whether you would have pitched upon this
+precise anecdote for my amusement."
+
+This observation he made in a tone of perfect good-humour. I pricked
+up my ears at the hint, and answered as politely as I could, that my
+ignorance of his condition and rank could be the only cause of my
+having stumbled on anything disagreeable; and that I was most willing to
+apologize for my unintentional offence, so soon as I should know wherein
+it consisted.
+
+"Nay, no offence, sir," he replied; "offence can only exist where it
+is taken. I have been too long accustomed to more severe and cruel
+misconstructions, to be offended at a popular jest, though directed at
+my profession."
+
+"Am I to understand, then," I answered, "that I am speaking with a
+Catholic clergyman?"
+
+"An unworthy monk of the order of Saint Benedict," said the stranger,
+"belonging to a community of your own countrymen, long established
+in France, and scattered unhappily by the events of the Revolution."
+"Then," said I, "you are a native Scotchman, and from this
+neighbourhood?"
+
+"Not so," answered the monk; "I am a Scotchman by extraction only, and
+never was in this neighbourhood during my whole life."
+
+"Never in this neighbourhood, and yet so minutely acquainted with its
+history, its traditions, and even its external scenery! You surprise me,
+sir," I replied.
+
+"It is not surprising," he said, "that I should have that sort of local
+information, when it is considered, that my uncle, an excellent man,
+as well as a good Scotchman, the head also of our religious community,
+employed much of his leisure in making me acquainted with these
+particulars; and that I myself, disgusted with what has been passing
+around me, have for many years amused myself, by digesting and arranging
+the various scraps of information which I derived from my worthy
+relative, and other aged brethren of our order."
+
+"I presume, sir," said I, "though I would by no means intrude the
+question, that you are now returned to Scotland with a view to settle
+amongst your countrymen, since the great political catastrophe of our
+time has reduced your corps?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the Benedictine, "such is not my intention. A
+European potentate, who still cherishes the Catholic faith, has offered
+us a retreat within his dominions, where a few of my scattered brethren
+are already assembled, to pray to God for blessings on their protector,
+and pardon to their enemies. No one, I believe, will be able to object
+to us under our new establishment, that the extent of our revenues will
+be inconsistent with our vows of poverty and abstinence; but, let us
+strive to be thankful to God, that the snare of temporal abundance is
+removed from us."
+
+"Many of your convents abroad, sir," said I, "enjoyed very handsome
+incomes--and yet, allowing for times, I question if any were better
+provided for than the Monastery of this village. It is said to have
+possessed nearly two thousand pounds in yearly money-rent, fourteen
+chalders and nine bolls of wheat, fifty-six chalders five bolls barley,
+forty-four chalders and ten bolls oats, capons and poultry, butter,
+salt, carriage and arriage, peats and kain, wool and ale."
+
+"Even too much of all these temporal goods, sir," said my companion,
+"which, though well intended by the pious donors, served only to make
+the establishment the envy and the prey of those by whom it was finally
+devoured."
+
+"In the meanwhile, however," I observed, "the monks had an easy life of
+it, and, as the old song goes,
+
+  --made gude kale
+  On Fridays when they fasted."
+
+"I understand you, sir," said the Benedictine; "it is difficult, saith
+the proverb, to carry a full cup without spilling. Unquestionably
+the wealth of the community, as it endangered the safety of the
+establishment by exciting the cupidity of others, was also in frequent
+instances a snare to the brethren themselves. And yet we have seen
+the revenues of convents expended, not only in acts of beneficence
+and hospitality to individuals, but in works of general and permanent
+advantage to the world at large. The noble folio collection of French
+historians, commenced in 1737, under the inspection and at the expense
+of the community of Saint Maur, will long show that the revenues of
+the Benedictines were not always spent in self-indulgence, and that the
+members of that order did not uniformly slumber in sloth and indolence,
+when they had discharged the formal duties of their rule."
+
+As I knew nothing earthly at the time about the community of St. Maur,
+and their learned labours, I could only return a mumbling assent to
+this proposition. I have since seen this noble work in the library of a
+distinguished family, and I must own I am ashamed to reflect, that, in
+so wealthy a country as ours, a similar digest of our historians should
+not be undertaken, under the patronage of the noble and the learned, in
+rivalry of that which the Benedictines of Paris executed at the expense
+of their own conventual funds.
+
+"I perceive," said the ex-Benedictine, smiling, "that your heretical
+prejudices are too strong to allow us poor brethren any merit, whether
+literary or spiritual."
+
+"Far from it, sir," said I; "I assure you I have been much obliged to
+monks in my time. When I was quartered in a Monastery in Flanders, in
+the campaign of 1793, I never lived more comfortably in my life. They
+were jolly fellows, the Flemish Canons, and right sorry was I to leave
+my good quarters, and to know that my honest hosts were to be at the
+mercy of the Sans-Culottes. But _fortune de la guerre!_"
+
+The poor Benedictine looked down and was silent. I had unwittingly
+awakened a train of bitter reflections, or rather I had touched somewhat
+rudely upon a chord which seldom ceased to vibrate of itself. But he
+was too much accustomed to this sorrowful train of ideas to suffer it to
+overcome him. On my part, I hastened to atone for my blunder. "If there
+was any object of his journey to this country in which I could, with
+propriety, assist him, I begged to offer him my best services." I own
+I laid some little emphasis on the words "with propriety," as I felt it
+would ill become me, a sound Protestant, and a servant of government so
+far as my half-pay was concerned, to implicate myself in any recruiting
+which my companion might have undertaken in behalf of foreign
+seminaries, or in any similar design for the advancement of Popery,
+which, whether the Pope be actually the old lady of Babylon or no, it
+did not become me in any manner to advance or countenance.
+
+My new friend hastened to relieve my indecision. "I was about to request
+your assistance, sir," he said, "in a matter which cannot but interest
+you as an antiquary, and a person of research. But I assure you it
+relates entirely to events and persons removed to the distance of two
+centuries and a half. I have experienced too much evil from the violent
+unsettlement of the country in which I was born, to be a rash labourer
+in the work of innovation in that of my ancestors."
+
+I again assured him of my willingness to assist him in anything that was
+not contrary to my allegiance or religion.
+
+"My proposal," he replied, "affects neither.--May God bless the reigning
+family in Britain! They are not, indeed, of that dynasty to restore
+which my ancestors struggled and suffered in vain; but the Providence
+who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the
+virtues necessary to his time--firmness and intrepidity--a true love
+of his country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is
+surrounded.--For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope
+that the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation has rent them from
+the bosom of the church, will, in his own good time and manner, restore
+them to its holy pale. The efforts of an individual, obscure and
+humble as myself, might well retard, but could never advance, a work so
+mighty."
+
+"May I then inquire, sir," said I, "with what purpose you seek this
+country?"
+
+Ere my companion replied, he took from his pocket a clasped paper book,
+about the size of a regimental orderly-book, full, as it seemed, of
+memoranda; and, drawing one of the candles close to him, (for David,
+as a strong proof of his respect for the stranger, had indulged us with
+two,) he seemed to peruse the contents very earnestly.
+
+"There is among the ruins of the western end of the Abbey church," said
+he, looking up to me, yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and
+occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, "a sort of
+recess or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate vicinity
+of one of those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the
+magnificent roof, whose fall has now encumbered that part of the
+building with its ruins."
+
+"I think," said I, "that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in the
+side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved
+stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to
+decipher?"
+
+"You are right," answered the Benedictine; and again consulting
+his memoranda, he added, "the arms on the dexter side are those of
+Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged
+of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel;
+they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country--the
+arms _part y per pale_."
+
+"I think," said I, "there is no part of this ancient structure with
+which you are not as well acquainted as was the mason who built it. But
+if your information be correct, he who made out these bearings must have
+had better eyes than mine."
+
+"His eyes," said the Benedictine, "have long been closed in death;
+probably when he inspected the monument it was in a more perfect state,
+or he may have derived his information from the tradition of the place."
+
+"I assure you," said I, "that no such tradition now exists. I have
+made several reconnoissances among the old people, in hopes to learn
+something of the armorial bearings, but I never heard of such a
+circumstance. It seems odd that you should have acquired it in a foreign
+land."
+
+"These trifling particulars," he replied, "were formerly looked upon
+as more important, and they were sanctified to the exiles who retained
+recollection of them, because they related to a place dear indeed to
+memory, but which their eyes could never again behold. It is possible,
+in like manner, that on the Potomac or Susquehannah, you may find
+traditions current concerning places in England, which are utterly
+forgotten in the neighbourhood where they originated. But to my purpose.
+In this recess, marked by the armorial bearings, lies buried a treasure,
+and it is in order to remove it that I have undertaken my present
+journey."
+
+"A treasure!" echoed I, in astonishment.
+
+"Yes," replied the monk, "an inestimable treasure, for those who know
+how to use it rightly."
+
+I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a
+handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having
+a smart cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the
+room before gay eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced my ear,
+"Captain Clutterbuck's tilbury--drive up." But I resisted the devil, and
+he fled from me.
+
+"I believe," said I, "all hidden treasure belongs either to the king or
+the lord of the soil; and as I have served his majesty, I cannot
+concern myself in any adventure which may have an end in the Court of
+Exchequer."
+
+"The treasure I seek," said the stranger, smiling, "will not be envied
+by princes or nobles,---it is simply the heart of an upright man."
+
+"Ah! I understand you," I answered; "some relic, forgotten in the
+confusion of the Reformation. I know the value which men of your
+persuasion put upon the bodies and limbs of saints. I have seen the
+Three Kings of Cologne."
+
+"The relics which I seek, however," said the Benedictine, "are not
+precisely of that nature. The excellent relative whom I have already
+mentioned, amused his leisure hours with putting into form the
+traditions of his family, particularly some remarkable circumstances
+which took place about the first breaking out of the schism of the
+church in Scotland. He became so much interested in his own labours,
+that at length he resolved that the heart of one individual, the hero of
+his tale, should rest no longer in a land of heresy, now deserted by all
+his kindred. As he knew where it was deposited, he formed the resolution
+to visit his native country for the purpose of recovering this valued
+relic. But age, and at length disease, interfered with his resolution,
+and it was on his deathbed that he charged me to undertake the task in
+his stead. The various important events which have crowded upon each
+other, our ruin and our exile, have for many years obliged me to
+postpone this delegated duty. Why, indeed, transfer the relics of a holy
+and worthy man to a country, where religion and virtue are become
+the mockery of the scorner? I have now a home, which I trust may be
+permanent, if any thing in this earth can be, termed so. Thither will I
+transport the heart of the good father, and beside the shrine which it
+shall occupy, I will construct my own grave."
+
+"He must, indeed, have been an excellent man," replied I, "whose memory,
+at so distant a period, calls forth such strong marks of regard."
+
+"He was, as you justly term him," said the ecclesiastic, "indeed
+excellent--excellent in his life and doctrine--excellent, above all, in
+his self-denied and disinterested sacrifice of all that life holds dear
+to principle and to friendship. But you shall read his history. I shall
+be happy at once to gratify your curiosity, and to show my sense of
+your kindness, if you will have the goodness to procure me the means
+of accomplishing my object." I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the
+rubbish amongst which he proposed to search was no part of the ordinary
+burial-ground, and as I was on the best terms with the sexton, I had
+little doubt that I could procure him the means of executing his pious
+purpose.
+
+With this promise we parted for the night; and on the ensuing morning
+I made it my business to see the sexton, who, for a small gratuity,
+readily granted permission of search, on condition, however, that he
+should be present himself, to see that the stranger removed nothing of
+intrinsic value.
+
+"To banes, and skulls, and hearts, if he can find ony, he shall be
+welcome," said this guardian of the ruined Monastery, "there's plenty
+a' about, an he's curious of them; but if there be ony picts" (meaning
+perhaps _pyx_) "or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of
+gold and silver, deil hae me an I conneve at their being removed."
+
+The sexton also stipulated, that our researches should take place at
+night, being unwilling to excite observation, or give rise to scandal.
+My new acquaintance and I spent the day as became lovers of hoar
+antiquity. We visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again
+and again during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at
+David's, we walked in the afternoon to such places in the neighbourhood
+as ancient tradition or modern conjecture had rendered mark worthy.
+Night found us in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton, who
+carried a dark lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of
+the dead, and the fragments of that architecture, which they doubtless
+trusted would have canopied their bones till doomsday.
+
+I am by no means particularly superstitious, and yet there was that in
+the present service which I did not very much like. There was something
+awful in the resolution of disturbing, at such an hour, and in such a
+place, the still and mute sanctity of the grave. My companions were free
+from this impression--the stranger from his energetic desire to
+execute the purpose for which he came--and the sexton from habitual
+indifference. We soon stood in the aisle, which, by the account of the
+Benedictine, contained the bones of the family of Glendinning, and were
+busily employed in removing the rubbish from a corner which the stranger
+pointed out. If a half-pay Captain could have represented an ancient
+Border-knight, or an ex-Benedictine of the nineteenth century a wizard
+monk of the sixteenth, we might have aptly enough personified the search
+after Michael Scott's lamp and book of magic power. But the sexton
+would have been _de trop_ in the group. [Footnote: This is one of those
+passages which must now read awkwardly, since every one knows that the
+Novelist and the author of the Lay of the Minstrel, is the same person.
+But before the avowal was made, the author was forced into this
+and similar offences against good taste, to meet an argument, often
+repeated, that there was something very mysterious in the Author of
+Waverley's reserve concerning Sir Walter Scott, an author sufficiently
+voluminous at least. I had a great mind to remove the passages from this
+edition, but the more candid way is to explain how they came there.]
+
+Ere the stranger, assisted by the sexton in his task, had been long at
+work, they came to some hewn stones, which seemed to have made part of a
+small shrine, though now displaced and destroyed.
+
+"Let us remove these with caution, my friend," said the stranger, "lest
+we injure that which I come to seek."
+
+"They are prime stanes," said the sexton, "picked free every ane of
+them;--warse than the best wad never serve the monks, I'se warrant."
+
+A minute after he had made this observation, he exclaimed, "I hae fund
+something now that stands again' the spade, as if it were neither earth
+nor stane."
+
+The stranger stooped eagerly to assist him.
+
+"Na, na, haill o' my ain," said the sexton; "nae halves or
+quarters;"--and he lifted from amongst the ruins a small leaden box.
+
+"You will be disappointed, my friend," said the Benedictine, "if you
+expect any thing there but the mouldering dust of a human heart, closed
+in an inner case of porphyry."
+
+I interposed as a neutral party, and taking the box from the sexton,
+reminded him, that if there were treasure concealed in it, still it
+could not become the property of the finder. I then proposed, that as
+the place was too dark to examine the contents of the leaden casket, we
+should adjourn to David's, where we might have the advantage of light
+and fire while carrying on our investigation. The stranger requested us
+to go before, assuring us that he would follow in a few minutes.
+
+I fancy that old Mattocks suspected these few minutes might be employed
+in effecting farther discoveries amongst the tombs, for he glided back
+through a side-aisle to watch the Benedictine's motions, but presently
+returned, and told me in a whisper that "the gentleman was on his knees
+amang the cauld stanes, praying like ony saunt."
+
+I stole back, and beheld the old man actually employed as Mattocks had
+informed me. The language seemed to be Latin; and as, the whispered, yet
+solemn accent, glided away through the ruined aisles, I could not
+help reflecting how long it was since they had heard the forms of that
+religion, for the exercise of which they had been reared at such cost of
+time, taste, labour, and expense. "Come away, come away," said I; "let
+us leave him to himself, Mattocks; this is no business of ours."
+
+"My certes, no, Captain," said Mattocks; "ne'ertheless, it winna
+be amiss to keep an eye on him. My father, rest his saul, was a
+horse-couper, and used to say he never was cheated in a naig in his
+life, saving by a west-country whig frae Kilmarnock, that said a
+grace ower a dram o' whisky. But this gentleman will be a Roman, I'se
+warrant?"
+
+"You are perfectly right in that, Saunders," said I.
+
+"Ay, I have seen twa or three of their priests that were chased ower
+here some score o' years syne. They just danced like mad when they
+looked on the friars' heads, and the nuns' heads, in the cloister
+yonder; they took to them like auld acquaintance like.--Od, he is
+not stirring yet, mair than he were a through-stane! [Footnote: A
+tombstone.] I never kend a Roman, to say kend him, but ane--mair by
+token, he was the only ane in the town to ken--and that was auld Jock of
+the Pend. It wad hae been lang ere ye fand Jock praying in the Abbey in
+a thick night, wi' his knees on a cauld stane. Jock likit a kirk wi'
+a chimley in't. Mony a merry ploy I hae had wi' him down at the inn
+yonder; and when he died, decently I wad hae earded him; but, or I gat
+his grave weel howkit, some of the quality, that were o' his ain unhappy
+persuasion, had the corpse whirried away up the water, and buried him
+after their ain pleasure, doubtless--they kend best. I wad hae made
+nae great charge. I wadna hae excised Johnnie, dead or alive.--Stay,
+see--the strange gentleman is coming."
+
+"Hold the lantern to assist him, Mattocks," said I.--"This is rough
+walking, sir."
+
+"Yes," replied the Benedictine; "I may say with a poet, who is doubtless
+familiar to you----"
+
+I should be surprised if he were, thought I internally.
+
+The stranger continued:
+
+  "Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
+  Have my old feet stumbled at graves!"
+
+"We are now clear of the churchyard," said I, "and have but a short walk
+to David's, where I hope we shall find a cheerful fire to enliven us
+after our night's work."
+
+We entered, accordingly, the little parlour, into which Mattocks was
+also about to push himself with sufficient effrontery, when David, with
+a most astounding oath, expelled him by head and shoulders, d--ning his
+curiosity, that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn.
+Apparently mine host considered his own presence as no intrusion, for he
+crowded up to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was
+frail and wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years
+in the ground. On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of
+porphyry, as the stranger had announced to us.
+
+"I fancy," he said, "gentlemen, your curiosity will not be
+satisfied,--perhaps I should say that your suspicions will not be
+removed,--unless I undo this casket; yet it only contains the mouldering
+remains of a heart, once the seat of the noblest thoughts."
+
+He undid the box with great caution; but the shrivelled substance which
+it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been,
+the means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and
+colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay. We
+were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger
+asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his
+influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the
+bailie himself, to silence all idle rumours. He was, moreover, pleased
+to favour us with his company to supper; and having taken the lion's
+share of two bottles of sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary
+authority the stranger's removal of the heart, but, I believe, would
+have authorized the removal of the Abbey itself, were it not that it
+happens considerably to advantage the worthy publican's own custom.
+
+The object of the Benedictine's visit to the land of his forefathers
+being now accomplished, he announced his intention of leaving us early
+in the ensuing day, but requested my company to breakfast with him
+before his departure. I came accordingly, and when we had finished our
+morning's meal, the priest took me apart, and pulling from his pocket
+a large bundle of papers, he put them into my hands. "These," said he,
+"Captain Clutterbuck, are genuine Memoirs of the sixteenth century, and
+exhibit in a singular, and, as I think, an interesting point of
+view, the manners of that period. I am induced to believe that their
+publication will not be an unacceptable present to the British public;
+and willingly make over to you any profit that may accrue from such a
+transaction."
+
+I stared a little at this annunciation, and observed, that the hand
+seemed too modern for the date he assigned to the manuscript.
+
+"Do not mistake me, sir," said the Benedictine; "I did not mean to say
+the Memoirs were written in the sixteenth century, but only, that they
+were compiled from authentic materials of that period, but written in
+the taste and language of the present day. My uncle commenced this book;
+and I, partly to improve my habit of English composition, partly to
+divert melancholy thoughts, amused my leisure hours with continuing
+and concluding it. You will see the period of the story where my uncle
+leaves off his narrative, and I commence mine. In fact, they relate in a
+great measure to different persons, as well as to a different period."
+
+Retaining the papers in my hand, I proceeded to state to him my doubts,
+whether, as a good Protestant, I could undertake or superintend a
+publication written probably in the spirit of Popery.
+
+"You will find," he said, "no matter of controversy in these sheets, nor
+any sentiments stated, with which, I trust, the good in all persuasions
+will not be willing to join. I remembered I was writing for a land
+unhappily divided from the Catholic faith; and I have taken care to say
+nothing which, justly interpreted, could give ground for accusing me of
+partiality. But if, upon collating my narrative with the proofs to which
+I refer you--for you will find copies of many of the original papers
+in that parcel--you are of opinion that I have been partial to my own
+faith, I freely give you leave to correct my errors in that respect. I
+own, however, I am not conscious of this defect, and have rather to
+fear that the Catholics may be of opinion, that I have mentioned
+circumstances respecting the decay of discipline which preceded, and
+partly occasioned, the great schism, called by you the Reformation, over
+which I ought to have drawn a veil. And indeed, this is one reason why I
+choose the papers should appear in a foreign land, and pass to the press
+through the hands of a stranger."
+
+To this I had nothing to reply, unless to object my own incompetency to
+the task the good father was desirous to impose upon me. On this subject
+he was pleased to say more, I fear, than his knowledge of me fully
+warranted--more, at any rate, than my modesty will permit me to record.
+At length he ended, with advising me, if I continued to feel the
+diffidence which I stated, to apply to some veteran of literature, whose
+experience might supply my deficiencies. Upon these terms we parted,
+with mutual expressions of regard, and I have never since heard of him.
+
+After several attempts to peruse the quires of paper thus singularly
+conferred on me, in which I was interrupted by the most inexplicable
+fits of yawning, I at length, in a sort of despair, communicated them to
+our village club, from whom they found a more favourable reception than
+the unlucky conformation of my nerves had been able to afford them. They
+unanimously pronounced the work to be exceedingly good, and assured me
+I would be guilty of the greatest possible injury to our flourishing
+village, if I should suppress what threw such an interesting and radiant
+light upon the history of the ancient Monastery of Saint Mary.
+
+At length, by dint of listening to their opinion, I became dubious of my
+own; and, indeed, when I heard passages read forth by the sonorous voice
+of our worthy pastor, I was scarce more tired than I have felt myself
+at some of his own sermons. Such, and so great is the difference
+betwixt reading a thing one's self, making toilsome way through all the
+difficulties of manuscript, and, as the man says in the play, "having
+the same read to you;"--it is positively like being wafted over a creek
+in a boat, or wading through it on your feet, with the mud up to your
+knees. Still, however, there remained the great difficulty of finding
+some one who could act as editor, corrector at once of the press and
+of the language, which, according to the schoolmaster, was absolutely
+necessary.
+
+Since the trees walked forth to choose themselves a king, never was an
+honour so bandied about. The parson would not leave the quiet of his
+chimney-corner--the bailie pleaded the dignity of his situation, and the
+approach of the great annual fair, as reasons against going to Edinburgh
+to make arrangements for printing the Benedictine's manuscript. The
+schoolmaster alone seemed of malleable stuff; and, desirous perhaps of
+emulating the fame of Jedediah Cleishbotham, evinced a wish to undertake
+this momentous commission. But a remonstrance from three opulent
+farmers, whose sons he had at bed, board, and schooling, for twenty
+pounds per annum a-head, came like a frost over the blossoms of his
+literary ambition, and he was compelled to decline the service.
+
+In these circumstances, sir, I apply to you, by the advice of our little
+council of war, nothing doubting you will not be disinclined to take
+the duty upon you, as it is much connected with that in which you have
+distinguished yourself. What I request is, that you will review, or
+rather revise and correct, the enclosed packet, and prepare it for the
+press, by such alterations, additions, and curtailments, as you think
+necessary. Forgive my hinting to you, that the deepest well may be
+exhausted,--the best corps of grenadiers, as our old general of brigade
+expressed himself, may be _used up_. A few hints can do you no harm;
+and, for the prize-money, let the battle be first won, and it shall be
+parted at the drum-head. I hope you will take nothing amiss that I have
+said. I am a plain soldier, and little accustomed to compliments. I
+may add, that I should be well contented to march in the front with
+you--that is, to put my name with yours on the title-page. I have the
+honour to be, Sir, Your unknown humble Servant, Cuthbert Clutterbuck.
+Village of Kennaquhair, -- of April, 18--
+
+_For the Author of "Waverley," &c. care of Mr. John Ballantyne, Hanover
+Street, Edinburgh._
+
+
+       *       *        *       *        *
+
+
+ANSWER BY "THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY,"
+
+TO THE FOREGOING LETTER FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.
+
+
+DEAR CAPTAIN,
+
+Do not admire, that, notwithstanding the distance and ceremony of your
+address, I return an answer in the terms of familiarity. The truth
+is, your origin and native country are better known to me than even to
+yourself. You derive your respectable parentage, if I am not greatly
+mistaken, from a land which has afforded much pleasure, as well as
+profit, to those who have traded to it successfully,--I mean that part
+of the _terra incognita_ which is called the province of Utopia. Its
+productions, though censured by many (and some who use tea and tobacco
+without scruple) as idle and unsubstantial luxuries, have nevertheless,
+like many other luxuries, a general acceptation, and are secretly
+enjoyed even by those who express the greatest scorn and dislike of
+them in public. The dram-drinker is often the first to be shocked at the
+smell of spirits--it is not unusual to hear old maiden ladies declaim
+against scandal--the private book-cases of some grave-seeming men would
+not brook decent eyes--and many, I say not of the wise and learned,
+but of those most anxious to seem such, when the spring-lock of their
+library is drawn, their velvet cap pulled over their ears, their feet
+insinuated into their turkey slippers, are to be found, were their
+retreats suddenly intruded upon, busily engaged with the last new novel.
+
+I have said, the truly wise and learned disdain these shifts, and
+will open the said novel as avowedly as they would the lid of their
+snuff-box. I will only quote one instance, though I know a hundred.
+Did you know the celebrated Watt of Birmingham, Captain Clutterbuck? I
+believe not, though, from what I am about to state, he would not have
+failed to have sought an acquaintance with you. It was only once my
+fortune to meet him, whether in body or in spirit it matters not.
+There were assembled about half a score of our Northern Lights, who had
+amongst them, Heaven knows how, a well-known character of your country,
+Jedediah Cleishbotham. This worthy person, having come to Edinburgh
+during the Christmas vacation, had become a sort of lion in the place,
+and was lead in leash from house to house along with the guisards, the
+stone-eater, and other amusements of the season, which "exhibited their
+unparalleled feats to private family-parties, if required." Amidst this
+company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of
+multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps even beyond
+his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination; bringing the
+treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth--giving the feeble arm
+of man the momentum of an Afrite--commanding manufactures to arise, as
+the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert--affording the means
+of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man, and of
+sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of
+Xerxes himself.
+
+[Footnote: Probably the ingenious author alludes to the national adage:
+
+  The king said sail,
+  But the wind said no.
+
+Our schoolmaster (who is also a land surveyor) thinks this whole passage
+refers to Mr. Watt's improvements on the steam engine.--_Note by Captain
+Clutterbuck_.]
+
+This potent commander of the elements--this abridger of time and
+space--this magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change on
+the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps
+only now beginning to be felt--was not only the most profound man
+of science, the most successful combiner of powers and calculator of
+numbers as adapted to practical purposes,--was not only one of the
+most generally well-informed,--but one of the best and kindest of human
+beings.
+
+There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of
+Northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of
+their own fame and their own opinions, than the national regiments are
+supposed to be jealous of the high character which they have won upon
+service. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear
+again. In his eighty-fifth year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man,
+had his attention alive to every one's question, his information at
+every one's command.
+
+His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a
+deep philologist--he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if
+he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic,--you would
+have said the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres
+all his life,--of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own
+distinguished walk. And yet, Captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with
+your countryman Jedediah Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been
+coeval with Claver'se and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted,
+and could number every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive
+Covenanters. In fact, we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity
+escaped his perusal, and that the gifted man of science was as much
+addicted to the productions of your native country, (the land of Utopia
+aforesaid,) in other words, as shameless and obstinate a peruser of
+novels, as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen. I
+know little apology for troubling you with these things, excepting the
+desire to commemorate a delightful evening, and a wish to encourage
+you to shake off that modest diffidence which makes you afraid of being
+supposed connected with the fairy-land of delusive fiction. I will
+requite your tag of verse, from Horace himself, with a paraphrase
+for your own use, my dear Captain, and for that of your country club,
+excepting in reverence the clergyman and schoolmaster:--
+
+  _Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori, &c._
+
+  Take thou no scorn.
+  Of fiction born,
+  Fair fiction's muse to woe;
+  Old Homer's theme
+  Was but a dream,
+  Himself a fiction too.
+
+Having told you your country, I must next, my dear Captain Clutterbuck,
+make free to mention your own immediate descent. You are not to suppose
+your land of prodigies so little known to us as the careful concealment
+of your origin would seem to imply. But you have it in common with many
+of your country, studiously and anxiously to hide any connexion with it.
+There is this difference, indeed, betwixt your countrymen and those of
+our more material world, that many of the most estimable of them, such
+as an old Highland gentleman called Ossian, a monk of Bristol called
+Rowley, and others, are inclined to pass themselves off as denizens of
+the land of reality, whereas most of our fellow-citizens who deny their
+country are such as that country would be very willing to disclaim. The
+especial circumstances you mention relating to your life and services,
+impose not upon us. We know the versatility of the unsubstantial species
+to which you belong permits them to assume all manner of disguises; we
+have seen them apparelled in the caftan of a Persian, and the silken
+robe of a Chinese, [Footnote: See the Persian Letters, and the Citizen
+of the World.] and are prepared to suspect their real character under
+every disguise. But how can we be ignorant of your country and manners,
+or deceived by the evasion of its inhabitants, when the voyages of
+discovery which have been made to it rival in number those recorded by
+Purchas or by Hackluyt? [Footnote: See Les Voyages Imaginaires.] And to
+show the skill and perseverance of your navigators and travellers, we
+have only to name Sindbad, Aboulfouaris, and Robinson Crusoe. These were
+the men for discoveries. Could we have sent Captain Greenland to look
+out for the north-west passage, or Peter Wilkins to examine Baffin's
+Bay, what discoveries might we not have expected? But there are feats,
+and these both numerous and extraordinary, performed by the inhabitants
+of your country, which we read without once attempting to emulate.
+
+I wander from my purpose, which was to assure you, that I know you as
+well as the mother who _did_ not bear you, for MacDuff's peculiarity
+sticks to your whole race. You are not born of woman, unless, indeed, in
+that figurative sense, in which the celebrated Maria Edgeworth may, in
+her state of single blessedness, be termed mother of the finest family
+in England. You belong, sir, to the Editors of the land of Utopia, a
+sort of persons for whom I have the highest esteem. How is it possible
+it should be otherwise, when you reckon among your corporation the sage
+Cid Hamet Benengeli, the short-faced president of the Spectator's Club,
+poor Ben Silton, and many others, who have acted as gentlemen-ushers to
+works which have cheered our heaviest, and added wings to our lightest
+hours?
+
+What I have remarked as peculiar to Editors of the class in which
+I venture to enrol you, is the happy combination of fortuitous
+circumstances which usually put you in possession of the works which
+you have the goodness to bring into public notice. One walks on the
+sea-shore, and a wave casts on land a small cylindrical trunk or casket,
+containing a manuscript much damaged with sea-water, which is with
+difficulty deciphered, and so forth. [Footnote: See the History of
+Automathes.] Another steps into a chandler's shop, to purchase a pound
+of butter, and, behold! the waste-paper on which it is laid is the
+manuscript of a cabalist. [Footnote: Adventures of a Guinea.] A third
+is so fortunate as to obtain from a woman who lets lodgings, the curious
+contents of an antique bureau, the property of a deceased lodger.
+[Footnote: Adventures of an Atom.] All these are certainly possible
+occurrences; but, I know not how, they seldom occur to any Editors save
+those of your country. At least I can answer for myself, that in my
+solitary walks by the sea, I never saw it cast ashore any thing but
+dulse and tangle, and now and then a deceased star-fish; my landlady
+never presented me with any manuscript save her cursed bill; and the
+most interesting of my discoveries in the way of waste-paper, was
+finding a favourite passage of one of my own novels wrapt round an ounce
+of snuff. No, Captain, the funds from which I have drawn my power
+of amusing the public, have been bought otherwise than by fortuitous
+adventure. I have buried myself in libraries to extract from the
+nonsense of ancient days new nonsense of my own. I have turned over
+volumes, which, from the pot-hooks I was obliged to decipher, might have
+been the cabalistic manuscripts of Cornelius Agrippa, although I never
+saw "the door open and the devil come in." [Footnote: See Southey's
+Ballad on the Young Man who read in a Conjuror's Books.] But all the
+domestic inhabitants of the libraries were disturbed by the vehemence of
+my studies:--
+
+  From my research the boldest spider fled,
+  And moths, retreating, trembled as I read;
+
+From this learned sepulchre I emerged like the Magician in the Persian
+Tales, from his twelve-month's residence in the mountain, not like him
+to soar over the heads of the multitude, but to mingle in the crowd, and
+to elbow amongst the throng, making my way from the highest society
+to the lowest, undergoing the scorn, or, what is harder to brook,
+the patronizing condescension of the one, and enduring the vulgar
+familiarity of the other,--and all, you will say, for what?--to collect
+materials for one of those manuscripts with which mere chance so often
+accommodates your country-men; in other words, to write a successful
+novel.--"O Athenians, how hard we labour to deserve your praise!"
+
+I might stop here, my dear Clutterbuck; it would have a touching effect,
+and the air of proper deference to our dear Public. But I will not
+be false with you,--(though falsehood is--excuse the observation--the
+current coin of your country,) the truth is, I have studied and lived
+for the purpose of gratifying my own curiosity, and passing my own time;
+and though the result has been, that, in one shape or other, I have
+been frequently before the Public, perhaps more frequently than prudence
+warranted, yet I cannot claim from them the favour due to those who have
+dedicated their ease and leisure to the improvement and entertainment of
+others.
+
+Having communicated thus freely with you, my dear Captain, it follows,
+of course, that I will gratefully accept of your communication, which,
+as your Benedictine observed, divides itself both by subject, manner,
+and age, into two parts. But I am sorry I cannot gratify your literary
+ambition, by suffering your name to appear upon the title-page; and I
+will candidly tell you the reason.
+
+The Editors of your country are of such a soft and passive disposition,
+that they have frequently done themselves great disgrace by giving up
+the coadjutors who first brought them into public notice and public
+favour, and suffering their names to be used by those quacks and
+impostors who live upon the ideas of others. Thus I shame to tell how
+the sage Cid Hamet Benengeli was induced by one Juan Avellaneda to play
+the Turk with the ingenious Miguel Cervantes, and to publish a Second
+Part of the adventures of his hero the renowned Don Quixote, without the
+knowledge or co-operation of his principal aforesaid. It is true, the
+Arabian sage returned to his allegiance, and thereafter composed a
+genuine continuation of the Knight of La Mancha, in which the said
+Avellaneda of Tordesillas is severely chastised. For in this you
+pseudo-editors resemble the juggler's disciplined ape, to which a sly
+old Scotsman likened James I., "if you have Jackoo in your hand, you can
+make him bite me; if I have Jackoo in my hand, I can make him bite
+you." Yet, notwithstanding the _amende honorable_ thus made by Cid Hamet
+Benengeli, his temporary defection did not the less occasion the decease
+of the ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote, if he can be said to die, whose
+memory is immortal. Cervantes put him to death, lest he should again
+fall into bad hands. Awful, yet just consequence of Cid Hamet's
+defection!
+
+To quote a more modern and much less important instance. I am sorry to
+observe my old acquaintance Jedediah Cleishbotham has misbehaved himself
+so far as to desert his original patron, and set up for himself. I am
+afraid the poor pedagogue will make little by his new allies, unless
+the pleasure of entertaining the public, and, for aught I know, the
+gentlemen of the long robe, with disputes about his identity.
+
+[Footnote: I am since more correctly informed, that Mr. Cleishbotham
+died some months since at Gandercleuch, and that the person assuming
+his name is an impostor. The real Jedediah made a most Christian
+and edifying end; and, as I am credibly informed, having sent for a
+Cameronian clergyman when he was _in extremis_, was so fortunate as to
+convince the good man, that, after all, he had no wish to bring down on
+the scattered remnant of Mountain folks, "the bonnets of Bonny Dundee."
+Hard that the speculators in print and paper will not allow a good man
+to rest quiet in his grave.
+
+This note, and the passages in the text, were occasioned by a London
+bookseller having printed, as a Speculation, an additional collection
+of Tales of My Landlord, which was not so fortunate as to succeed in
+passing on the world as genuine.]
+
+Observe, therefore, Captain Clutterbuck, that, wise by these great
+examples, I receive you as a partner, but a sleeping partner only. As
+I give you no title to employ or use the firm of the copartnery we are
+about to form, I will announce my property in my title-page, and put my
+own mark on my own chattels, which the attorney tells me it will be a
+crime to counterfeit, as much as it would to imitate the autograph of
+any other empiric--a crime amounting, as advertisements upon little
+vials assure to us, to nothing short of felony. If, therefore, my dear
+friend, your name should hereafter appear in any title-page without
+mine, readers will know what to think of you. I scorn to use either
+arguments or threats; but you cannot but be sensible, that, as you owe
+your literary existence to me on the one hand, so, on the other, your
+very all is at my disposal. I can at pleasure cut off your annuity,
+strike your name from the half-pay establishment, nay, actually put you
+to death, without being answerable to any one. These are plain words to
+a gentleman who has served during the whole war; but, I am aware, you
+will take nothing amiss at my hands.
+
+And now, my good sir, let us address ourselves to our task, and arrange,
+as we best can, the manuscript of your Benedictine, so as to suit the
+taste of this critical age. You will find I have made very liberal use
+of his permission, to alter whatever seemed too favourable to the Church
+of Rome, which I abominate, were it but for her fasts and penances.
+
+Our reader is doubtless impatient, and we must own, with John Bunyan,
+
+  We have too long detain'd him in the porch,
+  And kept him from the sunshine with a torch.
+
+Adieu, therefore, my dear Captain--remember me respectfully to the
+parson, the schoolmaster, and the bailie, and all friends of the happy
+club in the village of Kennaquhair. I have never seen, and never shall
+see, one of their faces; and notwithstanding, I believe that as yet I am
+better acquainted with them than any other man who lives.--I shall soon
+introduce you to my jocund friend, Mr. John Ballantyne of Trinity Grove,
+whom you will find warm from his match at single-stick with a brother
+Publisher. [Footnote: In consequence of the pseudo Tales of My Landlord
+printed in London, as already mentioned, the late Mr. John Ballantyne,
+the author's publisher, had a controversy with the interloping
+bibliopolist, each insisting that his Jedediah Cleishbotham was the real
+Simon Pure.] Peace to their differences! It is a wrathful trade, and
+the _irritabile genus_ comprehends the bookselling as well as the
+book-writing species.--Once more adieu!
+
+THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MONASTERY.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the First.
+
+
+  O ay! the Monks, the Monks they did the mischief!
+  Theirs all the grossness, all the superstition
+  Of a most gross and superstitious age--
+  May He be praised that sent the healthful tempest
+  And scatter'd all these pestilential vapours!
+  But that we owed them _all_ to yonder Harlot
+  Throned on the seven hills with her cup of gold,
+  I will as soon believe, with kind Sir Roger,
+  That old Moll White took wing with cat and broomstick,
+  And raised the last night's thunder.
+                                       OLD PLAY.
+
+The village described in the Benedictine's manuscript by the name
+of Kennaquhair, bears the same Celtic termination which occurs in
+Traquhair, Caquhair, and other compounds. The learned Chalmers derives
+this word Quhair, from the winding course of a stream; a definition
+which coincides, in a remarkable degree, with the serpentine turns of
+the river Tweed near the village of which we speak. It has been long
+famous for the splendid Monastery of Saint Mary, founded by David the
+First of Scotland, in whose reign were formed, in the same county, the
+no less splendid establishments of Melrose, Jedburgh, and Kelso. The
+donations of land with which the King endowed these wealthy fraternities
+procured him from the Monkish historians the epithet of Saint, and from
+one of his impoverished descendants the splenetic censure, "that he had
+been a sore saint for the Crown."
+
+It seems probable, notwithstanding, that David, who was a wise as well
+as a pious monarch, was not moved solely by religious motives to those
+great acts of munificence to the church, but annexed political views to
+his pious generosity. His possessions in Northumberland and Cumberland
+became precarious after the loss of the Battle of the Standard; and
+since the comparatively fertile valley of Teviot-dale was likely to
+become the frontier of his kingdom, it is probable he wished to secure
+at least a part of these valuable possessions by placing them in the
+hands of the monks, whose property was for a long time respected, even
+amidst the rage of a frontier war. In this manner alone had the King
+some chance of ensuring protection and security to the cultivators of
+the soil; and, in fact, for several ages the possessions of these
+Abbeys were each a sort of Goshen, enjoying the calm light of peace
+and immunity, while the rest of the country, occupied by wild clans and
+marauding barons, was one dark scene of confusion, blood, and unremitted
+outrage.
+
+But these immunities did not continue down to the union of the crowns.
+Long before that period the wars betwixt England and Scotland had lost
+their original character of international hostilities, and had become
+on the part of the English, a struggle for subjugation, on that of
+the Scots a desperate and infuriated defence of their liberties. This
+introduced on both sides a degree of fury and animosity unknown to the
+earlier period of their history; and as religious scruples soon gave way
+to national hatred spurred by a love of plunder, the patrimony of the
+Church was no longer sacred from incursions on either side. Still,
+however, the tenants and vassals of the great Abbeys had many advantages
+over those of the lay barons, who were harassed by constant military
+duty, until they became desperate, and lost all relish for the arts of
+peace. The vassals of the church, on the other hand, were only liable
+to be called to arms on general occasions, and at other times were
+permitted in comparative quiet to possess their farms and feus.
+[Footnote: Small possessions conferred upon vassals and their heirs,
+held for a small quit-rent, or a moderate proportion of the produce.
+This was a favourite manner, by which the churchmen peopled the
+patrimony of their convents; and many descendants of such _feuars_, as
+they are culled, are still to be found in possession of their family
+inheritances in the neighbourhood of the great Monasteries of Scotland.]
+They of course exhibited superior skill in every thing that related
+to the cultivation of the soil, and were therefore both wealthier and
+better informed than the military retainers of the restless chiefs and
+nobles in their neighbourhood.
+
+The residence of these church vassals was usually in a small village or
+hamlet, where, for the sake of mutual aid and protection, some thirty
+or forty families dwelt together. This was called the Town, and the land
+belonging to the various families by whom the Town was inhabited, was
+called the Township. They usually possessed the land in common, though
+in various proportions, according to their several grants. The part of
+the Township properly arable, and kept as such continually under the
+plough, was called _in-field_. Here the use of quantities of manure
+supplied in some degree the exhaustion of the soil, and the feuars
+raised tolerable oats and bear, [Footnote: Or bigg, a kind of coarse
+barley.] usually sowed on alternate ridges, on which the labour of the
+whole community was bestowed without distinction, the produce being
+divided after harvest, agreeably to their respective interests.
+
+There was, besides, _out-field_ land, from which it was thought possible
+to extract a crop now and then, after which it was abandoned to the
+"skiey influences," until the exhausted powers of vegetation were
+restored. These out-field spots were selected by any feuar at his own
+choice, amongst the sheep-walks and hills which were always annexed to
+the Township, to serve as pasturage to the community. The trouble of
+cultivating these patches of out-field, and the precarious chance that
+the crop would pay the labour, were considered as giving a right to any
+feuar, who chose to undertake the adventure, to the produce which might
+result from it.
+
+There remained the pasturage of extensive moors, where the valleys often
+afforded good grass, and upon which the whole cattle belonging to the
+community fed indiscriminately during the summer, under the charge of
+the Town-herd, who regularly drove them out to pasture in the morning,
+and brought them back at night, without which precaution they would
+have fallen a speedy prey to some of the Snatchers in the neighbourhood.
+These are things to make modern agriculturists hold up their hands and
+stare; but the same mode of cultivation is not yet entirely in desuetude
+in some distant parts of North Britain, and may be witnessed in full
+force and exercise in the Zetland Archipelago.
+
+The habitations of the church-feuars were not less primitive than their
+agriculture. In each village or town were several small towers, having
+battlements projecting over the side walls, and usually an advanced
+angle or two with shot-holes for flanking the door-way, which was always
+defended by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by an
+exterior grated door of iron. These small peel-houses were ordinarily
+inhabited by the principal feuars and their families; but, upon the
+alarm of approaching danger, the whole inhabitants thronged from their
+own miserable cottages, which were situated around, to garrison these
+points of defence. It was then no easy matter for a hostile party to
+penetrate into the village, for the men were habituated to the use of
+bows and fire-arms, and the towers being generally so placed, that the
+discharge from one crossed that of another, it was impossible to assault
+any of them individually.
+
+The interior of these houses was usually sufficiently wretched, for it
+would have been folly to have furnished them in a manner which could
+excite the avarice of their lawless neighbours. Yet the families
+themselves exhibited in their appearance a degree of comfort,
+information, and independence, which could hardly have been expected.
+Their in-field supplied them with bread and home-brewed ale, their herds
+and flocks with beef and mutton (the extravagance of killing lambs or
+calves was never thought of). Each family killed a mart, or fat bullock,
+in November, which was salted up for winter use, to which the good wife
+could, upon great occasions, add a dish of pigeons or a fat capon,--the
+ill-cultivated garden afforded "lang-cale,"--and the river gave salmon
+to serve as a relish during the season of Lent.
+
+Of fuel they had plenty, for the bogs afforded turf; and the remains
+of the abused woods continued to give them logs for burning, as well as
+timber for the usual domestic purposes. In addition to these comforts,
+the good-man would now and then sally forth to the greenwood, and mark
+down a buck of season with his gun or his cross-bow; and the Father
+Confessor seldom refused him absolution for the trespass, if duly
+invited to take his share of the smoking haunch. Some, still bolder,
+made, either with their own domestics, or by associating themselves with
+the moss-troopers, in the language of shepherds, "a start and overloup;"
+and the golden ornaments and silken head-gear--worn by the females of
+one or two families of note, were invidiously traced by their neighbours
+to such successful excursions. This, however, was a more inexplicable
+crime in the eyes of the Abbot and Community of Saint Mary's, than
+the borrowing one of the "gude king's deer;" and they failed not to
+discountenance and punish, by every means in their power, offences which
+were sure to lead to severe retaliation upon the property of the church,
+and which tended to alter the character of their peaceful vassalage.
+
+As for the information possessed by those dependents of the Abbacies,
+they might have been truly said to be better fed than taught, even
+though their fare had been worse than it was. Still, however, they
+enjoyed opportunities of knowledge from which others were excluded. The
+monks were in general well acquainted with their vassals and tenants,
+and familiar in the families of the better class among them, where they
+were sure to be received with the respect due to their twofold character
+of spiritual father and secular landlord. Thus it often happened, when
+a boy displayed talents and inclination for study, one of the brethren,
+with a view to his being bred to the church, or out of good-nature,
+in order to pass away his own idle time, if he had no better motive,
+initiated him into the mysteries of reading and writing, and imparted to
+him such other knowledge as he himself possessed. And the heads of these
+allied families, having more time for reflection, and more skill, as
+well as stronger motives for improving their small properties, bore
+amongst their neighbours the character of shrewd, intelligent men, who
+claimed respect on account of their comparative wealth, even while they
+were despised for a less warlike and enterprising turn than the other
+Borderers. They lived as much as they well could amongst themselves,
+avoiding the company of others, and dreading nothing more than to be
+involved in the deadly feuds and ceaseless contentions of the secular
+landholders.
+
+Such is a general picture of these communities. During the fatal wars in
+the commencement of Queen Mary's reign, they had suffered dreadfully by
+the hostile invasions. For the English, now a Protestant people, were
+so far from sparing the church-lands, that they forayed them with more
+unrelenting severity than even the possessions of the laity. But
+the peace of 1550 had restored some degree of tranquillity to those
+distracted and harassed regions, and matters began again gradually
+to settle upon the former footing. The monks repaired their ravaged
+shrines--the feuar again roofed his small fortalice which the enemy had
+ruined--the poor labourer rebuilt his cottage--an easy task, where a few
+sods, stones, and some pieces of wood from the next copse, furnished
+all the materials necessary. The cattle, lastly, were driven out of the
+wastes and thickets in which the remnant of them had been secreted; and
+the mighty bull moved at the head of his seraglio and their followers,
+to take possession of their wonted pastures. There ensued peace and
+quiet, the state of the age and nation considered, to the Monastery of
+Saint Mary, and its dependencies, for several tranquil years.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Second.
+
+
+  In yon lone vale his early youth was bred,
+  Not solitary then--the bugle-horn
+  Of fell Alecto often waked its windings,
+  From where the brook joins the majestic river,
+  To the wild northern bog, the curlew's haunt,
+  Where oozes forth its first and feeble streamlet.
+                                           OLD PLAY.
+
+We have said, that most of the feuars dwelt in the village belonging to
+their townships. This was not, however, universally the case. A lonely
+tower, to which the reader must now be introduced, was at least one
+exception to the general rule.
+
+It was of small dimensions, yet larger than those which occurred in the
+village, as intimating that, in case of assault, the proprietor would
+have to rely upon his own unassisted strength. Two or three miserable
+huts, at the foot of the fortalice, held the bondsmen and tenants of the
+feuar. The site was a beautiful green knoll, which started up suddenly
+in the very throat of a wild and narrow glen, and which, being
+surrounded, except on one side, by the winding of a small stream,
+afforded a position of considerable strength.
+
+But the great security of Glendearg, for so the place was called, lay
+in its secluded, and almost hidden situation. To reach the tower, it was
+necessary to travel three miles up the glen, crossing about twenty times
+the little stream, which, winding through the narrow valley, encountered
+at every hundred yards the opposition of a rock or precipitous bank on
+the one side, which altered its course, and caused it to shoot off in an
+oblique direction to the other. The hills which ascend on each side of
+this glen are very steep, and rise boldly over the stream, which is
+thus imprisoned within their barriers. The sides of the glen are
+impracticable for horse, and are only to be traversed by means of
+the sheep-paths which lie along their sides. It would not be readily
+supposed that a road so hopeless and so difficult could lead to any
+habitation more important than the summer shealing of a shepherd.
+
+Yet the glen, though lonely, nearly inaccessible, and sterile, was not
+then absolutely void of beauty. The turf which covered the small portion
+of level ground on the sides of the stream, was as close and verdant as
+if it had occupied the scythes of a hundred gardeners once a-fortnight;
+and it was garnished with an embroidery of daisies and wild flowers,
+which the scythes would certainly have destroyed. The little brook, now
+confined betwixt closer limits, now left at large to choose its course
+through the narrow valley, danced carelessly on from stream to pool,
+light and unturbid, as that better class of spirits who pass their way
+through life, yielding to insurmountable obstacles, but as far from
+being subdued by them as the sailor who meets by chance with an
+unfavourable wind, and shapes his course so as to be driven back as
+little as possible.
+
+The mountains, as they would have been called in England, _Scottice_ the
+steep _braes_, rose abruptly over the little glen, here presenting
+the gray face of a rock, from which the turf had been peeled by the
+torrents, and there displaying patches of wood and copse, which had
+escaped the waste of the cattle and the sheep of the feuars, and which,
+feathering naturally up the beds of empty torrents, or occupying the
+concave recesses of the bank, gave at once beauty and variety to the
+landscape. Above these scattered woods rose the hill, in barren, but
+purple majesty; the dark rich hue, particularly in autumn, contrasting
+beautifully with the thickets of oak and birch, the mountain ashes and
+thorns, the alders and quivering aspens, which checquered and varied
+the descent, and not less with the dark-green and velvet turf, which
+composed the level part of the narrow glen.
+
+Yet, though thus embellished, the scene could neither be strictly termed
+sublime nor beautiful, and scarcely even picturesque or striking. But
+its extreme solitude pressed on the heart; the traveller felt that
+uncertainty whither he was going, or in what so wild a path was to
+terminate, which, at times, strikes more on the imagination than the
+grand features of a show-scene, when you know the exact distance of the
+inn where your dinner is bespoke, and at the moment preparing. These
+are ideas, however, of a far later age; for at the time we treat of,
+the picturesque, the beautiful, the sublime, and all their intermediate
+shades, were ideas absolutely unknown to the inhabitants and occasional
+visitors of Glendearg.
+
+These had, however, attached to the scene feelings fitting the time. Its
+name, signifying the Red Valley, seems to have been derived, not only
+from the purple colour of the heath, with which the upper part of the
+rising banks was profusely clothed, but also from the dark red colour of
+the rocks, and of the precipitous earthen banks, which in that country
+are called _scaurs_. Another glen, about the head of Ettrick, has
+acquired the same name from similar circumstances; and there are
+probably more in Scotland to which it has been given.
+
+As our Glendearg did not abound in mortal visitants, superstition, that
+it might not be absolutely destitute of inhabitants, had peopled
+its recesses with beings belonging to another world. The savage and
+capricious Brown Man of the Moors, a being which seems the genuine
+descendant of the northern dwarfs, was supposed to be seen there
+frequently, especially after the autumnal equinox, when the fogs were
+thick, and objects not easily distinguished. The Scottish fairies, too,
+a whimsical, irritable, and mischievous tribe, who, though at times
+capriciously benevolent, were more frequently adverse to mortals, were
+also supposed to have formed a residence in a particularly wild
+recess of the glen, of which the real name was, in allusion to that
+circumstance, _Corrie nan Shian_, which, in corrupted Celtic, signifies
+the Hollow of the Fairies. But the neighbours were more cautious in
+speaking about this place, and avoided giving it a name, from an idea
+common then throughout all the British and Celtic provinces of Scotland,
+and still retained in many places, that to speak either good or ill
+of this capricious race of imaginary beings, is to provoke their
+resentment, and that secrecy and silence is what they chiefly desire
+from those who may intrude upon their revels, or discover their haunts.
+
+A mysterious terror was thus attached to the dale, which afforded
+access from the broad valley of the Tweed, up the little glen we have
+described, to the fortalice called the Tower of Glendearg. Beyond the
+knoll, where, as we have said, the tower was situated, the hills grew
+more steep, and narrowed on the slender brook, so as scarce to leave
+a footpath; and there the glen terminated in a wild waterfall, where a
+slender thread of water dashed in a precipitous line of foam over two
+or three precipices. Yet farther in the same direction, and above these
+successive cataracts, lay a wild and extensive morass, frequented only
+by waterfowl, wide, waste, apparently almost interminable, and serving
+in a great measure to separate the inhabitants of the glen from those
+who lived to the northward.
+
+To restless and indefatigable moss-troopers, indeed, these morasses were
+well known, and sometimes afforded a retreat. They often rode down the
+glen--called at this tower--asked and received hospitality--but still
+with a sort of reserve on the part of its more peaceful inhabitants, who
+entertained them as a party of North-American Indians might be received
+by a new European settler, as much out of fear as hospitality, while
+the uppermost wish of the landlord is the speedy departure of the savage
+guests.
+
+This had not always been the current of feeling in the little valley
+and its tower. Simon Glendinning, its former inhabitant, boasted his
+connexion by blood to that ancient family of Glendonwyne, on the western
+border. He used to narrate, at his fireside, in the autumn evenings, the
+feats of the family to which he belonged, one of whom fell by the side
+of the brave Earl of Douglas at Otterbourne. On these occasions Simon
+usually held upon his knee an ancient broadsword, which had belonged to
+his ancestors before any of the family had consented to accept a fief
+under the peaceful dominion of the monks of St. Mary's. In modern days,
+Simon might have lived at ease on his own estate, and quietly murmured
+against the fate that had doomed him to dwell there, and cut off his
+access to martial renown. But so many opportunities, nay so many calls
+there were for him, who in those days spoke big, to make good his words
+by his actions, that Simon Glendinning was soon under the necessity of
+marching with the men of the Halidome, as it was called, of St. Mary's,
+in that disastrous campaign which was concluded by the battle of Pinkie.
+
+The Catholic clergy were deeply interested in that national quarrel, the
+principal object of which was, to prevent the union of the infant Queen
+Mary, with the son of the heretical Henry VIII. The Monks had called out
+their vassals, under an experienced leader. Many of themselves had taken
+arms, and marched to the field, under a banner representing a female,
+supposed to personify the Scottish Church, kneeling in the attitude of
+prayer, with the legend, _Afflictae Sponsae ne obliviscaris_. [Footnote:
+Forget not the afflicted spouse.]
+
+The Scots, however, in all their wars, had more occasion for good
+and cautious generals, than for excitation, whether political or
+enthusiastic. Their headlong and impatient courage uniformly induced
+them to rush into action without duly weighing either their own
+situation, or that of their enemies, and the inevitable consequence was
+frequent defeat. With the dolorous slaughter of Pinkie we have nothing
+to do, excepting that, among ten thousand men of low and high degree,
+Simon Glendinning, of the Tower of Glendearg, bit the dust, no way
+disparaging in his death that ancient race from which he claimed his
+descent.
+
+When the doleful news, which spread terror and mourning through the
+whole of Scotland, reached the Tower of Glendearg, the widow of
+Simon, Elspeth Brydone by her family name, was alone in that desolate
+habitation, excepting a hind or two, alike past martial and agricultural
+labour, and the helpless widows and families of those who had fallen
+with their master. The feeling of desolation was universal;--but what
+availed it? The monks, their patrons and protectors, were driven from
+their Abbey by the English forces, who now overran the country, and
+enforced at least an appearance of submission on the part of the
+inhabitants. The Protector, Somerset, formed a strong camp among the
+ruins of the ancient Castle of Roxburgh, and compelled the neighbouring
+country to come in, pay tribute, and take assurance from him, as the
+phrase then went. Indeed, there was no power of resistance remaining;
+and the few barons, whose high spirit disdained even the appearance
+of surrender, could only retreat into the wildest fastnesses of the
+country, leaving their houses and property to the wrath of the English,
+who detached parties everywhere to distress, by military exaction, those
+whose chiefs had not made their submission. The Abbot and his community
+having retreated beyond the Forth, their lands were severely forayed,
+as their sentiments were held peculiarly inimical to the alliance with
+England.
+
+Amongst the troops detached on this service was a small party, commanded
+by Stawarth Bolton, a captain in the English army, and full of the
+blunt and unpretending gallantry and generosity which has so often
+distinguished that nation. Resistance was in vain. Elspeth Brydone, when
+she descried a dozen of horsemen threading their way up the glen, with
+a man at their head, whose scarlet cloak, bright armour, and dancing
+plume, proclaimed him a leader, saw no better protection for herself
+than to issue from the iron grate, covered with a long mourning
+veil, and holding one of her two sons in each hand, to meet the
+Englishman--state her deserted condition--place the little tower at his
+command--and beg for his mercy. She stated, in a few brief words,
+her intention, and added, "I submit, because I have nae means of
+resistance."
+
+"And I do not ask your submission, mistress, for the same reason,"
+replied the Englishman. "To be satisfied of your peaceful intentions
+is all I ask; and, from what you tell me, there is no reason to doubt
+them."
+
+"At least, sir," said Elspeth Brydone, "take share of what our
+spence and our garners afford. Your horses are tired--your folk want
+refreshment."
+
+"Not a whit--not a whit," answered the honest Englishman; "it shall
+never be said we disturbed by carousal the widow of a brave soldier,
+while she was mourning for her husband.--Comrades, face about.--Yet
+stay," he added, checking his war-horse, "my parties are out in every
+direction; they must have some token that your family are under my
+assurance of safety.--Here, my little fellow," said he, speaking to
+the eldest boy, who might be about nine or ten years old, "lend me thy
+bonnet."
+
+The child reddened, looked sulky, and hesitated, while the mother,
+with many a _fye_ and _nay pshaw_, and such sarsenet chidings as tender
+mothers give to spoiled children, at length succeeded in snatching the
+bonnet from him, and handing it to the English leader.
+
+Stawarth Bolton took his embroidered red cross from his barret-cap, and
+putting it into the loop of the boy's bonnet, said to the mistress, (for
+the title of lady was not given to dames of her degree,) "By this token,
+which all my people will respect, you will be freed from any importunity
+on the part of our forayers." [Footnote: As gallantry of all times and
+nations has the same mode of thinking and acting, so it often expresses
+itself by the same symbols. In the civil war 1745-6, a party of
+Highlanders, under a Chieftain of rank, came to Rose Castle, the seat of
+the Bishop of Carlisle, but then occupied by the family of Squire Dacre
+of Cumberland. They demanded quarters, which of course were not to be
+refused to armed men of a strange attire and unknown language. But the
+domestic represented to the captain of the mountaineers, that the lady
+of the mansion had been just delivered of a daughter, and expressed her
+hope, that, under these circumstances, his party would give as little
+trouble as possible. "God forbid," said the gallant chief, "that I or
+mine should be the means of adding to a lady's inconvenience at such a
+time. May I request to see the infant?" The child was brought, and the
+Highlander, taking his cockade out of his bonnet, and pinning it on the
+child's breast, "That will be a token," he said, "to any of our people
+who may come hither, that Donald McDonald of Kinloch-Moidart, has taken
+the family of Rose Castle under his protection." The lady who received
+in infancy this gage of Highland protection, is now Mary, Lady Clerk
+of Pennycuik; and on the 10th of June still wears the cockade which was
+pinned on her breast, with a white rose as a kindred decoration.] He
+placed it on the boy's head; but it was no sooner there, than the little
+fellow, his veins swelling, and his eyes shooting fire through tears,
+snatched the bonnet from his head, and, ere his mother could interfere,
+skimmed it into the brook. The other boy ran instantly to fish it out
+again, threw it back to his brother, first taking out the cross, which,
+with great veneration, he kissed and put into his bosom. The Englishman
+was half diverted, half surprised, with the scene.
+
+"What mean ye by throwing away Saint George's red cross?" said he to the
+elder boy, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest.
+
+"Because Saint George is a southern saint," said the child, sulkily.
+"Good"--said Stawarth Bolton.--"And what did you mean by taking it
+out of the brook again, my little fellow?" he demanded of the younger.
+"Because the priest says it is the common sign of salvation to all good
+Christians."
+
+"Why, good again!" said the honest soldier. "I protest unto you,
+mistress, I envy you these boys. Are they both yours?"
+
+Stawarth Bolton had reason to put the question, for Halbert Glendinning,
+the elder of the two, had hair as dark as the raven's plumage, black
+eyes, large, bold, and sparkling, that glittered under eyebrows of the
+same complexion; a skin deep embrowned, though it could not be termed
+swarthy, and an air of activity, frankness, and determination, far
+beyond his age. On the other hand, Edward, the younger brother, was
+light-haired, blue-eyed, and of fairer complexion, in countenance rather
+pale, and not exhibiting that rosy hue which colours the sanguine cheek
+of robust health. Yet the boy had nothing sickly or ill-conditioned in
+his look, but was, on the contrary, a fair and handsome child, with a
+smiling face, and mild, yet cheerful eye.
+
+The mother glanced a proud motherly glance, first at the one, and then
+at the other, ere she answered the Englishman, "Surely, sir, they are
+both my children."
+
+"And by the same father, mistress?" said Stawarth; but, seeing a blush
+of displeasure arise on her brow, he instantly added, "Nay, I mean no
+offence; I would have asked the same question at any of my gossips in
+merry Lincoln.--Well, dame, you have two fair boys; I would I could
+borrow one, for Dame Bolton and I live childless in our old hall.--Come,
+little fellows, which of you will go with me?"
+
+The trembling mother, half-fearing as he spoke, drew the children
+towards her, one with either hand, while they both answered the
+stranger. "I will not go with you," said Halbert, boldly, "for you are
+a false-hearted Southern; and the Southerns killed my father; and I will
+war on you to the death, when I can draw my father's sword."
+
+"God-a-mercy, my little levin-bolt," said Stawarth, "the goodly custom
+of deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume.--And you, my
+fine white-head, will you not go with me, to ride a cock-horse?" "No,"
+said Edward, demurely, "for you are a heretic."
+
+"Why, God-a-mercy still!" said Stawarth Bolton. "Well, dame, I see I
+shall find no recruits for my troop from you; and yet I do envy you
+these two little chubby knaves." He sighed a moment, as was visible,
+in spite of gorget and corslet, and then added, "And yet, my dame and I
+would but quarrel which of the knaves we should like best; for I
+should wish for the black-eyed rogue--and she, I warrant me, for that
+blue-eyed, fair-haired darling. Natheless, we must brook our solitary
+wedlock, and wish joy to those that are more fortunate. Sergeant
+Brittson, do thou remain here till recalled--protect this family, as
+under assurance--do them no wrong, and suffer no wrong to be done to
+them, as thou wilt answer it.--Dame, Brittson is a married man, old and
+steady; feed him on what you will, but give him not over much liquor."
+
+Dame Glendinning again offered refreshments, but with a faltering voice,
+and an obvious desire her invitation should not be accepted. The fact
+was, that, supposing her boys as precious in the eyes of the Englishman
+as in her own, (the most ordinary of parental errors,) she was half
+afraid, that the admiration he expressed of them in his blunt manner
+might end in his actually carrying off one or other of the little
+darlings whom he appeared to covet so much. She kept hold of their
+hands, therefore, as if her feeble strength could have been of service,
+had any violence been intended, and saw with joy she could not disguise,
+the little party of horse countermarch, in order to descend the glen.
+Her feelings did not escape Bolton: "I forgive you, dame," he said, "for
+being suspicious that an English falcon was hovering over your Scottish
+moor-brood. But fear not--those who have fewest children have fewest
+cares; nor does a wise man covet those of another household. Adieu,
+dame; when the black-eyed rogue is able to drive a foray from England,
+teach him to spare women and children, for the sake of Stawarth Bolton."
+
+"God be with you, gallant Southern!" said Elspeth Glendinning, but not
+till he was out of hearing, spurring on his good horse to regain the
+head of his party, whose plumage and armour were now glancing and
+gradually disappearing in the distance, as they winded down the glen.
+
+"Mother," said the elder boy, "I will not say amen to a prayer for a
+Southern."
+
+"Mother," said the younger, more reverentially, "is it right to pray for
+a heretic?"
+
+"The God to whom I pray only knows," answered poor Elspeth; "but these
+two words, Southern and heretic, have already cost Scotland ten thousand
+of her best and bravest, and me a husband, and you a father; and,
+whether blessing or banning, I never wish to hear them more.--Follow me
+to the Place, sir," she said to Brittson, "and such as we have to offer
+you shall be at your disposal."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Third.
+
+
+  They lighted down on Tweed water
+    And blew their coals sae het,
+  And fired the March and Teviotdale,
+     All in an evening late.
+                       AULD MAITLAND.
+
+The report soon spread through the patrimony of Saint Mary's and its
+vicinity, that the Mistress of Glendearg had received assurance from the
+English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or her
+corn burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached the ears of
+a lady, who, once much higher in rank than Elspeth Glendinning, was now
+by the same calamity reduced to even greater misfortune.
+
+She was the widow of a brave soldier, Walter Avenel, descended of a very
+ancient Border family, who once possessed immense estates in Eskdale.
+These had long since passed from them into other hands, but they still
+enjoyed an ancient Barony of considerable extent, not very far from the
+patrimony of Saint Mary's, and lying upon the same side of the river
+with the narrow vale of Glendearg, at the head of which was the little
+tower of the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, bearing a respectable
+rank amongst the gentry of their province, though neither wealthy nor
+powerful. This general regard had been much augmented by the skill,
+courage, and enterprise which had been displayed by Walter Avenel, the
+last Baron.
+
+When Scotland began to recover from the dreadful shock she had sustained
+after the battle of Pinkie-Cleuch, Avenel was one of the first who,
+assembling a small force, set an example in those bloody and unsparing
+skirmishes, which showed that a nation, though conquered and overrun by
+invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in
+the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, however, Walter
+Avenel fell, and the news which came to the house of his fathers was
+followed by the distracting intelligence, that a party of Englishmen
+were coming to plunder the mansion and lands of his widow, in order, by
+this act of terror, to prevent others from following the example of the
+deceased.
+
+The unfortunate lady had no better refuge than the miserable cottage
+of a shepherd among the hills, to which she was hastily removed, scarce
+conscious where or for what purpose her terrified attendants were
+removing her and her infant daughter from her own house. Here she was
+tended with all the duteous service of ancient times by the shepherd's
+wife, Tibb Tacket, who in better days had been her own bowerwoman. For a
+time the lady was unconscious of her misery; but when the first stunning
+effect of grief was so far passed away that she could form an estimate
+of her own situation, the widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of
+her husband in his dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided
+her to her place of refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their
+own safety, or to seek for necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and
+his wife, whose poor cottage she shared, were soon after deprived of the
+means of affording their late mistress even that coarse sustenance
+which they had gladly shared with her. Some of the English forayers
+had discovered and driven off the few sheep which had escaped the first
+researches of their avarice. Two cows shared the fate of the remnant of
+their stock; they had afforded the family almost their sole support, and
+now famine appeared to stare them in the face.
+
+"We are broken and beggared now, out and out," said old Martin the
+shepherd--and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, "the
+thieves, the harrying thieves I not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!"
+
+"And to see poor Grizzle and Crumbie," said his wife, "turning back
+their necks to the byre, and routing while the stony-hearted villains
+were brogging them on wi' their lances!"
+
+"There were but four of them," said Martin, "and I have seen the day
+forty wad not have ventured this length. But our strength and manhood is
+gane with our puir maister."
+
+"For the sake of the holy rood, whisht, man," said the goodwife, "our
+leddy is half gane already, as ye may see by that fleightering of the
+ee-lid--a word mair and she's dead outright."
+
+"I could almost wish," said Martin, "we were a' gane, for what to do
+passes my puir wit. I care little for mysell, or you, Tibb,--we can make
+a fend--work or want--we can do baith, but she can do neither."
+
+They canvassed their situation thus openly before the lady, convinced by
+the paleness of her look, her quivering lip, and dead-set eye, that she
+neither heard nor understood what they were saying.
+
+"There is a way," said the shepherd, "but I kenna if she could bring her
+heart to it,--there's Simon Glendinning's widow of the glen yonder, has
+had assurance from the Southern loons, and nae soldier to steer them
+for one cause or other. Now, if the leddy could bow her mind to take
+quarters with Elspeth Glendinning till better days cast up, nae doubt it
+wad be doing an honour to the like of her, but----"
+
+"An honour," answered Tibb, "ay, by my word, sic an honour as wad be
+pride to her kin mony a lang year after her banes were in the mould. Oh!
+gudeman, to hear ye even the Lady of Avenel to seeking quarters wi' a
+Kirk-vassal's widow!"
+
+"Loath should I be to wish her to it," said Martin; "but what may we
+do?--to stay here is mere starvation; and where to go, I'm sure I ken
+nae mair than ony tup I ever herded."
+
+"Speak no more of it," said the widow of Avenel, suddenly joining in the
+conversation, "I will go to the tower.--Dame Elspeth is of good folk,
+a widow, and the mother of orphans,--she will give us house-room until
+something be thought upon. These evil showers make the low bush better
+than no bield."
+
+"See there, see there," said Martin, "you see the leddy has twice our
+sense."
+
+"And natural it is," said Tibb, "seeing that she is convent-bred, and
+can lay silk broidery, forby white-seam and shell-work."
+
+"Do you not think," said the lady to Martin, still clasping her child to
+her bosom and making it clear from what motives she desired the refuge,
+"that Dame Glendinning will make us welcome?"
+
+"Blithely welcome, blithely welcome, my leddy," answered Martin,
+cheerily, "and we shall deserve a welcome at her hand. Men are scarce
+now, my leddy, with these wars; and gie me a thought of time to it, I
+can do as good a day's darg as ever I did in my life, and Tibb can sort
+cows with ony living woman."
+
+"And muckle mair could I do," said Tibb, "were it ony feasible house;
+but there will be neither pearlins to mend, nor pinners to busk up, in
+Elspeth Glendinning's."
+
+"Whisht wi' your pride, woman," said the shepherd; "eneugh you can do,
+baith outside and inside, an ye set your mind to it; and hard it is
+if we twa canna work for three folk's meat, forby my dainty wee leddy
+there. Come awa, come awa, nae use in staying here langer; we have five
+Scots miles over moss and muir, and that is nae easy walk for a leddy
+born and bred."
+
+Household stuff there was little or none to remove or care for; an
+old pony which had escaped the plunderers, owing partly to its pitiful
+appearance, partly from the reluctance which it showed to be caught
+by strangers, was employed to carry the few blankets and other trifles
+which they possessed. When Shagram came to his master's well-known
+whistle, he was surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded,
+though slightly, by an arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in
+anger after he had long chased it in vain.
+
+"Ay, Shagram," said the old man, as he applied something to the wound,
+"must you rue the lang-bow as weel as all of us?"
+
+"What corner in Scotland rues it not!" said the Lady of Avenel.
+
+"Ay, ay, madam," said Martin, "God keep the kindly Scot from the
+cloth-yard shaft, and he will keep himself from the handy stroke. But
+let us go our way; the trash that is left I can come back for. There is
+nae ane to stir it but the good neighbours, and they----"
+
+"For the love of God, goodman," said his wife, in a remonstrating tone,
+"haud your peace! Think what ye're saying, and we hae sae muckle wild
+land to go over before we win to the girth gate."
+
+The husband nodded acquiescence; for it was deemed highly imprudent to
+speak of the fairies, either by their title of _good neighbours_ or
+by any other, especially when about to pass the places which they were
+supposed to haunt.
+
+[Footnote: This superstition continues to prevail, though one would
+suppose it must now be antiquated. It is only a year or two since an
+itinerant puppet show-man, who, disdaining to acknowledge the profession
+of Gines de Passamonte, called himself an artist from Vauxhall, brought
+a complaint of a singular nature before the author, as Sheriff of
+Selkirkshire. The singular dexterity with which the show-man had
+exhibited the machinery of his little stage, had, upon a Selkirk
+fair-day, excited the eager curiosity of some mechanics of Galashiels.
+These men, from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst
+after knowledge beyond their sphere, committed a burglary upon the barn
+in which the puppets had been consigned to repose, and carried them off
+in the nook of their plaids, when returning from Selkirk to their own
+village.
+
+  "But with the morning cool reflection came."
+
+The party found, however, they could not make Punch dance, and that
+the whole troop were equally intractable; they had also, perhaps, some
+apprehensions of the Rhadamanth of the district; and, willing to be quit
+of their booty, they left the puppets seated in a grove by the side of
+the Ettrick, where they were sure to be touched by the first beams of
+the rising sun. Here a shepherd, who was on foot with sunrise to pen
+his master's sheep on a field of turnips, to his utter astonishment, saw
+this train, profusely gay, sitting in the little grotto. His examination
+proceeded thus:--
+
+_Sheriff_. You saw these gay-looking things? what did you think they
+were?
+
+_Shepherd_. Ou, I am no that free to say what I might think they were.
+
+_Sheriff_. Come, lad, I must have a direct answer--who did you think
+they were?
+
+_Shepherd_. Ou, sir, troth I am no that free to say that I mind wha I
+might think they were.
+
+_Sheriff_. Come, come sir! I ask you distinctly, did you think they were
+the fairies you saw?
+
+_Shepherd_. Indeed, sir, and I winna say but I might think it was the
+Good Neighbours.
+
+Thus unwillingly was he brought to allude to the irritable and captious
+inhabitants of fairy land.]
+
+They set forward on their pilgrimage on the last day of October. "This
+is thy birthday, my sweet Mary," said the mother, as a sting of bitter
+recollection crossed her mind. "Oh, who could have believed that the
+head, which, a few years since, was cradled amongst so many rejoicing
+friends, may perhaps this night seek a cover in vain!"
+
+The exiled family then set forward,--Mary Avenel, a lovely girl between
+five and six years old, riding gipsy fashion upon Shagram, betwixt two
+bundles of bedding; the Lady of Avenel walking by the animal's side;
+Tibb leading the bridle, and old Martin walking a little before, looking
+anxiously around him to explore the way.
+
+Martin's task as guide, after two or three miles' walking, became more
+difficult than he himself had expected, or than he was willing to avow.
+It happened that the extensive range of pasturage, with which he was
+conversant, lay to the west, and to get into the little valley of
+Glendearg he had to proceed easterly. In the wilder districts of
+Scotland, the passage from one vale to another, otherwise than by
+descending that which you leave, and reascending the other, is often
+very difficult.--Heights and hollows, mosses and rocks intervene, and
+all those local impediments which throw a traveller out of his course.
+So that Martin, however sure of his general direction, became conscious,
+and at length was forced reluctantly to admit, that he had missed the
+direct road to Glendearg, though he insisted they must be very near it.
+"If we can but win across this wide bog," he said, "I shall warrant ye
+are on the top of the tower." But to get across the bog was a point
+of no small difficulty. The farther they ventured into it, though
+proceeding with all the caution which Martin's experience recommended,
+the more unsound the ground became, until, after they had passed some
+places of great peril, their best argument for going forward came to be,
+that they had to encounter equal danger in returning. The Lady of Avenel
+had been tenderly nurtured, but what will not a woman endure when her
+child is in danger? Complaining less of the dangers of the road than
+her attendants, who had been inured to such from their infancy, she kept
+herself close by the side of the pony, watching its every footstep, and
+ready, if it should flounder in the morass, to snatch her little Mary
+from its back. At length they came to a place where the guide greatly
+hesitated, for all around him was broken lumps of heath, divided
+from each other by deep sloughs of black tenacious mire. After great
+consideration, Martin, selecting what he thought the safest path, began
+himself to lead forward Shagram, in order to afford greater security to
+the child. But Shagram snorted, laid his ears back, stretched his two
+feet forward, and drew his hind feet under him, so as to adopt the best
+possible posture for obstinate resistance, and refused to move one yard
+in the direction indicated. Old Martin, much puzzled, now hesitated
+whether to exert his absolute authority, or to defer to the contumacious
+obstinacy of Shagram, and was not greatly comforted by his wife's
+observation, who, seeing Shagram stare with his eyes, distend his
+nostrils, and tremble with terror, hinted that "he surely saw more than
+they could see."
+
+In this dilemma, the child suddenly exclaimed--"Bonny leddy signs to
+us to come yon gate." They all looked in the direction where the child
+pointed, but saw nothing, save a wreath, of rising mist, which fancy
+might form into a human figure; but which afforded to Martin only the
+sorrowful conviction, that the danger of their situation was about to be
+increased by a heavy fog. He once more essayed to lead forward Shagram;
+but the animal was inflexible in its determination not to move in the
+direction Martin recommended. "Take your awn way for it, then," said
+Martin, "and let us see what you can do for us."
+
+Shagram, abandoned to the discretion of his own free-will, set off
+boldly in the direction the child had pointed. There was nothing
+wonderful in this, nor in its bringing them safe to the other side of
+the dangerous morass; for the instinct of these animals in traversing
+bogs is one of the most curious parts of their nature, and is a fact
+generally established. But it was remarkable, that the child more than
+once mentioned the beautiful lady and her signals, and that Shagram
+seemed to be in the secret, always moving in the same direction which
+she indicated. The Lady of Avenel took little notice at the time, her
+mind being probably occupied by the instant danger; but her attendants
+changed expressive looks with each other more than once.
+
+"All-Hallow Eve!" said Tibb, in a whisper to Martin.
+
+"For the mercy of Our Lady, not a word of that now!" said Martin in
+reply. "Tell your beads, woman, if you cannot be silent."
+
+When they got once more on firm ground, Martin recognized certain
+land-marks, or cairns, on the tops of the neighbouring hills, by which
+he was enabled to guide his course, and ere long they arrived at the
+Tower of Glendearg.
+
+It was at the sight of this little fortalice that the misery of her lot
+pressed hard on the poor Lady of Avenel. When by any accident they had
+met at church, market, or other place of public resort, she remembered
+the distant and respectful air with which the wife of the warlike baron
+was addressed by the spouse of the humble feuar. And now, so much was
+her pride humbled, that she was to ask to share the precarious safety of
+the same feuar's widow, and her pittance of food, which might perhaps
+be yet more precarious. Martin probably guessed what was passing in her
+mind, for he looked at her with a wistful glance, as if to deprecate any
+change of resolution; and answering to his looks, rather than his words,
+she said, while the sparkle of subdued pride once more glanced from
+her eye, "If it were for myself alone, I could but die-but for this
+infant--the last pledge of Avenel--"
+
+"True, my lady," said Martin, hastily; and, as if to prevent the
+possibility of her retracting, he added, "I will step on and see Dame
+Elspeth--I kend her husband weel, and have bought and sold with him, for
+as great a man as he was."
+
+Martin's tale was soon told, and met all acceptance from her companion
+in misfortune. The Lady of Avenel had been meek and courteous in her
+prosperity; in adversity, therefore, she met with the greatest sympathy.
+Besides, there was a point of pride in sheltering and supporting a woman
+of such superior birth and rank; and, not to do Elspeth Glendinning
+injustice, she felt sympathy for one whose fate resembled her own in so
+many points, yet was so much more severe. Every species of hospitality
+was gladly and respectfully extended to the distressed travellers,
+and they were kindly requested to stay as long at Glendearg as their
+circumstances rendered necessary, or their inclination prompted.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Fourth.
+
+
+   Ne'er be I found by thee unawed,
+   On that thrice hallow'd eve abroad.
+   When goblins haunt from flood and fen,
+                         The steps of men.
+                            COLLINS'S _Ode to Fear_.
+
+As the country became more settled, the Lady of Avenel would have
+willingly returned to her husband's mansion. But that was no longer in
+her power. It was a reign of minority, when the strongest had the best
+right, and when acts of usurpation were frequent amongst those who had
+much power and little conscience.
+
+Julian Avenel, the younger brother of the deceased Walter, was a person
+of this description. He hesitated not to seize upon his brother's house
+and lands, so soon as the retreat of the English permitted him. At
+first, he occupied the property in the name of his niece; but when the
+lady proposed to return with her child to the mansion of its fathers, he
+gave her to understand, that Avenel, being a male fief, descended to
+the brother, instead of the daughter, of the last possessor. The ancient
+philosopher declined a dispute with the emperor who commanded twenty
+legions, and the widow of Walter Avenel was in no condition to maintain
+a contest with the leader of twenty moss-troopers. Julian was also a
+man of service, who could back a friend in case of need, and was sure,
+therefore, to find protectors among the ruling powers. In short, however
+clear the little Mary's right to the possessions of her father, her
+mother saw the necessity of giving way, at least for the time, to the
+usurpation of her uncle.
+
+Her patience and forbearance were so far attended with advantage,
+that Julian, for very shame's sake, could no longer suffer her to be
+absolutely dependant on the charity of Elspeth Glendinning. A drove of
+cattle and a bull (which were probably missed by some English farmer)
+were driven to the pastures of Glendearg; presents of raiment and
+household stuff were sent liberally, and some little money, though with
+a more sparing hand: for those in the situation of Julian Avenel could
+come more easily by the goods, than the representing medium of value,
+and made their payments chiefly in kind.
+
+In the meantime, the widows of Walter Avenel and Simon Glendinning had
+become habituated to each other's society, and were unwilling to part.
+The lady could hope no more secret and secure residence than in the
+Tower of Glendearg, and she was now in a condition to support her share
+of the mutual housekeeping. Elspeth, on the other hand, felt pride, as
+well as pleasure, in the society of a guest of such distinction, and
+was at all times willing to pay much greater deference than the Lady of
+Walter Avenel could be prevailed on to accept.
+
+Martin and his wife diligently served the united family in their several
+vocations, and yielded obedience to both mistresses, though always
+considering themselves as the especial servants of the Lady of Avenel.
+This distinction sometimes occasioned a slight degree of difference
+between Dame Elspeth and Tibb; the former being jealous of her own
+consequence, and the latter apt to lay too much stress upon the rank
+and family of her mistress. But both were alike desirous to conceal such
+petty squabbles from the lady, her hostess scarce yielding to her old
+domestic in respect for her person. Neither did the difference exist in
+such a degree as to interrupt the general harmony of the family, for the
+one wisely gave way as she saw the other become warm; and Tibb, though
+she often gave the first provocation, had generally the sense to be the
+first in relinquishing the argument.
+
+The world which lay beyond was gradually forgotten by the inhabitants
+of this sequestered glen, and unless when she attended mass at the
+Monastery Church upon some high holiday, Alice of Avenel almost
+forgot that she once held an equal rank with the proud wives of the
+neighbouring barons and nobles who on such occasions crowded to the
+solemnity. The recollection gave her little pain. She loved her husband
+for himself, and in his inestimable loss all lesser subjects of regret
+had ceased to interest her. At times, indeed, she thought of claiming
+the protection of the Queen Regent (Mary of Guise) for her little
+orphan, but the fear of Julian Avenel always came between. She was
+sensible that he would have neither scruple nor difficulty in spiriting
+away the child, (if he did not proceed farther,) should he once consider
+its existence as formidable to his interest. Besides, he led a wild and
+unsettled life, mingling in all feuds and forays, wherever there was
+a spear to be broken; he evinced no purpose of marrying, and the fate
+which he continually was braving might at length remove him from his
+usurped inheritance. Alice of Avenel, therefore, judged it wise to check
+all ambitious thoughts for the present, and remain quiet in the rude,
+but peaceable retreat, to which Providence had conducted her.
+
+It was upon an All-Hallow's eve, when the family had resided together
+for the space of three years, that the domestic circle was assembled
+round the blazing turf-fire, in the old narrow hall of the Tower of
+Glendearg. The idea of the master or mistress of the mansion feeding or
+living apart from their domestics, was at this period never entertained.
+The highest end of the board, the most commodious settle by the
+fire,--these were the only marks of distinction; and the servants
+mingled, with deference indeed, but unreproved and with freedom, in
+whatever conversation was going forward. But the two or three domestics,
+kept merely for agricultural purposes, had retired to their own cottages
+without, and with them a couple of wenches, usually employed within
+doors, the daughters of one of the hinds.
+
+After their departure, Martin locked, first, the iron grate; and,
+secondly, the inner door of the tower, when the domestic circle was thus
+arranged. Dame Elspeth sate pulling the thread from her distaff; Tibb
+watched the progress of scalding the whey, which hung in a large pot
+upon the _crook_, a chain terminated by a hook, which was suspended
+in the chimney to serve the purpose of the modern crane. Martin, while
+busied in repairing some of the household articles, (for every man in
+those days was his own carpenter and smith, as well as his own tailor
+and shoemaker,) kept from time to time a watchful eye upon the three
+children.
+
+They were allowed, however, to exercise their juvenile restlessness by
+running up and down the hall, behind the seats of the elder members of
+the family, with the privilege of occasionally making excursions into
+one or two small apartments which opened from it, and gave excellent
+opportunity to play at hide-and-seek. This night, however, the children
+seemed not disposed to avail themselves of their privilege of visiting
+these dark regions, but preferred carrying on their gambols in the
+vicinity of the light.
+
+In the meanwhile, Alice of Avenel, sitting close to an iron candlestick,
+which supported a misshapen torch of domestic manufacture, read small
+detached passages from a thick clasped volume, which she preserved
+with the greatest care. The art of reading the lady had acquired by her
+residence in a nunnery during her youth, but she seldom, of late years,
+put it to any other use than perusing this little volume, which formed
+her whole library. The family listened to the portions which she
+selected, as to some good thing which there was a merit in hearing with
+respect, whether it was fully understood or no. To her daughter, Alice
+of Avenel had determined to impart their mystery more fully, but the
+knowledge was at that period attended with personal danger, and was not
+rashly to be trusted to a child.
+
+The noise of the romping children interrupted, from time to time, the
+voice of the lady, and drew on the noisy culprits the rebuke of Elspeth.
+
+"Could they not go farther a-field, if they behoved to make such a din,
+and disturb the lady's good words?" And this command was backed with
+the threat of sending the whole party to bed if it was not attended to
+punctually. Acting under the injunction, the children first played at
+a greater distance from the party, and more quietly, and then began
+to stray into the adjacent apartments, as they became impatient of the
+restraint to which they were subjected. But, all at once, the two boys
+came open-mouthed into the hall, to tell that there was an armed man in
+the spence.
+
+"It must be Christie of Clint-hill," said Martin, rising; "what can have
+brought him here at this time?"
+
+"Or how came he in?" said Elspeth.
+
+"Alas! what can he seek?" said the Lady of Avenel, to whom this man,
+a retainer of her husband's brother, and who sometimes executed his
+commissions at Glendearg, was an object of secret apprehension and
+suspicion. "Gracious heavens!" she added, rising up, "where is my
+child?" All rushed to the spence, Halbert Glendinning first arming
+himself with a rusty sword, and the younger seizing upon the lady's
+book. They hastened to the spence, and were relieved of a part of their
+anxiety by meeting Mary at the door of the apartment. She did not seem
+in the slightest degree alarmed, or disturbed. They rushed into the
+spence, (a sort of interior apartment in which the family ate their
+victuals in the summer season,) but there was no one there.
+
+"Where is Christie of Clint-hill?" said Martin.
+
+"I do not know," said little Mary; "I never saw him."
+
+"And what made you, ye misleard loons," said Dame Elspeth to her two
+boys, "come yon gate into the ha', roaring like bullsegs, to frighten
+the leddy, and her far frae strong?" The boys looked at each other in
+silence and confusion, and their mother proceeded with her lecture.
+"Could ye find nae night for daffin but Hallowe'en, and nae time but
+when the leddy was reading to us about the holy Saints? May ne'er be in
+my fingers, if I dinna sort ye baith for it!" The eldest boy bent his
+eyes on the ground, the younger began to weep, but neither spoke;
+and the mother would have proceeded to extremities, but for the
+interposition of the little maiden.
+
+"Dame Elspeth, it was _my_ fault--I did say to them, that I saw a man in
+the spence."
+
+"And what made you do so, child," said her mother, "to startle us all
+thus?"
+
+"Because," said Mary, lowering her voice, "I could not help it."
+
+"Not help it, Mary!--you occasioned all this idle noise, and you could
+not help it? How mean you by that, minion?"
+
+"There really was an armed man in this spence," said Mary; "and because
+I was surprised to see him, I cried out to Halbert and Edward--"
+
+"She has told it herself," said Halbert Glendinning, "or it had never
+been told by me."
+
+"Nor by me neither," said Edward, emulously.
+
+"Mistress Mary," said Elspeth, "you never told us anything before that
+was not true; tell us if this was a Hallowe'en cantrip, and make an end
+of it." The Lady of Avenel looked as if she would have interfered, but
+knew not how; and Elspeth, who was too eagerly curious to regard any
+distant hint, persevered in her inquiries. "Was it Christie of the
+Clint-hill?--I would not for a mark that he were about the house, and a
+body no ken whare."
+
+"It was not Christie," said Mary; "it was--it was a gentleman--a
+gentleman with a bright breastplate, like what I hae seen langsyne, when
+we dwelt at Avenel--"
+
+"What like was he?" continued Tibb, who now took share in the
+investigation.
+
+"Black-haired, black-eyed, with a peaked black beard," said the child;
+"and many a fold of pearling round his neck, and hanging down his breast
+ower his breastplate; and he had a beautiful hawk, with silver bells,
+standing on his left hand, with a crimson silk hood upon its head--"
+
+"Ask her no more questions, for the love of God," said the anxious
+menial to Elspeth, "but look to my leddy!" But the Lady of Avenel,
+taking Mary in her hand, turned hastily away, and, walking into the
+hall, gave them no opportunity of remarking in what manner she received
+the child's communication, which she thus cut short. What Tibb thought
+of it appeared from her crossing herself repeatedly, and whispering
+into Elspeth's ear, "Saint Mary preserve us!--the lassie has seen her
+father!"
+
+When they reached the hall, they found the lady holding her daughter
+on her knee, and kissing her repeatedly. When they entered, she again
+arose, as if to shun observation, and retired to the little apartment
+where her child and she occupied the same bed.
+
+The boys were also sent to their cabin, and no one remained by the hall
+fire save the faithful Tibb and dame Elspeth, excellent persons both,
+and as thorough gossips as ever wagged a tongue.
+
+It was but natural that they should instantly resume the subject of the
+supernatural appearance, for such they deemed it, which had this night
+alarmed the family.
+
+"I could hae wished it had been the deil himself--be good to and
+preserve us!--rather than Christie o' the Clint-hill," said the matron
+of the mansion, "for the word runs rife in the country, that he is ane
+of the maist masterfu' thieves ever lap on horse."
+
+"Hout-tout, Dame Elspeth," said Tibb, "fear ye naething frae Christie;
+tods keep their ain holes clean. You kirk-folk make sic a fasherie about
+men shifting a wee bit for their living! Our Border-lairds would ride
+with few men at their back, if a' the light-handed lads were out o'
+gate."
+
+"Better they rade wi' nane than distress the country-side the gate they
+do," said Dame Elspeth.
+
+"But wha is to haud back the Southron, then," said Tibb, "if ye take
+away the lances and broadswords? I trow we auld wives couldna do that
+wi' rock and wheel, and as little the monks wi' bell and book."
+
+"And sae weel as the lances and broadswords hae kept them back, I
+trow!--I was mair beholden to ae Southron, and that was Stawarth Bolton,
+than to a' the border-riders ever wore Saint Andrew's cross--I reckon
+their skelping back and forward, and lifting honest men's gear, has been
+a main cause of a' the breach between us and England, and I am sure that
+cost me a kind goodman. They spoke about the wedding of the Prince and
+our Queen, but it's as like to be the driving of the Cumberland folk's
+stocking that brought them down on us like dragons." Tibb would not have
+failed in other circumstances to answer what she thought reflections
+disparaging to her country folk; but she recollected that Dame Elspeth
+was mistress of the family, curbed her own zealous patriotism, and
+hastened to change the subject.
+
+"And is it not strange," she said, "that the heiress of Avenel should
+have seen her father this blessed night?"
+
+"And ye think it was her father, then?" said Elspeth Glendinning.
+
+"What else can I think?" said Tibb.
+
+"It may hae been something waur, in his likeness," said Dame
+Glendinning.
+
+"I ken naething about that," said Tibb,--"but his likeness it was, that
+I will be sworn to, just as he used to ride out a-hawking; for having
+enemies in the country, he seldom laid off the breast-plate; and for my
+part," added Tibb, "I dinna think a man looks like a man unless he has
+steel on his breast, and by his side too."
+
+"I have no skill of your harness on breast or side either," said Dame
+Glendinning; "but I ken there is little luck in Hallowe'en sights, for I
+have had ane myself."
+
+"Indeed, Dame Elspeth?" said old Tibb, edging her stool closer to the
+huge elbow-chair occupied by her friend, "I should like to hear about
+that."
+
+"Ye maun ken, then, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, "that when I was a
+hempie of nineteen or twenty, it wasna my fault if I wasna at a' the
+merry-makings time about."
+
+"That was very natural," said Tibb; "but ye hae sobered since that, or
+ye wadna haud our braw gallants sae lightly."
+
+"I have had that wad sober me or ony ane," said the matron, "Aweel,
+Tibb, a lass like me wasna to lack wooers, for I wasna sae ill-favoured
+that the tikes wad bark after me."
+
+"How should that be," said Tibb, "and you sic a weel-favoured woman to
+this day?"
+
+"Fie, fie, cummer," said the matron of Glendearg, hitching her seat of
+honour, in her turn, a little nearer to the cuttle-stool on which Tibb
+was seated; "weel-favoured is past my time of day; but I might pass
+then, for I wasna sae tocherless but what I had a bit land at my
+breast-lace. My father was portioner of Little-dearg."
+
+"Ye hae tell'd me that before," said Tibb; "but anent the Hallowe'en?"
+
+"Aweel, aweel, I had mair joes than ane, but I favoured nane o' them;
+and sae, at Hallowe'en, Father Nicolas the cellarer--he was cellarer
+before this father, Father Clement, that now is--was cracking his nuts
+and drinking his brown beer with us, and as blithe as might be, and they
+would have me try a cantrip to ken wha suld wed me: and the monk said
+there was nae ill in it, and if there was, he would assoil me for
+it. And wha but I into the barn to winnow my three weights o'
+naething--sair, sair my mind misgave me for fear of wrang-doing and
+wrang-suffering baith; but I had aye a bauld spirit. I had not winnowed
+the last weight clean out, and the moon was shining bright upon the
+floor, when in stalked the presence of my dear Simon Glendinning, that
+is now happy. I never saw him plainer in my life than I did that moment;
+he held up an arrow as he passed me, and I swarf'd awa wi' fright.
+Muckle wark there was to bring me to mysell again, and sair they tried
+to make me believe it was a trick of Father Nicolas and Simon between
+them, and that the arrow was to signify Cupid's shaft, as the Father
+called it; and mony a time Simon wad threep it to me after I was
+married--gude man, he liked not it should be said that he was seen out
+o' the body!--But mark the end o' it, Tibb; we were married, and the
+gray-goose wing was the death o' him after a'!"
+
+"As it has been of ower mony brave men," said Tibb; "I wish there wasna
+sic a bird as a goose in the wide warld, forby the clecking that we hae
+at the burn-side."
+
+"But tell me, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, "what does your leddy aye do
+reading out o' that thick black book wi' the silver clasps?--there are
+ower mony gude words in it to come frae ony body but a priest--An it
+were about Robin Hood, or some o' David Lindsay's ballants, ane wad ken
+better what to say to it. I am no misdoubting your mistress nae way,
+but I wad like ill to hae a decent house haunted wi' ghaists and
+gyrecarlines."
+
+"Ye hae nae reason to doubt my leddy, or ony thing she says or does,
+Dame Glendinning," said the faithful Tibb, something offended; "and
+touching the bairn, it's weel kend she was born on Hallowe'en, was nine
+years gane, and they that are born on Hallowe'en whiles see mair than
+ither folk."
+
+"And that wad be the cause, then, that the bairn didna mak muckle din
+about what it saw?--if it had been my Halbert himself, forby Edward, who
+is of softer nature, he wad hae yammered the haill night of a constancy.
+But it's like Mistress Mary hae sic sights mair natural to her."
+
+"That may weel be," said Tibb; "for on Hallowe'en she was born, as I
+tell ye, and our auld parish priest wad fain hae had the night ower,
+and All-Hallow day begun. But for a' that, the sweet bairn is just like
+ither bairns, as ye may see yourself; and except this blessed night,
+and ance before when we were in that weary bog on the road here, I kenna
+that it saw mair than ither folk."
+
+"But what saw she in the bog, then," said Dame Glendinning, "forby
+moor-cocks and heather-blutters?"
+
+"The wean saw something like a white leddy that weised us the gate,"
+said Tibb; "when we were like to hae perished in the moss-hags--certain
+it was that Shagram reisted, and I ken Martin thinks he saw something."
+
+"And what might the white leddy be?" said Elspeth; "have ye ony guess o'
+that?"
+
+"It's weel kend that, Dame Elspeth," said Tibb; "if ye had lived under
+grit folk, as I hae dune, ye wadna be to seek in that matter."
+
+"I hae aye keepit my ain ha' house abune my head," said Elspeth, not
+without emphasis, "and if I havena lived wi' grit folk, grit folk have
+lived wi' me."
+
+"Weel, weel, dame," said Tibb, "your pardon's prayed, there was nae
+offence meant. But ye maun ken the great ancient families canna be just
+served wi' the ordinary saunts, (praise to them!) like Saunt Anthony,
+Saunt Cuthbert, and the like, that come and gang at every sinner's
+bidding, but they hae a sort of saunts or angels, or what not, to
+themsells; and as for the White Maiden of Avenel, she is kend ower the
+haill country. And she is aye seen to yammer and wail before ony o' that
+family dies, as was weel kend by twenty folk before the death of Walter
+Avenel, haly be his cast!"
+
+"If she can do nae mair than that," said Elspeth, somewhat scornfully,
+"they needna make mony vows to her, I trow. Can she make nae better fend
+for them than that, and has naething better to do than wait on them?"
+
+"Mony braw services can the White Maiden do for them to the boot of
+that, and has dune in the auld histories," said Tibb, "but I mind o'
+naething in my day, except it was her that the bairn saw in the bog."
+
+"Aweel, aweel, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, rising and lighting the
+iron lamp, "these are great privileges of your grand folk. But our Lady
+and Saunt Paul are good eneugh saunts for me, and I'se warrant them
+never leave me in a bog that they can help me out o', seeing I send four
+waxen candles to their chapels every Candlemas; and if they are not seen
+to weep at my death, I'se warrant them smile at my joyful rising again,
+whilk Heaven send to all of us, Amen."
+
+"Amen," answered Tibb, devoutly; "and now it's time I should hap up the
+wee bit gathering turf, as the fire is ower low."
+
+Busily she set herself to perform this duty. The relict of Simon
+Glendinning did but pause a moment to cast a heedful and cautious glance
+all around the hall, to see that nothing was out of its proper place;
+then, wishing Tibb good-night, she retired to repose.
+
+"The deil's in the carline," said Tibb to herself, "because she was
+the wife of a cock-laird, she thinks herself grander, I trow, than the
+bower-woman of a lady of that ilk!" Having given vent to her suppressed
+spleen in this little ejaculation, Tibb also betook herself to slumber.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Fifth.
+
+
+  A priest, ye cry, a priest!--lame shepherds they,
+  How shall they gather in the straggling flock?
+  Dumb dogs which bark not--how shall they compel
+  The loitering vagrants to the Master's fold?
+  Fitter to bask before the blazing fire,
+  And snuff the mess neat-handed Phillis dresses,
+  Than on the snow-wreath battle with the wolf.
+                           REFORMATION.
+
+
+The health of the Lady of Avenel had been gradually decaying ever since
+her disaster. It seemed as if the few years which followed her husband's
+death had done on her the work of half a century. She lost the fresh
+elasticity of form, the colour and the mien of health, and became
+wasted, wan, and feeble. She appeared to have no formed complaint;
+yet it was evident to those who looked on her, that her strength waned
+daily. Her lips at length became blenched and her eye dim; yet she spoke
+not of any desire to see a priest, until Elspeth Glendinning in her zeal
+could not refrain from touching upon a point which she deemed essential
+to salvation. Alice of Avenel received her hint kindly, and thanked her
+for it.
+
+"If any good priest would take the trouble of such a journey," she said,
+"he should be welcome; for the prayers and lessons of the good must be
+at all times advantageous."
+
+This quiet acquiescence was not quite what Elspeth Glendinning wished
+or expected. She made up, however, by her own enthusiasm, for the lady's
+want of eagerness to avail herself of ghostly counsel, and Martin was
+despatched with such haste as Shagram would make, to pray one of
+the religious men of Saint Mary's to come up to administer the last
+consolations to the widow of Walter Avenel.
+
+When the Sacristan had announced to the Lord Abbot, that the Lady of
+the umquhile Walter de Avenel was in very weak health in the Tower of
+Glendearg, and desired the assistance of a father confessor, the lordly
+monk paused on the request.
+
+"We do remember Walter de Avenel," he said; "a good knight and
+a valiant: he was dispossessed of his lands, and slain by the
+Southron--May not the lady come hither to the sacrament of confession?
+the road is distant and painful to travel."
+
+"The lady is unwell, holy father," answered the Sacristan, "and unable
+to bear the journey."
+
+"True--ay,--yes--then must one of our brethren go to her--Knowest thou
+if she hath aught of a jointure from this Walter de Avenel?"
+
+"Very little, holy father," said the Sacristan; "she hath resided at
+Glendearg since her husband's death, well-nigh on the charity of a poor
+widow, called Elspeth Glendinning."
+
+"Why, thou knowest all the widows in the country-side!" said the Abbot.
+"Ho! ho! ho!" and he shook his portly sides at his own jest.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" echoed the Sacristan, in the tone and tune in which
+an inferior applauds the jest of his superior.--Then added, with a
+hypocritical shuffle, and a sly twinkle of his eye, "It is our duty,
+most holy father, to comfort the widow--He! he! he!"
+
+This last laugh was more moderate, until the Abbot should put his
+sanction on the jest.
+
+"Ho! ho!" said the Abbot; "then, to leave jesting, Father Philip, take
+thou thy riding gear, and go to confess this Dame Avenel."
+
+"But," said the Sacristan----
+
+"Give me no _Buts;_ neither But nor If pass between monk and Abbot,
+Father Philip; the bands of discipline must not be relaxed--heresy
+gathers force like a snow-ball--the multitude expect confessions and
+preachings from the Benedictine, as they would from so many beggarly
+friars--and we may not desert the vineyard, though the toil be grievous
+unto us."
+
+"And with so little advantage to the holy monastery," said the
+Sacristan.
+
+"True, Father Philip; but wot you not that what preventeth harm doth
+good? This Julian de Avenel lives a light and evil life, and should we
+neglect the widow of his brother, he might foray our lands, and we never
+able to show who hurt us--moreover it is our duty to an ancient family,
+who, in their day, have been benefactors to the Abbey. Away with thee
+instantly, brother; ride night and day, an it be necessary, and let men
+see how diligent Abbot Boniface and his faithful children are in the
+execution of their spiritual duty--toil not deterring them, for the glen
+is five miles in length--fear not withholding them, for it is said to be
+haunted of spectres--nothing moving them from pursuit of their spiritual
+calling; to the confusion of calumnious heretics, and the comfort and
+edification of all true and faithful sons of the Catholic Church. I
+wonder what our brother Eustace will say to this?"
+
+Breathless with his own picture of the dangers and toil which he was to
+encounter, and the fame which he was to acquire, (both by proxy,) the
+Abbot moved slowly to finish his luncheon in the refectory, and the
+Sacristan, with no very good will, accompanied old Martin in his return
+to Glendearg; the greatest impediment in the journey being the trouble
+of restraining his pampered mule, that she might tread in something like
+an equal pace with poor jaded Shagram.
+
+After remaining an hour in private with his penitent, the monk returned
+moody and full of thought. Dame Elspeth, who had placed for the honoured
+guest some refreshment in the hall, was struck with the embarrassment
+which appeared in his countenance. Elspeth watched him with great
+anxiety. She observed there was that on his brow which rather resembled
+a person come from hearing the confession of some enormous crime, than
+the look of a confessor who resigns a reconciled penitent, not to earth,
+but to heaven. After long hesitating, she could not at length refrain
+from hazarding a question. She was sure she said, the leddy had made an
+easy shrift. Five years had they resided together, and she could safely
+say, no woman lived better.
+
+"Woman," said the Sacristan, sternly, "thou speakest thou knowest not
+what--What avails clearing the outside of the platter, if the inside be
+foul with heresy?"
+
+"Our dishes and trenchers are not so clean as they could be wished,
+holy father," said Elspeth, but half understanding what he said, and
+beginning with her apron to wipe the dust from the plates, of which she
+supposed him to complain.
+
+"Forbear, Dame Elspeth" said the monk; "your plates are as clean as
+wooden trenchers and pewter flagons can well be; the foulness of which
+I speak is of that pestilential heresy which is daily becoming ingrained
+in this our Holy Church of Scotland, and as a canker-worm in the
+rose-garland of the Spouse."
+
+"Holy Mother of Heaven!" said Dame Elspeth, crossing herself, "have I
+kept house with a heretic?"
+
+"No, Elspeth, no," replied the monk; "it were too strong a speech for me
+to make of this unhappy lady, but I would I could say she is free
+from heretical opinions. Alas! they fly about like the pestilence by
+noon-day, and infect even the first and fairest of the flock! For it
+is easy to see of this dame, that she hath been high in judgment as in
+rank."
+
+"And she can write and read, I had almost said, as weel as your
+reverence" said Elspeth.
+
+"Whom doth she write to, and what doth she read?" said the monk,
+eagerly.
+
+"Nay," replied Elspeth, "I cannot say I ever saw her write at all, but
+her maiden that was--she now serves the family--says she can write--And
+for reading, she has often read to us good things out of a thick black
+volume with silver clasps."
+
+"Let me see it," said the monk, hastily, "on your allegiance as a true
+vassal--on your faith as a Catholic Christian--instantly--instantly let
+me see it."
+
+The good woman hesitated, alarmed at the tone in which the confessor
+took up her information; and being moreover of opinion, that what so
+good a woman as the Lady of Avenel studied so devoutly, could not be of
+a tendency actually evil. But borne down by the clamour, exclamations,
+and something like threats used by Father Philip, she at length brought
+him the fatal volume. It was easy to do this without suspicion on the
+part of the owner, as she lay on her bed exhausted with the fatigue of a
+long conference with her confessor, and as the small _round_, or turret
+closet, in which was the book and her other trifling property, was
+accessible by another door. Of all her effects the book was the last she
+would have thought of securing, for of what use or interest could it be
+in a family who neither read themselves, nor were in the habit of
+seeing any who did? so that Dame Elspeth had no difficulty in possessing
+herself of the volume, although her heart all the while accused her of
+an ungenerous and an inhospitable part towards her friend and inmate.
+The double power of a landlord and a feudal superior was before her
+eyes; and to say truth, the boldness, with which she might otherwise
+have resisted this double authority, was, I grieve to say it, much
+qualified by the curiosity she entertained, as a daughter of Eve, to
+have some explanation respecting the mysterious volume which the lady
+cherished with so much care, yet whose contents she imparted with such
+caution. For never had Alice of Avenel read them any passage from the
+book in question until the iron door of the tower was locked, and all
+possibility of intrusion prevented. Even then she had shown, by the
+selection of particular passages, that she was more anxious to impress
+on their minds the principles which the volume contained, than to
+introduce them to it as a new rule of faith.
+
+When Elspeth, half curious, half remorseful, had placed the book in the
+monk's hands, he exclaimed, after turning over the leaves, "Now, by mine
+order, it is as I suspected!--My mule, my mule!--I will abide no longer
+here--well hast thou done, dame, in placing in my hands this perilous
+volume."
+
+"Is it then witchcraft or devil's work?" said Dame Elspeth, in great
+agitation.
+
+"Nay, God forbid!" said the monk, signing himself with the cross, "it
+is the Holy Scripture. But it is rendered into the vulgar tongue, and
+therefore, by the order of the Holy Catholic Church, unfit to be in the
+hands of any lay person."
+
+"And yet is the Holy Scripture communicated for our common salvation,"
+said Elspeth. "Good Father, you must instruct mine ignorance better; but
+lack of wit cannot be a deadly sin, and truly, to my poor thinking, I
+should be glad to read the Holy Scripture."
+
+"I dare say thou wouldst," said the monk; "and even thus did our mother
+Eve seek to have knowledge of good and evil, and thus Sin came into the
+world, and Death by Sin."
+
+"I am sure, and it is true," said Elspeth. "Oh, if she had dealt by the
+counsel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul!"
+
+"If she had reverenced the command of Heaven," said the monk, "which,
+as it gave her birth, life, and happiness, fixed upon the grant such
+conditions as best corresponded with its holy pleasure. I tell thee,
+Elspeth, _the Word slayeth_--that is, the text alone, read with
+unskilled eye and unhallowed lips, is like those strong medicines which
+sick men take by the advice of the learned. Such patients recover and
+thrive; while those dealing in them at their own hand, shall perish by
+their own deed."
+
+"Nae doubt, nae doubt," said the poor woman, "your reverence knows
+best."
+
+"Not I," said Father Philip, in a tone as deferential as he thought
+could possibly become the Sacristan of Saint Mary's,--"Not I, but the
+Holy Father of Christendom, and our own holy father, the Lord Abbot,
+know best. I, the poor Sacristan of Saint Mary's, can but repeat what I
+hear from others my superiors. Yet of this, good woman, be assured,--the
+Word, the mere Word, slayetlh. But the church hath her ministers to
+gloze and to expound the same unto her faithful congregation; and this
+I say, not so much, my beloved brethren--I mean my beloved sister," (for
+the Sacristan had got into the end of one of his old sermons,)--"This I
+speak not so much of the rectors, curates, and secular clergy, so called
+because they live after the fashion of the _seculum_ or age, unbound by
+those ties which sequestrate us from the world; neither do I speak
+this of the mendicant friars, whether black or gray, whether crossed or
+uncrossed; but of the monks, and especially of the monks Benedictine,
+reformed on the rule of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thence called
+Cistercian, of which monks, Christian brethren--sister, I would
+say--great is the happiness and glory of the country in possessing the
+holy ministers of Saint Mary's, whereof I, though an unworthy brother,
+may say it hath produced more saints, more bishops, more popes--may
+our patrons make us thankful!--than any holy foundation in Scotland.
+Wherefore--But I see Martin hath my mule in readiness, and I will but
+salute you with the kiss of sisterhood, which maketh not ashamed, and so
+betake me to my toilsome return, for the glen is of bad reputation for
+the evil spirits which haunt it. Moreover, I may arrive too late at the
+bridge, whereby I may be obliged to take to the river, which I observed
+to be somewhat waxen."
+
+Accordingly, he took his leave of Dame Elspeth, who was confounded by
+the rapidity of his utterance, and the doctrine he gave forth, and by no
+means easy on the subject of the book, which her conscience told her she
+should not have communicated to any one, without the knowledge of its
+owner.
+
+Notwithstanding the haste which the monk as well as the mule made to
+return to better quarters than they had left at the head of Glendearg;
+notwithstanding the eager desire Father Philip had to be the very first
+who should acquaint the Abbot that a copy of the book they most
+dreaded had been found within the Halidome, or patrimony of the Abbey;
+notwithstanding, moreover, certain feelings which induced him to hurry
+as fast as possible through the gloomy and evil-reputed glen, still
+the difficulties of the road, and the rider's want of habitude of quick
+motion, were such, that twilight came upon him ere he had nearly cleared
+the narrow valley. It was indeed a gloomy ride. The two sides of the
+vale were so near, that at every double of the river the shadows from
+the western sky fell upon, and totally obscured, the eastern bank; the
+thickets of copsewood seemed to wave with a portentous agitation of
+boughs and leaves, and the very crags and scaurs seemed higher and
+grimmer than they had appeared to the monk while he was travelling in
+daylight, and in company. Father Philip was heartily rejoiced, when,
+emerging from the narrow glen, he gained the open valley of the Tweed,
+which held on its majestic course from current to pool, and from pool
+stretched away to other currents, with a dignity peculiar to itself
+amongst the Scottish rivers; for whatever may have been the drought
+of the season, the Tweed usually fills up the space between its banks,
+seldom leaving those extensive sheets of shingle which deform the
+margins of many of the celebrated Scottish streams.
+
+The monk, insensible to beauties which the age had not regarded as
+deserving of notice, was, nevertheless, like a prudent general, pleased
+to find himself out of the narrow glen in which the enemy might have
+stolen upon him unperceived. He drew up his bridle, reduced his mule
+to her natural and luxurious amble, instead of the agitating and
+broken trot at which, to his no small inconvenience, she had hitherto
+proceeded, and, wiping his brow, gazed forth at leisure on the broad
+moon, which, now mingling with the lights of evening, was rising over
+field and forest, village and fortalice, and, above all, over the
+stately Monastery, seen far and dim amid the vellow light.
+
+The worst part of the magnificent view, in the monk's apprehension, was,
+that the Monastery stood on the opposite side of the river, and that of
+the many fine bridges which have since been built across that classical
+stream, not one then existed. There was, however, in recompense, a
+bridge then standing which has since disappeared, although its ruins may
+still be traced by the curious.
+
+It was of a very peculiar form. Two strong abutments were built on
+either side of the river, at a part where the stream was peculiarly
+contracted. Upon a rock in the centre of the current was built a solid
+piece of masonry, constructed like the pier of a bridge, and presenting,
+like a pier, an angle to the current of the stream. The masonry
+continued solid until the pier rose to a level with the two abutments
+upon either side, and from thence the building rose in the form of a
+tower. The lower story of this tower consisted only of an archway or
+passage through the building, over either entrance to which hung a
+drawbridge with counterpoises, either of which, when dropped, connected
+the archway with the opposite abutment, where the farther end of the
+drawbridge rested. When both bridges were thus lowered, the passage over
+the river was complete.
+
+The bridge-keeper, who was the dependant of a neighbouring baron,
+resided with his family in the second and third stories of the tower,
+which, when both drawbridges were raised, formed an insulated fortalice
+in the midst of the river. He was entitled to a small toll or custom
+for the passage, concerning the amount of which disputes sometimes
+arose between him and the passengers. It is needless to say, that the
+bridge-ward had usually the better in these questions, since he could at
+pleasure detain the traveller on the opposite side; or, suffering him
+to pass half way, might keep him prisoner in his tower till they were
+agreed on the rate of pontage.
+
+[Footnote: A bridge of the very peculiar construction described in the
+text, actually existed at a small hamlet about a mile and a half above
+Melrose, called from the circumstance Bridge-end. It is thus noticed in
+Gordon's _Iter Septentrionale_:--
+
+"In another journey through the south parts of Scotland, about a mile
+and a half from Melrose, in the shire of Teviotdale, I saw the remains
+of a curious bridge over the river Tweed, consisting of three octangular
+pillars, or rather towers, standing within the water, without any arches
+to join them. The middle one, which is the most entire, has a door
+towards the north, and I suppose another opposite one toward the south,
+which I could not see without crossing the water. In the middle of this
+tower is a projection or cornice surrounding it: the whole is hollow
+from the door upwards, and now open at the top, near which is a small
+window. I was informed that not long agro a countryman and his family
+lived in this tower--and got his livelihood by laying out planks from
+pillar to pillar, and conveying passengers over the river. Whether this
+be ancient or modern, I know not; but as it is singular in its kind I
+have thought fit to exhibit it."
+
+The vestiges of this uncommon species of bridge still exist, and the
+author has often seen the foundations of the columns when drifting down
+the Tweed at night for the purpose of killing salmon by torch-light.
+Mr. John Mercer of Bridge-end recollects, that about fifty years ago the
+pillars were visible above water; and the late Mr. David Kyle, of the
+George Inn, Melrose, told the author that he saw a stone taken from the
+river bearing this inscription:--
+
+"I, Sir John Pringle of Palmer stede, Give an hundred markis of gowd sae
+reid, To help to bigg my brigg ower Tweed."
+
+Pringle of Galashiels, afterwards of Whytbank, was the Baron to whom the
+bridge belonged.]
+
+But it was most frequently with the Monks of Saint Mary's that the
+warder had to dispute his perquisites. These holy men insisted for, and
+at length obtained, a right of gratuitous passage to themselves, greatly
+to the discontent of the bridge-keeper. But when they demanded the
+same immunity for the numerous pilgrims who visited the shrine, the
+bridge-keeper waxed restive, and was supported by his lord in his
+resistance. The controversy grew animated on both sides; the Abbot
+menaced excommunication, and the keeper of the bridge, though unable to
+retaliate in kind, yet made each individual monk who had to cross and
+recross the river, endure a sort of purgatory, ere he would accommodate
+them with a passage. This was a great inconvenience, and would have
+proved a more serious one, but that the river was fordable for man and
+horse in ordinary weather.
+
+It was a fine moonlight night, as we have already said, when Father
+Philip approached this bridge, the singular construction of which gives
+a curious idea of the insecurity of the times. The river was not in
+flood, but it was above its ordinary level--_a heavy water_, as it
+is called in that country, through which the monk had no particular
+inclination to ride, if he could manage the matter better.
+
+"Peter, my good friend," cried the Sacristan, raising his voice; "my
+very excellent friend, Peter, be so kind as to lower the drawbridge.
+Peter, I say, dost thou not hear?--it is thy gossip, Father Philip, who
+calls thee."
+
+Peter heard him perfectly well, and saw him into the bargain; but as he
+had considered the Sacristan as peculiarly his enemy in his dispute
+with the convent, he went quietly to bed, after reconnoitring the monk
+through his loop-hole, observing to his wife, that "riding the water in
+a moonlight night would do the Sacristan no harm, and would teach him
+the value of a brig the neist time, on whilk a man might pass high and
+dry, winter and summer, flood and ebb."
+
+After exhausting his voice in entreaties and threats, which were equally
+unattended to by Peter of the Brig, as he was called, Father Philip at
+length moved down the river to take the ordinary ford at the head of
+the next stream. Cursing the rustic obstinacy of Peter, he began,
+nevertheless, to persuade himself that the passage of the river by the
+ford was not only safe, but pleasant. The banks and scattered trees were
+so beautifully reflected from the bosom of the dark stream, the whole
+cool and delicious picture formed so pleasing a contrast to his late
+agitation, to the warmth occasioned by his vain endeavours to move the
+relentless porter of the bridge, that the result was rather agreeable
+than otherwise.
+
+As Father Philip came close to the water's edge, at the spot where
+he was to enter it, there sat a female under a large broken scathed
+oak-tree, or rather under the remains of such a tree, weeping, wringing
+her hands, and looking earnestly on the current of the river. The monk
+was struck with astonishment to see a female there at that time of
+night. But he was, in all honest service,--and if a step farther, I put
+it upon his own conscience,--a devoted squire of dames. After observing
+the maiden for a moment, although she seemed to take no notice of
+his presence, he was moved by her distress, and willing to offer his
+assistance. "Damsel," said he, "thou seemest in no ordinary distress;
+peradventure, like myself, thou hast been refused passage at the bridge
+by the churlish keeper, and thy crossing may concern thee either for
+performance of a vow, or some other weighty charge."
+
+The maiden uttered some inarticulate sounds, looked at the river, and
+then in the face of the Sacristan. It struck Father Philip at that
+instant, that a Highland chief of distinction had been for some time
+expected to pay his vows at the shrine of Saint Mary's; and that
+possibly this fair maiden might be one of his family, travelling alone
+for accomplishment of a vow, or left behind by some accident, to whom,
+therefore, it would be but right and prudent to use every civility
+in his power, especially as she seemed unacquainted with the Lowland
+tongue. Such at least was the only motive the Sacristan was ever known
+to assign for his courtesy; if there was any other, I once more refer it
+to his own conscience.
+
+To express himself by signs, the common language of all nations, the
+cautious Sacristan first pointed to the river, then to his mule's
+crupper, and then made, as gracefully as he could, a sign to induce the
+fair solitary to mount behind him. She seemed to understand his meaning,
+for she rose up as if to accept his offer; and while the good monk, who,
+as we have hinted, was no great cavalier, laboured, with the pressure of
+the right leg and the use of the left rein, to place his mule with her
+side to the bank in such a position that the lady might mount with ease,
+she rose from the ground with rather portentous activity, and at one
+bound sate behind the monk upon the animal, much the firmer rider of the
+two. The mule by no means seemed to approve of this double burden; she
+bounded, bolted, and would soon have thrown Father Philip over her head,
+had not the maiden with a firm hand detained him in the saddle.
+
+At last the restive brute changed her humour; and, from refusing to
+budge off the spot, suddenly stretched her nose homeward, and dashed
+into the ford as fast as she could scamper. A new terror now invaded
+the monk's mind--the ford seemed unusually deep, the water eddied off in
+strong ripple from the counter of the mule, and began to rise upon her
+side. Philip lost his presence of mind,--which was at no time his most
+ready attribute, the mule yielded to the weight of the current, and as
+the rider was not attentive to keep her head turned up the river, she
+drifted downward, lost the ford and her footing at once, and began to
+swim with her head down the stream. And what was sufficiently strange,
+at the same moment, notwithstanding the extreme peril, the damsel began
+to sing, thereby increasing, if anything could increase, the bodily fear
+of the worthy Sacristan.
+
+               I.
+
+  Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
+  Both current and ripple are dancing in light.
+  We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak,
+  As we plashed along beneath the oak
+  That flings its broad branches so far and so wide,
+  Their shadows are dancing in midst of the tide.
+  "Who wakens my nestlings," the raven he said,
+  "My beak shall ere morn in his blood be red.
+  For a blue swoln corpse is a dainty meal.
+  And I'll have my share with the pike and the eel."
+
+               II.
+
+  Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
+  There's a golden gleam on the distant height;
+  There's a silver shower on the alders dank.
+  And the drooping willows that wave on the bank.
+  I see the abbey, both turret and tower,
+  It is all astir for the vesper hour;
+  The monks for the chapel are leaving each cell.
+  But Where's Father Philip, should toll the bell?
+
+               III.
+
+  Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright,
+  Downward we drift through shadow and light,
+  Under yon rock the eddies sleep,
+  Calm and silent, dark and deep.
+  The Kelpy has risen from the fathomless pool.
+  He has lighted his candle of death and of dool.
+  Look, Father, look, and you'll laugh to see
+  How he gapes and glares with his eyes on thee.
+
+               IV.
+
+  Good luck to your fishing, whom watch ye to-night?
+  A man of mean, or a man of might?
+  Is it layman or priest that must float in your cove,
+  Or lover who crosses to visit his love?
+  Hark! heard ye the Kelpy reply, as we pass'd,--
+  "God's blessing on the warder, he lock'd the bridge fast!
+  All that come to my cove are sunk,
+  Priest or layman, lover or monk."
+
+
+How long the damsel might have continued to sing, or where the terrified
+monk's journey might have ended, is uncertain. As she sung the last
+stanza, they arrived at, or rather in, a broad tranquil sheet of water,
+caused by a strong wear or damhead, running across the river, which
+dashed in a broad cataract over the barrier. The mule, whether from
+choice, or influenced by the suction of the current, made towards the
+cut intended to supply the convent mills, and entered it half swimming
+half wading, and pitching the unlucky monk to and fro in the saddle at a
+fearful rate.
+
+As his person flew hither and thither, his garment became loose, and in
+an effort to retain it, his hand lighted on the volume of the Lady of
+Avenel which was in his bosom. No sooner had he grasped it, than his
+companion pitched him out of the saddle into the stream, where, still
+keeping her hand on his collar, she gave him two or three good souses in
+the watery fluid, so as to ensure that every other part of him had its
+share of wetting, and then quitted her hold when he was so near the
+side that by a slight effort (of a great one he was incapable) he might
+scramble on shore. This accordingly he accomplished, and turning his
+eyes to see what had become of his extraordinary companion, she was
+nowhere to be seen; but still he heard, as if from the surface of the
+river, and mixing with the noise of the water breaking over the damhead,
+a fragment of her wild song, which seemed to run thus:--
+
+  Landed--landed! the black book hath won.
+  Else had you seen Berwick with morning sun!
+  Sain ye, and save ye, and blithe mot ye be,
+  For seldom they land that go swimming with me.
+
+The ecstasy of the monk's terror could be endured no longer; his head
+grew dizzy, and, after staggering a few steps onward and running himself
+against a wall, he sunk down in a state of insensibility.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Sixth.
+
+
+  Now let us sit in conclave. That these weeds
+  Be rooted from the vineyard of the church.
+  That these foul tares be severed from the wheat,
+  We are, I trust, agreed.--Yet how to do this,
+  Nor hurt the wholesome crop and tender vine-plants,
+  Craves good advisement.
+
+THE REFORMATION.
+
+The vesper service in the Monastery Church of Saint Mary's was now over.
+The Abbot had disrobed himself of his magnificent vestures of ceremony,
+and resumed his ordinary habit, which was a black gown, worn over a
+white cassock, with a narrow scapulary; a decent and venerable dress,
+which was calculated to set off to advantage the portly mien of Abbot
+Boniface.
+
+In quiet times no one could have filled the state of a mitred Abbot, for
+such was his dignity, more respectably than this worthy prelate. He had,
+no doubt, many of those habits of self-indulgence which men are apt to
+acquire who live for themselves alone. He was vain, moreover; and when
+boldly confronted, had sometimes shown symptoms of timidity, not very
+consistent with the high claims which he preferred as an eminent member
+of the church, or with the punctual deference which he exacted from his
+religious brethren, and all who were placed under his command. But
+he was hospitable, charitable, and by no means of himself disposed to
+proceed with severity against any one. In short, he would in other times
+have slumbered out his term of preferment with as much credit as
+any other "purple Abbot," who lived easily, but at the same time
+decorously--slept soundly, and did not disquiet himself with dreams.
+
+But the wide alarm spread through the whole Church of Rome by the
+progress of the reformed doctrines, sorely disturbed the repose of Abbot
+Boniface, and opened to him a wide field of duties and cares which he
+had never so much as dreamed of. There were opinions to be combated
+and refuted--practices to be inquired into--heretics to be detected
+and punished--the fallen off to be reclaimed--the wavering to be
+confirmed--scandal to be removed from the clergy, and the vigour of
+discipline to be re-established. Post upon post arrived at the Monastery
+of Saint Mary's--horses reeking, and riders exhausted--this from the
+Privy Council, that from the Primate of Scotland, and this other again
+from the Queen Mother, exhorting, approving, condemning, requesting
+advice upon this subject, and requiring information upon that.
+
+These missives Abbot Boniface received with an important air of
+helplessness, or a helpless air of importance,--whichever the reader
+may please to term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound
+trouble of mind. The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen
+the deficiencies of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide
+for them by getting admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother
+Cistercian, a man of parts and knowledge, devoted to the service of
+the Catholic Church, and very capable not only to advise the Abbot on
+occasions of difficulty, but to make him sensible of his duty in case he
+should, from good-nature or timidity, be disposed to shrink from it.
+
+Father Eustace played the same part in the Monastery as the old general
+who, in foreign armies, is placed at the elbow of the Prince of the
+Blood, who nominally commands in chief, on condition of attempting
+nothing without the advice of his dry-nurse; and he shared the fate of
+all such dry-nurses, being heartily disliked as well as feared by his
+principal. Still, however, the Primate's intention was fully answered.
+Father Eustace became the constant theme and often the bugbear of the
+worthy Abbot, who hardly dared to turn himself in his bed without,
+considering what Father Eustace would think of it. In every case of
+difficulty, Father Eustace was summoned, and his opinion asked; and no
+sooner was the embarrassment removed, than the Abbot's next thought was
+how to get rid of his adviser. In every letter which he wrote to those
+in power, he recommended Father Eustace to some high church preferment,
+a bishopric or an abbey; and as they dropped one after another, and were
+otherwise conferred, he began to think, as he confessed to the Sacristan
+in the bitterness of his spirit, that the Monastery of St. Mary's had
+got a life-rent lease of their Sub-Prior.
+
+Yet more indignant he would have been, had he suspected that Father
+Eustace's ambition was fixed upon his own mitre, which, from some
+attacks of an apoplectic nature, deemed by the Abbot's friends to be
+more serious than by himself, it was supposed might be shortly vacant.
+But the confidence which, like other dignitaries, he reposed in his
+own health, prevented Abbot Boniface from imagining that it held any
+concatenation, with the motions of Father Eustace.
+
+The necessity under which he found himself of consulting with his
+grand adviser, in cases of real difficulty, rendered the worthy Abbot
+particularly desirous of doing without him in all ordinary cases of
+administration, though not without considering what Father Eustace would
+have said of the matter. He scorned, therefore, to give a hint to the
+Sub-Prior of the bold stroke by which he had dispatched Brother Philip
+to Glendearg; but when the vespers came without his reappearance he
+became a little uneasy, the more as other matters weighed upon his
+mind. The feud with the warder or keeper of the bridge threatened to be
+attended with bad consequences, as the man's quarrel was taken up by
+the martial baron under whom he served; and pressing letters of an
+unpleasant tendency had just arrived from the Primate. Like a gouty
+man, who catches hold of his crutch while he curses the infirmity that
+induces him to use if, the Abbot, however reluctant, found himself
+obliged to require Eustace's presence, after the service was over, in
+his house, or rather palace, which was attached to, and made part of,
+the Monastery.
+
+Abbot Boniface was seated in his high-backed chair, the grotesque carved
+back of which terminated in a mitre, before a fire where two or three
+large logs were reduced to one red glowing mass of charcoal. At his
+elbow, on an oaken stand, stood the remains of a roasted capon, on which
+his reverence had made his evening meal, flanked by a goodly stoup of
+Bordeaux of excellent flavour. He was gazing indolently on the fire,
+partly engaged in meditation on his past and present fortunes, partly
+occupied by endeavouring to trace towers and steeples in the red embers.
+
+"Yes," thought the Abbot to himself, "in that red perspective I could
+fancy to myself the peaceful towers of Dundrennan, where I passed my
+life ere I was called to pomp and to trouble. A quiet brotherhood we
+were, regular in our domestic duties; and when the frailties of humanity
+prevailed over us, we confessed, and were absolved by each other, and
+the most formidable part of the penance was the jest of the convent on
+the culprit. I can almost fancy that I see the cloister garden, and
+the pear-trees which I grafted with my own hands. And for what have I
+changed all this, but to be overwhelmed with business which concerns me
+not, to be called My Lord Abbot, and to be tutored by Father Eustace? I
+would these towers were the Abbey of Aberbrothwick, and Father Eustace
+the Abbot,--or I would he were in the fire on any terms, so I were rid
+of him! The Primate says our Holy Father, the Pope hath an adviser--I am
+sure he could not live a week with such a one as mine. Then there is
+no learning what Father Eustace thinks till you confess your own
+difficulties--No hint will bring forth his opinion--he is like a miser,
+who will not unbuckle his purse to bestow a farthing, until the wretch
+who needs it has owned his excess of poverty, and wrung out the boon
+by importunity. And thus I am dishonoured in the eyes of my religious
+brethren, who behold me treated like a child which hath no sense of
+its own--I will bear it no longer!--Brother Bennet,"--(a lay brother
+answered to his call)--" tell Father Eustace that I need not his
+presence."
+
+"I came to say to your reverence, that the holy father is entering even
+now from the cloisters."
+
+"Be it so," said the Abbot, "he is welcome,--remove these things--or
+rather, place a trencher, the holy father may be a little hungry--yet,
+no--remove them, for there is no good fellowship in him--Let the stoup
+of wine remain, however, and place another cup."
+
+The lay brother obeyed these contradictory commands in the way he judged
+most seemly--he removed the carcass of the half-sacked capon, and placed
+two goblets beside the stoup of Bourdeaux. At the same instant entered
+Father Eustace.
+
+He was a thin, sharp-faced, slight-made little man, whose keen grey eyes
+seemed almost to look through the person to whom he addressed himself.
+His body was emaciated not only with the fasts which he observed with
+rigid punctuality, but also by the active and unwearied exercise of his
+sharp and piercing intellect;--
+
+  A fiery soul, which working out its way,
+  Fretted the puny body to decay,
+  And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
+
+He turned with conventual reverence to the Lord Abbot; and as they stood
+together, it was scarce possible to see a more complete difference of
+form and expression. The good-natured rosy face and laughing eye of the
+Abbot, which even his present anxiety could not greatly ruffle, was a
+wonderful contrast to the thin pallid cheek and quick penetrating glance
+of the monk, in which an eager and keen spirit glanced through eyes to
+which it seemed to give supernatural lustre.
+
+The Abbot opened the conversation by motioning to his monk to take a
+stool, and inviting to a cup of wine. The courtesy was declined with
+respect, yet not without a remark, that the vesper service was past.
+
+"For the stomach's sake, brother," said the Abbot, colouring a
+little--"You know the text."
+
+"It is a dangerous one," answered the monk, "to handle alone, or at
+late hours. Out off from human society, the juice of the grape becomes a
+perilous companion of solitude, and therefore I ever shun it."
+
+Abbot Boniface had poured himself out a goblet which might hold
+about half an English pint; but, either struck with the truth of the
+observation, or ashamed to act in direct opposition to it, he suffered
+it to remain untasted before him, and immediately changed the subject.
+
+"The Primate hath written to us," said he, "to make strict search within
+our bounds after the heretical persons denounced in this list, who have
+withdrawn themselves from the justice which their opinions deserve. It
+is deemed probable that they will attempt to retire to England by our
+Borders, and the Primate requireth me to watch with vigilance, and what
+not."
+
+"Assuredly," said the monk, "the magistrate should not bear the sword in
+vain--those be they that turn the world upside down--and doubtless your
+reverend wisdom will with due diligence second the exertions of the
+Right Reverend Father in God, being in the peremptory defence of the
+Holy Church."
+
+"Ay, but how is this to be done?" answered the Abbot; "Saint Mary aid
+us! The Primate writes to me as if I were a temporal baron--a man under
+command, having soldiers under him! He says, send forth--scour the
+country--guard the passes--Truly these men do not travel as those who
+would give their lives for nothing--the last who went south passed the
+dry-march at the Riding-burn with an escort of thirty spears, as our
+reverend brother the Abbot of Kelso did write unto us. How are cowls and
+scapularies to stop the way?"
+
+"Your bailiff is accounted a good man at arms, holy father," said
+Eustace; "your vassals are obliged to rise for the defence of the Holy
+Kirk--it is the tenure on which they hold their lands--if they will not
+come forth for the Church which gives them bread, let their possessions
+be given to others."
+
+"We shall not be wanting," said the Abbot, collecting himself with
+importance, "to do whatever may advantage Holy Kirk--thyself shall
+hear the charge to our Bailiff and our officials--but here again is
+our controversy with the warden of the bridge and the Baron of
+Meigallot--Saint Mary! vexations do so multiply upon the House, and upon
+the generation, that a man wots not where to turn to! Thou didst say,
+Father Eustace, thou wouldst look into our evidents touching this free
+passage for the pilgrims?"
+
+"I have looked into the Chartulary of the House, holy father," said
+Eustace, "and therein I find a written and formal grant of all
+duties and customs payable at the drawbridge of Brigton, not only by
+ecclesiastics of this foundation, but by every pilgrim truly designed to
+accomplish his vows at this House, to the Abbot Allford, and the monks
+of the House of Saint Mary in Kennaquhair, from that time and for ever.
+The deed is dated on Saint Bridget's Even, in the year of Redemption,
+1137, and bears the sign and seal of the granter, Charles of Meigallot,
+great-great-grandfather of this baron, and purports to be granted for
+the safety of his own soul, and for the weal of the souls of his father
+and mother, and of all his predecessors and successors, being Barons of
+Meigallot."
+
+"But he alleges," said the Abbot, "that the bridge-wards have been in
+possession of these dues, and have rendered them available for more than
+fifty years--and the baron threatens violence--meanwhile, the journey of
+the pilgrims is interrupted, to the prejudice of their own souls and the
+diminution of the revenues of Saint Mary. The Sacristan advised us to
+put on a boat; but the warden, whom thou knowest to be a godless man,
+has sworn the devil tear him, but that if they put on a boat on the
+laird's stream, he will rive her board from board--and then some say
+we should compound the claim for a small sum in silver." Here the Abbot
+paused a moment for a reply, but receiving none, he added, "But what
+thinkest thou, Father Eustace? why art thou silent?"
+
+"Because I am surprised at the question which the Lord Abbot of Saint
+Mary's asks at the youngest of his brethren."
+
+"Youngest in time of your abode with us, Brother Eustace," said the
+Abbot, "not youngest in years, or I think in experience. Sub-Prior also
+of this convent."
+
+"I am astonished," continued Eustace, "that the Abbot of this venerable
+house should ask of any one whether he can alienate the patrimony of
+our holy and divine patroness, or give up to an unconscientious, and
+perhaps, a heretic baron, the rights conferred on this church by his
+devout progenitor. Popes and councils alike prohibit it--the honour of
+the living, and the weal of departed souls, alike forbid it--it may not
+be. To force, if he dare use it, we must surrender; but never by our
+consent should we see the goods of the church plundered, with as little
+scruple as he would drive off a herd of English beeves. Rouse yourself,
+Reverend father, and doubt nothing but that the good cause shall
+prevail. Whet the spiritual sword, and direct it against the wicked
+who would usurp our holy rights. Whet the temporal sword, if it be
+necessary, and stir up the courage and zeal of your loyal vassals."
+
+The Abbot sighed deeply. "All this," he said, "is soon spoken by him who
+hath to act it not; but--" He was interrupted by the entrance of Bennet
+rather hastily. "The mule on which the Sacristan had set out in the
+morning had returned," he said, "to the convent stable all over wet, and
+with the saddle turned round beneath her belly."
+
+"Sancta Maria!" said the Abbot, "our dear brother hath perished by the
+way!"
+
+"It may not be," said Eustace, hastily--"let the bell be tolled--cause
+the brethren to get torches--alarm the village--hurry down to the
+river--I myself will be the foremost."
+
+The real Abbot stood astonished and agape, when at once he beheld his
+office filled, and saw all which he ought to have ordered, going forward
+at the dictates of the youngest monk in the convent. But ere the
+orders of Eustace, which nobody dreamed of disputing, were carried into
+execution, the necessity was prevented by the sudden apparition of the
+Sacristan, whose supposed danger excited all the alarm.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Seventh.
+
+
+     Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
+     Cleanse the foul bosom of the perilous stuff
+     That weighs upon the heart.
+                                         MACBETH.
+
+What betwixt cold and fright the afflicted Sacristan stood before his
+Superior, propped on the friendly arm of the convent miller, drenched
+with water, and scarce able to utter a syllable.
+
+After various attempts to speak, the first words he uttered were,
+
+  "Swim we merrily--the moon shines bright."
+
+"Swim we merrily!" retorted the Abbot, indignantly; "a merry night have
+ye chosen for swimming, and a becoming salutation to your Superior!"
+
+"Our brother is bewildered," said Eustace;--"speak, Father Philip, how
+is it with you?"
+
+  "Good luck to your fishing,"
+
+continued the Sacristan, making a most dolorous attempt at the tune of
+his strange companion.
+
+"Good luck to your fishing!" repeated the Abbot, still more surprised
+than displeased; "by my halidome he is drunken with wine, and comes to
+our presence with his jolly catches in his throat! If bread and water
+can cure this folly--"
+
+"With your pardon, venerable father," said the Sub-Prior, "of water
+our brother has had enough; and methinks, the confusion of his eye, is
+rather that of terror, than of aught unbecoming his profession. Where
+did you find him, Hob Miller?"
+
+"An it please your reverence, I did but go to shut the sluice of the
+mill--and as I was going to shut the sluice, I heard something groan
+near to me; but judging it was one of Giles Fletcher's hogs--for so
+please you he never shuts his gate--I caught up my lever, and was
+about--Saint Mary forgive me!--to strike where I heard the sound, when,
+as the saints would have it, I heard the second groan just like that of
+a living man. So I called up my knaves, and found the Father Sacristan
+lying wet and senseless under the wall of our kiln. So soon as we
+brought him to himself a bit, he prayed to be brought to your reverence,
+but I doubt me his wits have gone a bell-wavering by the road. It was
+but now that he spoke in somewhat better form."
+
+"Well!" said Brother Eustace, "thou hast done well, Hob Miller; only
+begone now, and remember a second time to pause, ere you strike in the
+dark."
+
+"Please your reverence, it shall be a lesson to me," said the miller,
+"not to mistake a holy man for a hog again, so long as I live." And,
+making a bow, with profound humility, the miller withdrew.
+
+"And now that this churl is gone, Father Philip," said Eustace,
+"wilt thou tell our venerable Superior what ails thee? art thou _vino
+gravatus,_ man? if so we will have thee to thy cell."
+
+"Water! water! not wine," muttered the exhausted Sacristan.
+
+"Nay," said the monk, "if that be thy complaint, wine may perhaps cure
+thee;" and he reached him a cup, which the patient drank off to his
+great benefit.
+
+"And now," said the Abbot, "let his garments be changed, or rather
+let him be carried to the infirmary; for it will prejudice our health,
+should we hear his narrative while he stands there, steaming like a
+rising hoar-frost."
+
+"I will hear his adventure," said Eustace, "and report it to your
+reverence." And, accordingly, he attended the Sacristan to his cell. In
+about half an hour he returned to the Abbot.
+
+"How is it with Father Philip?" said the Abbot; "and through what came
+he into such a state?"
+
+"He comes from Glendearg, reverend sir," said Eustace; "and for the
+rest, he telleth such a legend, as has not been heard in this Monastery
+for many a long day." He then gave the Abbot the outlines of the
+Sacristan's adventures in the homeward journey, and added, that for some
+time he was inclined to think his brain was infirm, seeing he had sung,
+laughed, and wept all in the same breath.
+
+"A wonderful thing it is to us," said the Abbot, "that Satan has been
+permitted to put forth his hand thus far on one of our sacred brethren!"
+
+"True," said Father Eustace; "but for every text there is a paraphrase;
+and I have my suspicions, that if the drenching of Father Philip cometh
+of the Evil one, yet it may not have been altogether without his own
+personal fault."
+
+"How!" said the Father Abbot; "I will not believe that thou makest doubt
+that Satan, in former days, hath been permitted to afflict saints and
+holy men, even as he afflicted the pious Job?"
+
+"God forbid I should make question of it," said the monk, crossing
+himself; "yet, where there is an exposition of the Sacristan's tale,
+which is less than miraculous, I hold it safe to consider it at least,
+if not to abide by it. Now, this Hob the Miller hath a buxom daughter.
+Suppose--I say only suppose--that our Sacristan met her at the ford on
+her return from her uncle's on the other side, for there she hath this
+evening been--suppose, that, in courtesy, and to save her stripping
+hose and shoon, the Sacristan brought her across behind him-suppose he
+carried his familiarities farther than the maiden was willing to admit;
+and we may easily suppose, farther, that this wetting was the result of
+it."
+
+"And this legend invented to deceive us!" said the Superior, reddening
+with wrath; "but most strictly shall it be sifted and inquired into; it
+is not upon us that Father Philip must hope to pass the result of his
+own evil practices for doings of Satan. To-morrow cite the wench to
+appear before us--we will examine, and we will punish."
+
+"Under your reverence's favour," said Eustace, "that were but poor
+policy. As things now stand with us, the heretics catch hold of each
+flying report which tends to the scandal of our clergy. We must abate
+the evil, not only by strengthening discipline, but also by suppressing
+and stifling the voice of scandal. If my conjectures are true, the
+miller's daughter will be silent for her own sake; and your reverence's
+authority may also impose silence on her father, and on the Sacristan.
+If he is again found to afford room for throwing dishonour on his order,
+he can be punished with severity, but at the same time with secrecy. For
+what say the Decretals! Facinora ostendi dum punientur, flagitia autem
+abscondi debent."
+
+A sentence of Latin, as Eustace had before observed, had often much
+influence on the Abbot, because he understood it not fluently, and was
+ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance. On these terms they parted for the
+night.
+
+The next day, Abbot Boniface strictly interrogated Philip on the real
+cause of his disaster of the previous night. But the Sacristan stood
+firm to his story; nor was he found to vary from any point of it,
+although the answers he returned were in some degree incoherent, owing
+to his intermingling with them ever and anon snatches of the strange
+damsel's song, which had made such deep impression on his imagination,
+that he could not prevent himself from imitating it repeatedly in the
+course of his examination. The Abbot had compassion with the Sacristan's
+involuntary frailty, to which something supernatural seemed annexed,
+and finally became of opinion, that Father Eustace's more natural
+explanation was rather plausible than just. And, indeed, although
+we have recorded the adventure as we find it written down, we cannot
+forbear to add that there was a schism on the subject in the convent,
+and that several of the brethren pretended to have good reason for
+thinking that the miller's black-eyed daughter was at the bottom of the
+affair after all. Whichever way it might be interpreted, all agreed
+that it had too ludicrous a sound to be permitted to get abroad, and
+therefore the Sacristan was charged, on his vow of obedience, to say no
+more of his ducking; an injunction which, having once eased his mind by
+telling his story, it may be well conjectured that he joyfully obeyed.
+
+The attention of Father Eustace was much less forcibly arrested by the
+marvellous tale of the Sacristan's danger, and his escape, than by the
+mention of the volume which he had brought with him from the Tower of
+Glendearg. A copy of the Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue,
+had found its way even into the proper territory of the church, and had
+been discovered in one of the most hidden and sequestered recesses of
+the Halidome of Saint Mary's.
+
+He anxiously requested to see the volume. In this the Sacristan was
+unable to gratify him, for he had lost it, as far as he recollected,
+when the supernatural being, as he conceived her to be, took her
+departure from him. Father Eustace went down to the spot in person, and
+searched all around it, in hopes of recovering the volume in question;
+but his labour was in vain. He returned to the Abbot, and reported
+that it must have fallen into the river or the mill-stream; "for I will
+hardly believe," he said, "that Father Philip's musical friend would fly
+off with a copy of the Holy Scriptures."
+
+"Being," said the Abbot, "as it is, an heretical translation, it may be
+thought that Satan may have power over it."
+
+"Ay!" said Father Eustace, "it is indeed his chiefest magazine of
+artillery, when he inspireth presumptuous and daring men to set forth
+their own opinions and expositions of Holy Writ. But though thus abused,
+the Scriptures are the source of our salvation, and are no more to
+be reckoned unholy, because of these rash men's proceedings, than a
+powerful medicine is to be contemned, or held poisonous, because bold
+and evil leeches have employed it to the prejudice of their patients.
+With the permission of your reverence, I would that this matter were
+looked into more closely. I will myself visit the Tower of Glendearg ere
+I am many hours older, and we shall see if any spectre or white woman
+of the wild will venture to interrupt my journey or return. Have I your
+reverend permission and your blessing?" he added, but in a tone that
+appeared to set no great store by either.
+
+"Thou hast both, my brother," said the Abbot; but no sooner had Eustace
+left the apartment, than Boniface could not help breaking on the willing
+ear of the Sacristan his sincere wish, that any spirit, black, white,
+or gray, would read the adviser such a lesson, as to cure him of his
+presumption in esteeming himself wiser than the whole community.
+
+"I wish him no worse lesson," said the Sacristan, "than to go swimming
+merrily down the river with a ghost behind, and Kelpies, night-crows,
+and mud-eels, all waiting to have a snatch at him.
+
+  Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright!
+  Good luck to your fishing, whom watch you to-night?"
+
+"Brother Philip," said the Abbot, "we exhort thee to say thy prayers,
+compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;--it is but
+a deception of the devil's."
+
+"I will essay, reverend Father," said the Sacristan, "but the tune
+hangs by my memory like a bur in a beggar's rags; it mingles with the
+psalter--the very bells of the convent seem to repeat the words, and
+jingle to the tune; and were you to put me to death at this very moment,
+it is my belief I should die singing it--'Now swim we merrily'--it is as
+it were a spell upon me."
+
+He then again began to warble
+
+  "Good luck to your fishing."
+
+And checking himself in the strain with difficulty, he exclaimed, "It is
+too certain--I am but a lost priest! Swim we merrily--I shall sing it at
+the very mass--Wo is me! I shall sing all the remainder of my life, and
+yet never be able to change the tune!"
+
+The honest Abbot replied, "he knew many a good fellow in the same
+condition;" and concluded the remark with "ho! ho! ho!" for his
+reverence, as the reader may partly have observed, was one of those dull
+folks who love a quiet joke.
+
+The Sacristan, well acquainted with his Superior's humour, endeavoured
+to join in the laugh, but his unfortunate canticle came again across his
+imagination, and interrupted the hilarity of his customary echo.
+
+"By the rood, Brother Philip," said the Abbot, much moved, "you become
+altogether intolerable! and I am convinced that such a spell could not
+subsist over a person of religion, and in a religious house, unless
+he were under mortal sin. Wherefore, say the seven penitentiary
+psalms--make diligent use of thy scourge and hair-cloth--refrain for
+three days from all food, save bread and water--I myself will shrive
+thee, and we will see if this singing devil may be driven out of
+thee; at least I think Father Eustace himself could devise no better
+exorcism."
+
+The Sacristan sighed deeply, but knew remonstrance was vain. He retired
+therefore to his cell, to try how far psalmody might be able to drive
+off the sounds of the syren tune which haunted his memory.
+
+Meanwhile, Father Eustace proceeded to the drawbridge, in his way to the
+lonely valley of Glendearg. In a brief conversation with the churlish
+warder, he had the address to render him more tractable in the
+controversy betwixt him and the convent. He reminded him that his father
+had been a vassal under the community; that his brother was childless;
+and that their possession would revert to the church on his death,
+and might be either granted to himself the warder, or to some greater
+favourite of the Abbot, as matters chanced to stand betwixt them at the
+time. The Sub-Prior suggested to him also, the necessary connexion of
+interests betwixt the Monastery and the office which this man enjoyed.
+He listened with temper to his rude and churlish answers; and by keeping
+his own interest firm pitched in his view, he had the satisfaction to
+find that Peter gradually softened his tone, and consented to let every
+pilgrim who travelled upon foot pass free of exaction until Pentocost
+next; they who travelled on horseback or otherwise, contenting to pay
+the ordinary custom. Having thus accommodated a matter in which the weal
+of the convent was so deeply interested, Father Eustace proceeded on his
+journey.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Eighth.
+
+
+  Nay, dally not with time, the wise man's treasure,
+  Though fools are lavish on't--the fatal Fisher
+  Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
+                                      OLD PLAY.
+
+A November mist overspread the little valley, up which slowly but
+steadily rode the Monk Eustace. He was not insensible to the feeling of
+melancholy inspired by the scene and by the season. The stream seemed to
+murmur with a deep and oppressed note, as if bewailing the departure
+of autumn. Among the scattered copses which here and there fringed its
+banks, the oak-trees only retained that pallid green that precedes their
+russet hue. The leaves of the willows were most of them stripped from
+the branches, lay rustling at each breath, and disturbed by every step
+of the mule; while the foliage of other trees, totally withered, kept
+still precarious possession of the boughs, waiting the first wind to
+scatter them.
+
+The monk dropped into the natural train of pensive thought which these
+autumnal emblems of mortal hopes are peculiarly calculated to inspire.
+"There," he said, looking at the leaves which lay strewed around, "lie
+the hopes of early youth, first formed that they may soonest wither, and
+loveliest in spring to become most contemptible in winter; but you,
+ye lingerers," he added, looking to a knot of beeches which still bore
+their withered leaves, "you are the proud plans of adventurous manhood,
+formed later, and still clinging to the mind of age, although it
+acknowledges their inanity! None lasts--none endures, save the foliage
+of the hardy oak, which only begins to show itself when that of the rest
+of the forest has enjoyed half its existence. A pale and decayed hue is
+all it possesses, but still it retains that symptom of vitality to the
+last.--So be it with Father Eustace! The fairy hopes of my youth I have
+trodden under foot like those neglected rustlers--to the prouder dreams
+of my manhood I look back as to lofty chimeras, of which the pith and
+essence have long since faded; but my religious vows, the faithful
+profession which I have made in my maturer age, shall retain life while
+aught of Eustace lives. Dangerous it may be--feeble it must be--yet live
+it shall, the proud determination to serve the Church of which I am
+a member, and to combat the heresies by which she is assailed." Thus
+spoke, at least thus thought, a man zealous according to his imperfect
+knowledge, confounding the vital interests of Christianity with the
+extravagant and usurped claims of the Church of Rome, and defending his
+cause with an ardour worthy of a better.
+
+While moving onward in this contemplative mood, he could not help
+thinking more than once, that he saw in his path the form of a female
+dressed in white, who appeared in the attitude of lamentation. But the
+impression was only momentary, and whenever he looked steadily to the
+point where he conceived the figure appeared, it always proved that
+he had mistaken some natural object, a white crag, or the trunk of a
+decayed birch-tree with its silver bark, for the appearance in question.
+
+Father Eustace had dwelt too long in Rome to partake the superstitious
+feelings of the more ignorant Scottish clergy; yet he certainly thought
+it extraordinary, that so strong an impression should have been made
+on his mind by the legend of the Sacristan. "It is strange," he said to
+himself, "that this story, which doubtless was the invention of Brother
+Philip to cover his own impropriety of conduct, should run so much in my
+head, and disturb my more serious thoughts--I am wont, I think, to have
+more command over my senses. I will repeat my prayers, and banish such
+folly from my recollection."
+
+The monk accordingly began with devotion to tell his beads, in pursuance
+of the prescribed rule of his order, and was not again disturbed by any
+wanderings of the imagination, until he found himself beneath the little
+fortalice of Glendearg.
+
+Dame Glendinning, who stood at the gate, set up a shout of surprise and
+joy at seeing the good father. "Martin," she said, "Jasper, where be a'
+the folk?--help the right reverend Sub-Prior to dismount, and take his
+mule from him.--O father! God has sent you in our need--I was just going
+to send man and horse to the convent, though I ought to be ashamed to
+give so much trouble to your reverences."
+
+"Our trouble matters not, good dame," said Father Eustace; "in what can
+I pleasure you? I came hither to visit the Lady of Avenel."
+
+"Well-a-day!" said Dame Alice, "and it was on her part that I had the
+boldness to think of summoning you, for the good lady will never be able
+to wear over the day!--Would it please you to go to her chamber?"
+
+"Hath she not been shriven by Father Philip?" said the monk.
+
+"Shriven she was," said the Dame of Glendearg, "and by Father Philip,
+as your reverence truly says--but--I wish it may have been a clean
+shrift--Methought Father Philip looked but moody upon it--and there was
+a book which he took away with him, that--" She paused as if unwilling
+to proceed.
+
+"Speak out, Dame Glendinning," said the Father; "with us it is your duty
+to have no secrets."
+
+"Nay, if it please your reverence, it is not that I would keep anything
+from your reverence's knowledge, but I fear I should prejudice the lady
+in your opinion; for she is an excellent lady--months and years has she
+dwelt in this tower, and none more exemplary than she; but this matter,
+doubtless, she will explain it herself to your reverence."
+
+"I desire first to know it from you, Dame Glendinning," said the monk;
+"and I again repeat, it is your duty to tell it to me."
+
+"This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed
+from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,"
+said the good widow.
+
+"Returned!" said the monk; "how mean you?"
+
+"I mean," answered Dame Glendinning, "that it was brought back to the
+tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how--that same book which
+Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is
+my tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the
+pasture--for we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be
+Saint Waldave, and thanks to the holy Monastery--"
+
+The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman of
+the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on
+untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by
+flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. "But, to speak no more of
+the cows, your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were
+tied to a stake, the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that
+is my Halbert and my Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on
+holidays, and especially Halbert,--for you patted him on the head and
+gave him a brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet,--and
+little Mary Avenel, that is the lady's daughter, they ran all after the
+cattle, and began to play up and down the pasture as young folk will,
+your reverence. And at length they lost sight of Martin and the
+cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh which we call
+_Corri-nan-Shian_, where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn, and
+they saw there--Good guide us!--a White Woman sitting on the burnside
+wringing her hands--so the bairns were frighted to see a strange woman
+sitting there, all but Halbert, who will be sixteen come Whitsuntide;
+and, besides, he never feared ony thing--and when they went up to
+her--behold she was passed away!"
+
+"For shame, good woman!" said Father Eustace; "a woman of your sense to
+listen to a tale so idle!--the young folk told you a lie, and that was
+all."
+
+"Nay, sir, it was more than that," said the old dame; "for, besides that
+they never told me a lie in their lives, I must warn you that on the
+very ground where the White Woman was sitting, they found the Lady of
+Avenel's book, and brought it with them to the tower."
+
+"That is worthy of mark at least," said the monk. "Know you no other
+copy of this volume within these bounds?"
+
+"None, your reverence," returned Elspeth; "why should there?--no one
+could read it were there twenty."
+
+"Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father
+Philip?" said the monk.
+
+"As sure as that I now speak with your reverence."
+
+"It is most singular!" said the monk; and he walked across the room in a
+musing posture.
+
+"I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say,"
+continued Dame Glendinning, "respecting this matter--There is nothing
+I would not do for the Lady of Avenel and her family, and that has been
+proved, and for her servants to boot, both Martin and Tibb, although
+Tibb is not so civil sometimes as altogether I have a right to expect;
+but I cannot think it beseeming to have angels, or ghosts, or fairies,
+or the like, waiting upon a leddy when she is in another woman's house,
+in respect it is no ways creditable. Ony thing she had to do was always
+done to her hand, without costing her either pains or pence, as a
+country body says; and besides the discredit, I cannot but think that
+there is no safety in having such unchancy creatures about ane. But I
+have tied red thread round the bairns's throats," (so her fondness still
+called them,) "and given ilka ane of them a riding-wand of rowan-tree,
+forby sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their doublets; and I wish to
+know of your reverence if there be ony thing mair that a lone woman can
+do in the matter of ghosts and fairies?--Be here! that I should have
+named their unlucky names twice ower!"
+
+"Dame Glendinning," answered the monk, somewhat abruptly, when the good
+woman had finished her narrative, "I pray you, do you know the miller's
+daughter?"
+
+"Did I know Kate Happer?" replied the widow; "as well as the beggar
+knows his dish--a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain
+maybe twenty years syne."
+
+"She cannot be the wench I mean," said Father Eustace; "she after whom
+I inquire is scarce fifteen, a black-eyed girl--you may have seen her at
+the kirk."
+
+"Your reverence must be in the right; and she is my cummer's nie'ce,
+doubtless, that you are pleased to speak of: but I thank God I have
+always been too duteous in attention to the mass, to know whether young
+wenches have black eyes or green ones."
+
+The good father had so much of the world about him, that he was unable
+to avoid smiling, when the dame boasted her absolute resistance to a
+temptation, which was not quite so liable to beset her as those of the
+other sex.
+
+"Perhaps, then," he said, "you know her usual dress, Dame Glendinning?"
+
+"Ay, ay, father," answered the dame readily enough, "a white kirtle the
+wench wears, to hide the dust of the mill, no doubt--and a blue hood,
+that might weel be spared, for pridefulness."
+
+"Then, may it not be she," said the father, "who has brought back this
+book, and stepped out of the way when the children came near her?"
+
+The dame paused--was unwilling to combat the solution suggested by the
+monk--but was at a loss to conceive why the lass of the mill should come
+so far from home into so wild a corner merely to leave an old book with
+three children, from whose observation she wished to conceal herself.
+
+Above all, she could not understand why, since she had acquaintances in
+the family, and since the Dame Glendinning had always paid her multure
+and knaveship duly, the said lass of the mill had not come in to rest
+herself and eat a morsel, and tell her the current news of the water.
+
+These very objections satisfied the monk that his conjectures were
+right. "Dame," he said, "you must be cautious in what you say. This is
+an instance--I would it were the sole one--of the power of the Enemy
+in these days. The matter must be sifted--with a curious and a careful
+hand."
+
+"Indeed," said Elspeth, trying to catch and chime in with the ideas
+of the Sub-Prior, "I have often thought the miller's folk at the
+Monastery-mill were far over careless in sifting our melder, and in
+bolting it too--some folk say they will not stick at whiles to put in a
+handful of ashes amongst Christian folk's corn-meal."
+
+"That shall be looked after also, dame," said the Sub-Prior, not
+displeased to see that the good old woman went off on a false scent;
+"and now, by your leave, I will see this lady--do you go before, and
+prepare her to see me."
+
+Dame Glendinning left the lower apartment accordingly, which the monk
+paced in anxious reflection, considering how he might best discharge,
+with humanity as well as with effect, the important duty imposed on him.
+He resolved to approach the bedside of the sick person with reprimands,
+mitigated only by a feeling for her weak condition--he determined, in
+case of her reply, to which late examples of hardened heretics might
+encourage her, to be prepared with answers to the customary scruples.
+High fraught, also, with zeal against her unauthorized intrusion into
+the priestly function, by study of the Sacred Scriptures, he imagined
+to himself the answers which one of the modern school of heresy might
+return to him--the victorious refutation which should lay the disputant
+prostrate at the Confessor's mercy--and the healing, yet awful
+exhortation, which, under pain of refusing the last consolations of
+religion, he designed to make to the penitent, conjuring her, as she
+loved her own soul's welfare, to disclose to him what she knew of the
+dark mystery of iniquity, by which heresies were introduced into the
+most secluded spots of the very patrimony of the Church herself--what
+agents they had who could thus glide, as it were unseen, from place to
+place, bring back the volume which the Church had interdicted to the
+spots from which it had been removed under her express auspices; and,
+who, by encouraging the daring and profane thirst after knowledge
+forbidden and useless to the laity, had encouraged the fisher of souls
+to use with effect his old bait of ambition and vain-glory.
+
+Much of this premeditated disputation escaped the good father, when
+Elspeth returned, her tears flowing faster than her apron could dry
+them, and made him a signal to follow her. "How," said the monk, "is she
+then so near her end?--nay, the Church must not break or bruise,
+when comfort is yet possible;" and forgetting his polemics, the good
+Sub-Prior hastened to the little apartment, where, on the wretched bed
+which she had occupied since her misfortunes had driven her to the Tower
+of Glendearg, the widow of Walter Avenel had rendered up her spirit
+to her Creator. "My God!" said the Sub-Prior, "and has my unfortunate
+dallying suffered her to depart without the Church's consolation! Look
+to her, dame," he exclaimed, with eager impatience; "is there not yet a
+sparkle of the life left?--may she not be recalled--recalled but for
+a moment?--Oh! would that she could express, but by the most imperfect
+word--but by the most feeble motion, her acquiescence in the needful
+task of penitential prayer!--Does she not breathe?--Art thou sure she
+doth not?"
+
+"She will never breathe more," said the matron. "Oh! the poor fatherless
+girl--now motherless also--Oh, the kind companion I have had these many
+years, whom I shall never see again! But she is in heaven for certain,
+if ever woman went there; for a woman of better life----"
+
+"Wo to me," said the good monk, "if indeed she went not hence in good
+assurance--wo to the reckless shepherd, who suffered the wolf to carry
+a choice one from the flock, while he busied himself with trimming
+his sling and his staff to give the monster battle! Oh! if in the long
+Hereafter, aught but weal should that poor spirit share, what has my
+delay cost?--the value of an immortal soul!"
+
+He then approached the body, full of the deep remorse natural to a
+good man of his persuasion, who devoutly believed the doctrines of the
+Catholic Church. "Ay," said he, gazing on the pallid corpse, from which
+the spirit had parted so placidly as to leave a smile upon the thin blue
+lips, which had been so long wasted by decay that they had parted
+with the last breath of animation without the slightest convulsive
+tremor--"Ay," said Father Eustace, "there lies the faded tree, and, as
+it fell, so it lies--awful thought for me, should my neglect have left
+it to descend in an evil direction!" He then again and again conjured
+Dame Glendinning to tell him what she knew of the demeanour and ordinary
+walk of the deceased.
+
+All tended to the high honour of the deceased lady; for her companion,
+who admired her sufficiently while alive, notwithstanding some trifling
+points of jealousy, now idolized her after her death, and could think of
+no attribute of praise with which she did not adorn her memory.
+
+Indeed, the Lady of Avenel, however she might privately doubt some of
+the doctrines announced by the Church of Rome, and although she had
+probably tacitly appealed from that corrupted system of Christianity
+to the volume on which Christianity itself is founded, had nevertheless
+been regular in her attendance on the worship of the Church, not,
+perhaps, extending her scruples so far as to break off communion. Such
+indeed was the first sentiment of the earlier reformers, who seemed to
+have studied, for a time at least, to avoid a schism, until the violence
+of the Pope rendered it inevitable.
+
+Father Eustace, on the present occasion, listened with eagerness to
+everything which could lead to assure him of the lady's orthodoxy in the
+main points of belief; for his conscience reproached him sorely, that,
+instead of protracting conversation with the Dame of Glendearg, he had
+not instantly hastened where his presence was so necessary. "If," he
+said, addressing the dead body, "thou art yet free from the utmost
+penalty due to the followers of false doctrine--if thou dost but suffer
+for a time, to expiate faults done in the body, but partaking of mortal
+frailty more than of deadly sin, fear not that thy abode shall be long
+in the penal regions to which thou mayest be doomed--if vigils--if
+masses--if penance--if maceration of my body, till it resembles
+that extenuated form which the soul hath abandoned, may assure thy
+deliverance. The Holy Church--the godly foundation--our blessed
+Patroness herself, shall intercede for one whose errors were
+counter-balanced by so many virtues.--Leave me, dame--here, and by her
+bed-side, will I perform those duties--which this piteous case demands!"
+
+Elspeth left the monk, who employed himself in fervent and sincere,
+though erroneous prayers, for the weal of the departed spirit. For an
+hour he remained in the apartment of death, and then returned to the
+hall, where he found the still weeping friend of the deceased.
+
+But it would be injustice to Mrs. Glendinning's hospitality, if we
+suppose her to have been weeping during this long interval, or rather if
+we suppose her so entirely absorbed by the tribute of sorrow which she
+paid frankly and plentifully to her deceased friend, as to be incapable
+of attending to the rights of hospitality due to the holy visitor--who
+was confessor at once, and Sub-Prior--mighty in all religious and
+secular considerations, so far as the vassals of the Monastery were
+interested.
+
+Her barley-bread had been toasted--her choicest cask of home-brewed ale
+had been broached--her best butter had been placed on the hall-table,
+along with her most savoury ham, and her choicest cheese, ere she
+abandoned herself to the extremity of sorrow; and it was not till she
+had arranged her little repast neatly on the board, that she sat down in
+the chimney corner, threw her checked apron over her head, and gave
+way to the current of tears and sobs. In this there was no grimace
+or affectation. The good dame held the honours of her house to be as
+essential a duty, especially when a monk was her visitant, as any
+other pressing call upon her conscience; nor until these were suitably
+attended to did she find herself at liberty to indulge her sorrow for
+her departed friend.
+
+When she was conscious of the Sub-Prior's presence, she rose with the
+same attention to his reception; but he declined all the offers of
+hospitality with which she endeavoured to tempt him. Not her butter,
+as yellow as gold, and the best, she assured him, that was made in the
+patrimony of St. Mary--not the barley scones, which "the departed saint,
+God sain her! used to say were so good"--not the ale, nor any other
+cates which poor Elspeth's stores afforded, could prevail on the
+Sub-Prior to break his fast. "This day," he said, "I must not taste
+food until the sun go down, happy if, in so doing, I can expiate my own
+negligence--happier still, if my sufferings of this trifling nature,
+undertaken in pure faith and singleness of heart, may benefit the soul
+of the deceased. Yet, dame," he added, "I may not so far forget the
+living in my cares for the dead, as to leave behind me that book, which
+is to the ignorant what, to our first parents, the tree of Knowledge
+of Good and Evil unhappily proved-excellent indeed in itself, but fatal
+because used by those to whom it is prohibited."
+
+"Oh, blithely, reverend father," said the widow of Simon Glendinning,
+"will I give you the book, if so be I can while it from the bairns; and
+indeed, poor things, as the case stands with them even now, you might
+take the heart out of their bodies, and they never find it out, they are
+sae begrutten." [Footnote: _Begrutten_--over-weeped]
+
+"Give them this missal instead, good dame," said the father, drawing
+from his pocket one which was curiously illuminated with paintings, "and
+I will come myself, or send one at a fitting time, and teach them the
+meaning of these pictures."
+
+"The bonny images!" said Dame Glendinning, forgetting for an instant
+her grief in her admiration, "and weel I wot," added she, "it is another
+sort of a book than the poor Lady of Avenel's; and blessed might we have
+been this day, if your reverence had found the way up the glen, instead
+of Father Philip, though the Sacristan is a powerful man too, and speaks
+as if he would ger the house fly abroad, save that the walls are gey
+thick. Simon's forebears (may he and they be blessed!) took care of
+that."
+
+The monk ordered his mule, and was about to take his leave; and the good
+dame was still delaying him with questions about the funeral, when a
+horseman, armed and accoutred, rode into the little court-yard which
+surrounded the Keep.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Ninth.
+
+
+  For since they rode among our doors
+  With splent on spauld and rusty spurs,
+  There grows no fruit into our furs;
+    Thus said John Up-on-land.
+                       DANNATYNE MS.
+
+The Scottish laws, which were as wisely and judiciously made as they
+were carelessly and ineffectually executed, had in vain endeavoured
+to restrain the damage done to agriculture, by the chiefs and landed
+proprietors retaining in their service what were called jack-men, from
+the _jack_, or doublet, quilted with iron which they wore as defensive
+armour. These military retainers conducted themselves with great
+insolence towards the industrious part of the community--lived in a
+great measure by plunder, and were ready to execute any commands of
+their master, however unlawful. In adopting this mode of life, men
+resigned the quiet hopes and regular labours of industry, for an
+unsettled, precarious, and dangerous trade, which yet had such charms
+for those once accustomed to it, that they became incapable of following
+any other. Hence the complaint of John Upland, a fictitious character,
+representing a countryman, into whose mouth the poets of the day put
+their general satires upon men and manners.
+
+  They ride about in such a rage,
+  By forest, frith, and field,
+    With buckler, bow, and brand.
+  Lo! where they ride out through the rye!
+  The Devil mot save the company,
+    Quoth John Up-on-land.
+
+Christie of the Clinthill, the horseman who now arrived at the little
+Tower of Glendearg, was one of the hopeful company of whom the poet
+complains, as was indicated by his "splent on spauld," (iron-plates on
+his shoulder,) his rusted spurs, and his long lance. An iron skull-cap,
+none of the brightest, bore for distinction a sprig of the holly, which
+was Avenel's badge. A long two-edged straight sword, having a handle
+made of polished oak, hung down by his side. The meagre condition of
+his horse, and the wild and emaciated look of the rider, showed their
+occupation could not be accounted an easy or a thriving one. He saluted
+Dame Glendinning with little courtesy, and the monk with less; for the
+growing, disrespect to the religious orders had not failed to extend
+itself among a class of men of such disorderly habits, although it may
+be supposed they were tolerably indifferent alike to the new or the
+ancient doctrines.
+
+"So, our lady is dead, Dame Glendinning?" said the jack-man; "my master
+has sent you even now a fat bullock for her mart--it may serve for
+her funeral. I have left him in the upper cleugh, as he is somewhat
+kenspeckle, [Footnote: _Kenspeckle_--that which is easily recognized
+by the eye.] and is marked both with cut and birn--the sooner the
+skin is off, and he is in saultfat, the less like you are to have
+trouble--you understand me? Let me have a peck of corn for my horse, and
+beef and beer for myself, for I must go on to the Monastery--though I
+think this monk hero might do mine errand."
+
+"Thine errand, rude man!" said the Sub-Prior, knitting his brows--
+
+"For God's sake" cried poor Dame Glendinning, terrified at the idea of
+a quarrel between them,--"O Christie!---it is the Sub-Prior--O reverend
+sir, it is Christie of the Clinthill, the laird's chief jack-man; ye
+know that little havings can be expected from the like o' them."
+
+"Are you a retainer of the Laird of Avenel?" said the monk, addressing
+himself to the horseman, "and do you speak thus rudely to a Brother of
+Saint Mary's, to whom thy master is so much beholden?"
+
+"He means to be yet more beholden to your house, Sir Monk," answered the
+fellow; "for hearing his sister-in-law, the widow of Walter of Avenel,
+was on her death-bed, he sent me to say to the Father Abbot and the
+brethren, that he will hold the funeral-feast at their convent, and
+invites himself thereto, with a score of horse and some friends, and
+to abide there for three days and three nights,--having horse-meat and
+men's-meat at the charge of the community; of which his intention he
+sends due notice, that fitting preparation may be timeously made."
+
+"Friend," said the Sub-Prior, "believe not that I will do to the Father
+Abbot the indignity of delivering such an errand.--Think'st thou the
+goods of the church were bestowed upon her by holy princes and pious
+nobles, now dead and gone, to be consumed in revelry by every profligate
+layman who numbers in his train more followers than he can support
+by honest means, or by his own incomings? Tell thy master, from the
+Sub-Prior of Saint Mary's, that the Primate hath issued his commands to
+us that we submit no longer to this compulsory exaction of hospitality
+on slight or false pretences. Our lands and goods were given to relieve
+pilgrims and pious persons, not to feast bands of rude soldiers."
+
+"This to me!" said the angry spearman, "this to me and to my
+master--Look to yourself then, Sir Priest, and try if _Ave_ and _Credo_
+will keep bullocks from wandering, and hay-stacks from burning."
+
+"Dost thou menace the Holy Church's patrimony with waste and
+fire-raising," said the Sub-Prior, "and that in the face of the sun? I
+call on all who hear me to bear witness to the words this ruffian has
+spoken. Remember how the Lord James drowned such as you by scores in the
+black pool at Jeddart.-To him and to the Primate will I complain." The
+soldier shifted the position of his lance, and brought it down to a
+level with the monk's body.
+
+Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. "Tibb Tacket! Martin!
+where be ye all?--Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man of
+Holy Kirk!"
+
+"I care not for his spear," said the Sub-Prior; "if I am slain in
+defending the rights and privileges of my community, the Primate will
+know how to take vengeance."
+
+"Let him look to himself," said Christie, but at the same time
+depositing his lance against the wall of the tower; "if the Fife men
+spoke true who came hither with the Governor in the last raid, Norman
+Leslie has him at feud, and is like to set him hard. We know Norman a
+true bloodhound, who will never quit the slot. But I had no design to
+offend the holy father," he added, thinking perhaps he had gone a little
+too far; "I am a rude man, bred to lance and stirrup, and not used to
+deal with book-learned men and priests; and I am willing to ask his
+forgiveness--and his blessing, if I have said aught amiss."
+
+"For God's sake! your reverence," said the widow of Glendearg apart to
+the Sub-Prior, "bestow on him your forgiveness--how shall we poor folk
+sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with
+such men as he is?"
+
+"You are right, dame," said the Sub-Prior, "your safety should, and must
+be, in the first instance consulted.--Soldier, I forgive thee, and may
+God bless thee and send thee honesty."
+
+Christie of the Clinthill made an unwilling inclination with his
+head, and muttered apart, "that is as much as to say, God send thee
+starvation, But now to my master's demand, Sir Priest? What answer am I
+to return?"
+
+"That the body of the widow of Walter of Avenel," answered the Father,
+"shall be interred as becomes her rank, and in the tomb of her valiant
+husband. For your master's proffered visit of three days, with such
+a company and retinue, I have no authority to reply to it; you must
+intimate your Chief's purpose to the Reverend Lord Abbot."
+
+"That will cost me a farther ride," said the man, "but it is all in the
+day's work.--How now, my lad," said he to Halbert, who was handling
+the long lance which he had laid aside; "how do you like such a
+plaything?--will you go with me and be a moss-trooper?"
+
+"The Saints in their mercy forbid!" said the poor mother; and then,
+afraid of having displeased Christie by the vivacity of her exclamation,
+she followed it up by explaining, that since Simon's death she could
+not look on a spear or a bow, or any implement of destruction without
+trembling.
+
+"Pshaw!" answered Christie, "thou shouldst take another husband, dame,
+and drive such follies out of thy thoughts--what sayst thou to such a
+strapping lad as I? Why, this old tower of thine is fensible enough, and
+there is no want of clenchs, and crags, and bogs, and thickets, if one
+was set hard; a man might bide here and keep his half-score of lads, and
+as many geldings, and live on what he could lay his hand on, and be kind
+to thee, old wench."
+
+"Alas! Master Christie," said the matron, "that you should talk to a
+lone woman in such a fashion, and death in the house besides!"
+
+"Lone woman!--why, that is the very reason thou shouldst take a mate.
+Thy old friend is dead, why, good--choose thou another of somewhat
+tougher frame, and that will not die of the pip like a young
+chicken.--Better still--Come, dame, let me have something to eat, and we
+will talk more of this."
+
+Dame Elspeth, though she well knew the character of the man, whom in
+fact she both disliked and feared, could not help simpering at the
+personal address which he thought proper to make to her. She whispered
+to the Sub-Prior, "ony thing just to keep him quiet," and went into the
+tower to set before the soldier the food he desired, trusting betwixt
+good cheer and the power of her own charms, to keep Christie of the
+Clinthill so well amused, that the altercation betwixt him and the holy
+father should not be renewed.
+
+The Sub-Prior was equally unwilling to hazard any unnecessary rupture
+between the community and such a person as Julian of Avenel. He was
+sensible that moderation, as well as firmness, was necessary to support
+the tottering cause of the Church of Rome; and that, contrary to former
+times, the quarrels betwixt the clergy and laity had, in the present,
+usually terminated to the advantage of the latter. He resolved,
+therefore, to avoid farther strife by withdrawing, but failed not, in
+the first place, to possess himself of the volume which the Sacristan
+carried off the evening before, and which had been returned to the glen
+in such a marvellous manner.
+
+Edward, the younger of Dame Elspeth's boys, made great objections to the
+book's being removed, in which Mary would probably have joined, but that
+she was now in her little sleeping-chamber with Tibb, who was exerting
+her simple skill to console the young lady for her mother's death. But
+the younger Glendinning stood up in defence of her property, and, with a
+positiveness which had hitherto made no part of his character, declared,
+that now the kind lady was dead, the book was Mary's, and no one but
+Mary should have it.
+
+"But if it is not a fit book for Mary to read, my dear boy," said the
+father, gently, "you would not wish it to remain with her?"
+
+"The lady read it," answered the young champion of property; "and so it
+could not be wrong--it shall not be taken away.--I wonder where Halbert
+is?--listening to the bravading tales of gay Christie, I reckon,--he is
+always wishing for fighting, and now he is out of the way."
+
+"Why, Edward, you would not fight with me, who am both a priest and old
+man?"
+
+"If you were as good a priest as the Pope," said the boy, "and as old
+as the hills to boot, you shall not carry away Mary's book without her
+leave. I will do battle for it."
+
+"But see you, my love," said the monk, amused with the resolute
+friendship manifested by the boy, "I do not take it; I only borrow it;
+and I leave in its place my own gay missal, as a pledge I will bring it
+again."
+
+Edward opened the missal with eager curiosity, and glanced at
+the pictures with which it was illustrated. "Saint George and the
+dragon--Halbert will like that; and Saint Michael brandishing his sword
+over the head of the Wicked One--and that will do for Halbert too. And
+see the Saint John leading his lamb in the wilderness, with his
+little cross made of reeds, and his scrip and staff--that shall be
+my favourite; and where shall we find one for poor Mary?--here is a
+beautiful woman weeping and lamenting herself."
+
+"This is Saint Mary Magdalen repenting of her sins, my dear boy," said
+the father.
+
+"That will not suit _our_ Mary; for she commits no faults, and is never
+angry with us, but when we do something wrong."
+
+"Then," said the father, "I will show you a Mary, who will protect her
+and you, and all good children. See how fairly she is represented, with
+her gown covered with golden stars."
+
+The boy was lost in wonder at the portrait of the Virgin, which the
+Sub-Prior turned up to him.
+
+"This," he said, "is really like our sweet Mary; and I think I will let
+you take away the black book, that has no such goodly shows in it, and
+leave this for Mary instead. But you must promise to bring back the
+book, good father--for now I think upon it, Mary may like that best
+which was her mother's."
+
+"I will certainly return," said the monk, evading his answer, "and
+perhaps I may teach you to write and read such beautiful letters as you
+see there written, and to paint them blue, green, and yellow, and to
+blazon them with gold."
+
+"Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially
+these two Marys?" said the boy.
+
+"With their blessing," said the Sub-Prior, "I can teach you that art
+too, so far as I am myself capable of showing, and you of learning it."
+"Then," said Edward, "will I paint Mary's picture--and remember you are
+to bring back the black book; that you must promise me."
+
+The Sub-Prior, anxious to get rid of the boy's pertinacity, and to
+set forward on his return to the convent, without having any further
+interview with Christie the galloper, answered by giving the promise
+Edward required, mounted his mule, and set forth on his return homeward.
+
+The November day was well spent ere the Sub-Prior resumed his journey;
+for the difficulty of the road, and the various delays which he had met
+with at the tower, had detained him longer than he proposed. A chill
+easterly wind was sighing among the withered leaves, and stripping them
+from the hold they had yet retained on the parent trees.
+
+"Even so," said the monk, "our prospects in this vale of time grow more
+disconsolate as the stream of years passes on. Little have I gained by
+my journey, saving the certainty that heresy is busy among us with more
+than his usual activity, and that the spirit of insulting religious
+orders, and plundering the Church's property, so general in the eastern
+districts of Scotland, has now come nearer home."
+
+The tread of a horse which came up behind him, interrupted his reverie,
+and he soon saw he was mounted by the same wild rider whom he had left
+at the tower.
+
+"Good even, my son, and benedicite," said the Sub-Prior as he passed;
+but the rude soldier scarce acknowledged the greeting, by bending his
+head; and dashing the spurs into his horse, went on at a pace which soon
+left the monk and his mule far behind. And there, thought the Sub-Prior,
+goes another plague of the times--a fellow whose birth designed him
+to cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and
+unchristian divisions of the country, into a daring and dissolute
+robber. The barons of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and
+ruffians, oppressing the poor by violence, and wasting the Church, by
+extorting free-quarters from abbeys and priories, without either shame
+or reason. I fear me I shall be too late to counsel the Abbot to make a
+stand against these daring _sorners_ [Footnote: To _sorne_, in Scotland,
+is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is
+declared equivalent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The
+great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very much by exactions of
+this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of
+Angus, I think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once
+a year, with a train of a thousand horse, and abiding till the whole
+winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.]--"I must make haste."
+He struck his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of
+mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from the path, and the
+rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.
+
+"Art thou, too, infected with the spirit of the times?" said the
+Sub-Prior; "thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as
+restive as any wild jack-man or stubborn heretic of them all."
+
+While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of
+a female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,
+
+ "Good evening-. Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
+  With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
+  But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill.
+  There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
+               Back, back,
+               The volume black!
+  I have a warrant to carry it back."
+
+The Sub-Prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which
+could conceal an ambushed songstress. "May Our Lady have mercy on me!"
+he said; "I trust my senses have not forsaken me--yet how my thoughts
+should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music which
+I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice
+in ears, in which its melody has been so long indifferent, baffles my
+comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the Sacristan.
+Come, good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our
+judgment serves us."
+
+But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed from the
+point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid
+close into her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets,
+testified that she was under great terror.
+
+While the Sub-Prior, by alternate threats and soothing, endeavoured to
+reclaim the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again
+heard close beside him.
+
+  "What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here
+  To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier?
+  Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise,
+  Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize.
+               Back, back.
+               There's death in the track!
+  In the name of my master I bid thee bear back."
+
+"In the name of MY Master," said the astonished monk, "that name before
+which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art
+that hauntest me thus?"
+
+The same voice replied,
+
+  "That which is neither ill nor well.
+  That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell,
+  A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,
+  'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream;
+               A form that men spy
+               With the half-shut eye.
+  In the beams of the setting sun, am I."
+
+"This is more than simple fantasy," said the Sub-Prior, rousing himself;
+though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the
+sensible presence of a supernatural being so near him, failed not to
+make his blood run cold, and his hair bristle. "I charge thee," he said
+aloud, "be thine errand what it will, to depart and trouble me no
+more! False spirit, thou canst not appal any save those who do the work
+negligently." The voice immediately answered:
+
+  "Vainly, Sir Prior, wouldst thou bar me my right!
+  Like the star when it shoots, I can dart through the night;
+  I can dance on the torrent and ride on the air,
+  And travel the world with the bonny night-mare.
+                 Again, again,
+                At the crook of the glen,
+  Where bickers the burnie, I'll meet thee again."
+
+The road was now apparently left open; for the mule collected herself,
+and changed from her posture of terror to one which promised advance,
+although a profuse perspiration, and general trembling of the joints,
+indicated the bodily terror she had undergone.
+
+"I used to doubt the existence of Cabalists and Rosicrucians," thought
+the Sub-Prior, "but, by my Holy Order, I know no longer what to say!--My
+pulse beats temperately--my hand is cool--I am fasting from everything
+but sin, and possessed of my ordinary faculties--Either some fiend is
+permitted to bewilder me, or the tales of Cornelius Agrippa,
+Paracelsus, and others who treat of occult philosophy, are not without
+foundation.--At the crook of the glen? I could have desired to avoid a
+second meeting, but I am on the service of the Church, and the gates of
+hell shall not prevail against me."
+
+He moved around accordingly, but with precaution, and not without fear;
+for he neither knew the manner in which, or the place where his journey
+might be next interrupted by his invisible attendant. He descended the
+glen without interruption for about a mile farther, when, just at the
+spot where the brook approached the steep hill, with a winding so
+abrupt as to leave scarcely room for a horse to pass, the mule was again
+visited with the same symptoms of terror which had before interrupted
+her course. Better acquainted than before with the cause of her
+restiveness, the Priest employed no effort to make her proceed, but
+addressed himself to the object, which he doubted not was the same that
+had formerly interrupted him, in the words of solemn exorcism prescribed
+by the Church of Rome on such occasions.
+
+In reply to his demand, the voice again sung;--
+
+  "Men of good are bold as sackless,[Footnote: Sackless--Innocent.]
+  Men of rude are wild and reckless,
+      Lie thou still
+      In the nook of the hill.
+  For those be before thee that wish thee ill."
+
+While the Sub-Prior listened, with his head turned in the direction from
+which the sounds seemed to come, he felt as if something rushed against
+him; and ere he could discover the cause, he was pushed from his saddle
+with gentle but irresistible force. Before he reached the ground his
+senses were gone, and he lay long in a state of insensibility; for
+the sunset had not ceased to gild the top of the distant hill when he
+fell,--and when he again became conscious of existence, the pale moon
+was gleaming on the landscape. He awakened in a state of terror, from
+which, for a few minutes, he found it difficult to shake himself free.
+At length he sate upon the grass, and became sensible, by repeated
+exertion, that the only personal injury which he had sustained was the
+numbness arising from extreme cold. The motion of something near him
+made the blood again run to his heart, and by a sudden effort he started
+up, and, looking around, saw to his relief that the noise was occasioned
+by the footsteps of his own mule. The peaceable animal had remained
+quietly beside her master during his trance, browsing on the grass which
+grew plentifully in that sequestered nook.
+
+With some exertion he collected himself, remounted the animal, and
+meditating upon his wild adventure, descended the glen till its junction
+with the broader valley through which the Tweed winds. The drawbridge
+was readily dropped at his first summons; and so much had he won upon
+the heart of the churlish warden, that Peter appeared himself with a
+lantern to show the Sub-Prior his way over the perilous pass.
+
+"By my sooth, sir," he said, holding the light up to Father Eustace's
+face, "you look sorely travelled and deadly pale--but a little matter
+serves to weary out you men of the cell. I now who speak to you--I have
+ridden--before I was perched up here on this pillar betwixt wind and
+water--it may be thirty Scots miles before I broke my fast, and have had
+the red of a bramble rose in my cheek all the while--But will you taste
+some food, or a cup of distilled waters?"
+
+"I may not," said Father Eustace, "being under a vow; but I thank you
+for your kindness, and pray you to give what I may not accept to the
+next poor pilgrim who comes hither pale and fainting, for so it shall be
+the better both with him here, and with you hereafter."
+
+"By my faith, and I will do so," said Peter Bridge-Ward, "even for thy
+sake--It is strange now, how this Sub-Prior gets round one's heart more
+than the rest of these cowled gentry, that think of nothing but quaffing
+and stuffing!--Wife, I say--wife, we will give a cup of distilled waters
+and a crust of bread unto the next pilgrim that comes over; and ye may
+keep for [Footnote: An old-fashioned name for an earthen jar for
+holding spirits.] the purpose the grunds of the last greybeard, and the
+ill-baked bannock which the bairns couldna eat."
+
+While Peter issued these charitable, and, at the same time, prudent
+injunctions, the Sub-Prior, whose mild interference had awakened the
+Bridge-Ward to such an act of unwonted generosity, was pacing onward
+to the Monastery. In the way, he had to commune with and subdue his own
+rebellious heart, an enemy, he was sensible, more formidable than any
+which the external powers of Satan could place in his way.
+
+Father Eustace had indeed strong temptation to suppress the
+extraordinary incident which had befallen him, which he was the more
+reluctant to confess, because he had passed so severe a judgment upon
+Father Philip, who, as he was not unwilling to allow, had, on his return
+from Glendearg, encountered obstacles somewhat similar to his own. Of
+this the Sub-Prior was the more convinced, when, feeling in his bosom
+for the Book which he had brought off from the Tower of Glendearg, he
+found it was amissing, which he could only account for by supposing it
+had been stolen from him during his trance.
+
+"If I confess this strange visitation," thought the Sub-Prior, "I become
+the ridicule of all my brethren--I whom the Primate sent hither to be a
+watch, as it were, and a check upon their follies. I give the Abbot an
+advantage over me which I shall never again recover, and Heaven only
+knows how he may abuse it, in his foolish simplicity, to the dishonour
+and loss of Holy Kirk.--But then, if I make not true confession of
+my shame, with what face can I again presume to admonish or restrain
+others?--Avow, proud heart," continued he, addressing himself, "that the
+weal of Holy Church interests thee less in this matter than thine own
+humiliation--Yes, Heaven has punished thee even in that point in which
+thou didst deem thyself most strong, in thy spiritual pride and thy
+carnal wisdom. Thou hast laughed at and derided the inexperience of thy
+brethren--stoop thyself in turn to their derision--tell what they
+may not believe--affirm that which they will ascribe to idle fear, or
+perhaps to idle falsehood--sustain the disgrace of a silly visionary,
+or a wilful deceiver.--Be it so, I will do my duty, and make ample
+confession to my Superior. If the discharge of this duty destroys my
+usefulness in this house, God and Our Lady will send me where I can
+better serve them."
+
+There was no little merit in the resolution thus piously and generously
+formed by Father Eustace. To men of any rank the esteem of their order
+is naturally most dear; but in the monastic establishment, cut off, as
+the brethren are, from other objects of ambition, as well as from all
+exterior friendship and relationship, the place which they hold in the
+opinion of each other is all in all.
+
+But the consciousness how much he should rejoice the Abbot and most of
+the other monks of Saint Mary's, who were impatient of the unauthorized,
+yet irresistible control, which he was wont to exercise in the affairs
+of the convent, by a confession which would put him in a ludicrous, or
+perhaps even in a criminal point of view, could not weigh with Father
+Eustace in comparison with the task which his belief enjoined.
+
+As, strong in his feelings of duty, he approached the exterior gate
+of the Monastery, he was surprised to see torches gleaming, and men
+assembled around it, some on horseback, some on foot, while several of
+the monks, distinguished through the night by their white scapularies,
+were making themselves busy among the crowd. The Sub-Prior was received
+with a unanimous shout of joy, which at once made him sensible that he
+had himself been the object of their anxiety.
+
+"There he is! there he is! God be thanked--there he is, hale and
+fear!" exclaimed the vassals; while the monks exclaimed, "_Te Deum
+laudamus_--the blood of thy servants is precious in thy sight!"
+
+"What is the matter, children? what is the matter, my brethren?" said
+Father Eustace, dismounting at the gate.
+
+"Nay, brother, if thou know'st not, we will not tell thee till thou art
+in the refectory," answered the monks; "suffice it that the Lord Abbot
+had ordered these, our zealous and faithful vassals, instantly to set
+forth to guard thee from imminent peril--Ye may ungirth your horses,
+children, and dismiss; and to-morrow, each who was at this rendezvous
+may send to the convent kitchen for a quarter of a yard of roast beef,
+and a black-jack full of double ale." [Footnote: It was one of the few
+reminiscences of Old Parr, or Henry Jenkins, I forget which, that, at
+some convent in the veteran's neighbourhood, the community, before the
+dissolution, used to dole out roast-beef in the measure of feet and
+yards.]
+
+The vassals dispersed with joyful acclamation, and the monks, with equal
+jubilee, conducted the Sub-Prior into the refectory.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Tenth.
+
+
+  Here we stand--
+  Woundless and well, may Heaven's high name be bless'd for't!
+  As erst, ere treason couch'd a lance against us.
+                                                  Decker.
+
+No sooner was the Sub-Prior hurried into the refectory by his rejoicing
+companions, than the first person on whom he fixed his eye proved to be
+Christie of the Clinthill. He was seated in the chimney-corner, fettered
+and guarded, his features drawn into that air of sulky and turbid
+resolution with which those hardened in guilt are accustomed to view the
+approach of punishment. But as the Sub-Prior drew near to him, his face
+assumed a more wild and startled expression, while he exclaimed--"The
+devil! the devil himself, brings the dead back upon the living."
+
+"Nay," said a monk to him, "say rather that Our Lady foils the attempts
+of the wicked on her faithful servants--our dear brother lives and
+moves."
+
+"Lives and moves!" said the ruffian, rising and shuffling towards the
+Sub-Prior as well as his chains would permit; "nay, then, I will never
+trust ashen shaft and steel point more--It is even so," he added, as he
+gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound--not as
+much as a rent in his frock!"
+
+"And whence should my wound have come?" said Father Eustace.
+
+"From the good lance that never failed me before," replied Christie of
+the Clinthill.
+
+"Heaven absolve thee for thy purpose!" said the Sub-Prior; "wouldst thou
+have slain a servant of the altar?"
+
+"To choose!" answered Christie; "the Fifemen say, an the whole pack of
+ye were slain, there were more lost at Flodden."
+
+"Villain! art thou heretic as well as murderer?"
+
+"Not I, by Saint Giles," replied the rider; "I listened blithely enough
+to the Laird of Monance, when he told me ye were all cheats and knaves;
+but when he would have had me go hear one Wiseheart, a gospeller as they
+call him, he might as well have persuaded the wild colt that had flung
+one rider to kneel down and help another into the saddle."
+
+"There is some goodness about him yet," said the Sacristan to the Abbot,
+who at that moment entered--"He refused to hear a heretic preacher."
+
+"The better for him in the next world," answered the Abbot. "Prepare for
+death, my son,--we deliver thee over to the secular arm of our bailie,
+for execution on the Gallow-hill by peep of light."
+
+"Amen!" said the ruffian; "'tis the end I must have come by sooner or
+later--and what care I whether I feed the crows at Saint Mary's or at
+Carlisle?"
+
+"Let me implore your reverend patience for an instant," said the
+Sub-Prior; "until I shall inquire--"
+
+"What!" exclaimed the Abbot, observing him for the first time--"Our dear
+brother restored to us when his life was unhoped for!--nay, kneel not
+to a sinner like me--stand up--thou hast my blessing. When this villain
+came to the gate, accused by his own evil conscience, and crying out
+he had murdered thee, I thought that the pillar of our main aisle had
+fallen--no more shall a life so precious be exposed to such risks as
+occur in this border country; no longer shall one beloved and rescued
+of Heaven hold so low a station in the church as that of a poor
+Sub-Prior--I will write by express to the Primate for thy speedy removal
+and advancement."
+
+"Nay, but let me understand," said the Sub-Prior; "did this soldier say
+he had slain me?"
+
+"That he had transfixed you," answered the Abbot, "in full career with
+his lance--but it seems he had taken an indifferent aim. But no sooner
+didst thou fall to the ground mortally gored, as he deemed, with his
+weapon, than our blessed Patroness appeared to him, as he averred--"
+
+"I averred no such thing," said the prisoner; "I said a woman in white
+interrupted me, as I was about to examine the priest's cassock, for they
+are usually well lined--she had a bulrush in her hand, with one touch
+of which she struck me from my horse, as I might strike down a child of
+four years old with an iron mace--and then, like a singing fiend as she
+was, she sung to me.
+
+  'Thank the holly-bush
+    That nods on thy brow;
+  Or with this slender rush
+    I had strangled thee now.'
+
+I gathered myself up with fear and difficulty, threw myself on my horse,
+and came hither like a fool to get myself hanged for a rogue."
+
+"Thou seest, honoured brother," said the Abbot to the Sub-Prior, "in
+what favour thou art with our blessed Patroness, that she herself
+becomes the guardian of thy paths--Not since the days of our blessed
+founder hath she shown such grace to any one. All unworthy were we to
+hold spiritual superiority over thee, and we pray thee to prepare for
+thy speedy removal to Aberbrothwick."
+
+"Alas! my lord and father," said the Sub-Prior, "your words pierce my
+very soul. Under the seal of confession will I presently tell thee why
+I conceive myself rather the baffled sport of a spirit of another sort,
+than the protected favourite of the heavenly powers. But first let me
+ask this unhappy man a question or two."
+
+"Do as ye list," replied the Abbot--"but you shall not convince me that
+it is fitting you remain in this inferior office in the convent of Saint
+Mary."
+
+"I would ask of this poor man," said Father Eustace, "for what purpose
+he nourished the thought of putting to death one who never did him
+evil?"
+
+"Ay! but thou didst menace me with evil," said the ruffian, "and no
+one but a fool is menaced twice. Dost thou not remember what you said
+touching the Primate and Lord James, and the black pool of Jedwood?
+Didst thou think me fool enough to wait till thou hadst betrayed me to
+the sack and the fork! There were small wisdom in that, methinks--as
+little as in coming hither to tell my own misdeeds--I think the devil
+was in me when I took this road--I might have remembered the proverb,
+'Never Friar forgot feud.'"
+
+"And it was solely for that--for that only hasty word of mine, uttered
+in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?" said
+Father Eustace.
+
+"Ay! for that, and--for the love of thy gold crucifix," said Christie of
+the Clinthill.
+
+"Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal--the glittering earth--so
+far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?--Father Abbot,
+I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to my
+mercy."
+
+"Nay, brother," interposed the Sacristan, "to your doom, if you will,
+not to your mercy--Remember, we are not all equally favoured by our
+blessed Lady, nor is it likely that every frock in the Convent will
+serve as a coat of proof when a lance is couched against it."
+
+"For that very reason," said the Sub-Prior, "I would not that for my
+worthless self the community were to fall at feud with Julian of Avenel,
+this man's master."
+
+"Our Lady forbid!" said the Sacristan, "he is a second Julian the
+Apostate."
+
+"With our reverend father the Abbot's permission, then," said Father
+Eustace, "I desire this man be freed from his chains, and suffered to
+depart uninjured;--and here, friend," he added, giving him the golden
+crucifix, "is the image for which thou wert willing to stain thy hands
+with murder. View it well, and may it inspire thee with other and better
+thoughts than those which referred to it as a piece of bullion! Part
+with it, nevertheless, if thy necessities require, and get thee one
+of such coarse substance that Mammon shall have no share in any of the
+reflections to which it gives rise. It was the bequest of a dear friend
+to me; but dearer service can it never do than that of winning a soul to
+Heaven."
+
+The Borderer, now freed from his chains, stood gazing alternately on
+the Sub-Prior, and on the golden crucifix. "By Saint Giles," said he,
+"I understand ye not!--An ye give me gold for couching my lance at thee,
+what would you give me to level it at a heretic?"
+
+"The Church," said the Sub-Prior, "will try the effect of her spiritual
+censures to bring these stray sheep into the fold, ere she employ the
+edge of the sword of Saint Peter."
+
+"Ay, but," said the ruffian, "they say the Primate recommends a little
+strangling and burning in aid of both censure and of sword. But fare ye
+weel, I owe you a life, and it may be I will not forget my debt."
+
+The bailie now came bustling in, dressed in his blue coat and
+bandaliers, and attended by two or three halberdiers. "I have been a
+thought too late in waiting upon your reverend lordship. I am grown
+somewhat fatter since the field of Pinkie, and my leathern coat slips
+not on so soon as it was wont; but the dungeon is ready, and though, as
+I said, I have been somewhat late--"
+
+Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the officer's nose, to
+his great amazement.
+
+"You have been indeed somewhat late, bailie," said he, "and I am greatly
+obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on. If
+the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been
+out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even,
+and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have
+much the air of a hog in armour."
+
+Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire--"An it
+were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave--"
+
+"Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions," said Christie of the Clinthill,
+"I will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well."
+
+"Hardened wretch!" said Father Eustace, "art thou but this instant
+delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of
+slaughter?"
+
+"I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave," said the bailie,
+"and teach thee thine Oremus."
+
+"I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day," said he
+of the Clinthill.
+
+"I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,"
+answered the secular officer of the Church.
+
+"Thou art thyself as strong a thief as ever rode," retorted Christie;
+"and if the worms were once feasting on that fat carcass of thine I
+might well hope to have thine office, by favour of these reverend men."
+
+"A cast of their office, and a cast of mine," answered the bailie; "a
+cord and a confessor, that is all thou wilt have from us."
+
+"Sirs," said the Sub-Prior, observing that his brethren began to take
+more interest than was exactly decorous in this wrangling betwixt
+justice and iniquity, "I pray you both to depart--Master Bailie,
+retire with your halberdiers, and trouble not the man whom we have
+dismissed.--And thou, Christie, or whatever be thy name, take thy
+departure, and remember thou owest thy life to the Lord Abbot's
+clemency."
+
+"Nay, as to that," answered Christie, "I judge that I owe it to your
+own; but impute it to whom ye list, I owe a life among ye, and there is
+an end." And whistling as he went, he left the apartment, seeming as if
+he held the life which he had forfeited not worthy further thanks.
+
+"Obstinate even to brutality!" said Father Eustace; "and yet who knows
+but some better ore may lie under so rude an exterior?"
+
+"Save a thief from the gallows," said the Sacristan--"you know the rest
+of the proverb; and admitting, as may Heaven grant, that our lives and
+limbs are safe from this outrageous knave, who shall insure our meal and
+our malt, our herds and our flocks?"
+
+"Marry, that will I, my brethren," said an aged monk. "Ah, brethren, you
+little know what may be made of a repentant robber. In Abbot Ingilram's
+days--ay, and I remember them as it were yesterday--the freebooters were
+the best welcome men that came to Saint Mary's. Ay, they paid tithe of
+every drove that they brought over from the South, and because they
+were something lightly come by, I have known them make the tithe a
+seventh--that is, if their confessor knew his business--ay, when we saw
+from the tower a score of fat bullocks, or a drove of sheep, coming down
+the valley, with two or three stout men-at-arms behind them with their
+glittering steel caps, and their black-jacks, and their long lances, the
+good Lord Abbot Ingilram was wont to say--he was a merry man--there come
+the tithes of the spoilers of the Egyptians! Ay, and I have seen the
+famous John the Armstrang--a fair man he was and a goodly, the more
+pity that hemp was ever heckled for him--I have seen him come into the
+Abbey-church with nine tassels of gold in his bonnet, and every tassel
+made of nine English nobles, and he would go from chapel to chapel, and
+from image to image, and from altar to altar, on his knees--and leave
+here a tassel, and there a noble, till there was as little gold on his
+bonnet as on my hood--you will find no such Border thieves now!"
+
+"No, truly, Brother Nicolas," answered the Abbot; "they are more apt to
+take any gold the Church has left, than to bequeath or bestow any--and
+for cattle, beshrew me if I think they care whether beeves have fed on
+the meadows of Lanercost Abbey or of Saint Mary's!"
+
+"There is no good thing left in them," said Father Nicolas; "they are
+clean naught--Ah, the thieves that I have seen!--such proper men! and as
+pitiful as proper, and as pious as pitiful!"
+
+"It skills not talking of it, Brother Nicolas," said the Abbot; "and I
+will now dismiss you, my brethren, holding your meeting upon this our
+inquisition concerning the danger of our reverend Sub-Prior, instead of
+the attendance on the lauds this evening--Yet let the bells be duly rung
+for the edification of the laymen without, and also that the novices may
+give due reverence.--And now, benedicite, brethren! The cellarer will
+bestow on each a grace-cup and a morsel as ye pass the buttery, for ye
+have been turmoiled and anxious, and dangerous it is to fall asleep in
+such case with empty stomach."
+
+"_Gratias agimus quam maximas, Domine reverendissime_," replied the
+brethren, departing in their due order.
+
+But the Sub-Prior remained behind, and falling on his knees before the
+Abbot, as he was about to withdraw, craved him to hear under the seal
+of confession the adventures of the day. The reverend Lord Abbot yawned,
+and would have alleged fatigue; but to Father Eustace, of all men,
+he was ashamed to show indifference in his religious duties. The
+confession, therefore, proceeded, in which Father Eustace told all the
+extraordinary circumstances which had befallen him during the journey.
+And being questioned by the Abbot, whether he was not conscious of any
+secret sin, through which he might have been subjected for a time to the
+delusions of evil spirits, the Sub-Prior admitted, with frank avowal,
+that he thought he might have deserved such penance for having judged
+with unfraternal rigour of the report of Father Philip the Sacristan.
+
+"Heaven," said the penitent, "may have been willing to convince me, not
+only that he can at pleasure open a communication betwixt us and beings
+of a different, and, as we word it, supernatural class, but also to
+punish our pride of superior wisdom, or superior courage, or superior
+learning."
+
+It is well said that virtue is its own reward; and I question if duty
+was ever more completely recompensed, than by the audience which
+the reverend Abbot so unwillingly yielded to the confession of the
+Sub-Prior. To find the object of his fear shall we say, or of his envy,
+or of both, accusing himself of the very error with which he had so
+tacitly charged him, was a corroboration of the Abbot's judgment,
+a soothing of his pride, and an allaying of his fears. The sense
+of triumph, however, rather increased than diminished his natural
+good-humour; and so far was Abbot Boniface from being disposed to
+tyrannize over his Sub-Prior in consequence of this discovery, that
+in his exhortation he hovered somewhat ludicrously betwixt the natural
+expression of his own gratified vanity, and his timid reluctance to hurt
+the feelings of Father Eustace.
+
+"My brother," said he, _ex cathedra_, "it cannot have escaped your
+judicious observation, that we have often declined our own judgment
+in favour of your opinion, even about those matters which most nearly
+concerned the community. Nevertheless, grieved would we be, could you
+think that we did this, either because we deemed our own opinion less
+pregnant, or our wit more shallow, than that of our brethren. For it
+was done exclusively to give our younger brethren, such as your much
+esteemed self, my dearest brother, that courage which is necessary to a
+free deliverance of your opinion,--we ofttimes setting apart our proper
+judgment, that our inferiors, and especially our dear brother the
+Sub-Prior, may be comforted and encouraged in proposing valiantly his
+own thoughts. Which our deference and humility may, in some sort, have
+produced in your mind, most reverend brother, that self-opinion of parts
+and knowledge, which hath led unfortunately to your over-estimating your
+own faculties, and thereby subjecting yourself, as is but too visible,
+to the japes and mockeries of evil spirits. For it is assured that
+Heaven always holdeth us in the least esteem when we deem of ourselves
+most highly, and also, on the other hand, it may be that we have
+somewhat departed from what became our high seat in this Abbey, in
+suffering ourselves to be too much guided, and even, as it were,
+controlled, by the voice of our inferior. Wherefore," continued the
+Lord Abbot, "in both of us such faults shall and must be amended--you
+hereafter presuming less upon your gifts and carnal wisdom, and I taking
+heed not so easily to relinquish mine own opinion for that of one
+lower in place and in office. Nevertheless, we would not that we should
+thereby lose the high advantage which we have derived, and may yet
+derive, from your wise counsels, which hath been so often recommended to
+us by our most reverend Primate. Wherefore, on affairs of high moment,
+we will call you to our presence in private, and listen to your opinion,
+which, if it shall agree with our own, we will deliver to the Chapter
+as emanating directly from ourselves; thus sparing you, dearest brother,
+that seeming victory which is so apt to engender spiritual pride, and
+avoiding ourselves the temptation of falling into that modest facility
+of opinion, whereby our office is lessened and our person (were that of
+consequence) rendered less important in the eyes of the community over
+which we preside."
+
+Notwithstanding the high notions which, as a rigid Catholic, Father
+Eustace entertained of the sacrament of confession, as his Church calls
+it, there was some danger that a sense of the ridiculous might have
+stolen on him, when he heard his Superior, with such simple cunning,
+lay out a little plan for availing himself of the Sub-Prior's wisdom and
+experience, while he should take the whole credit to himself. Yet his
+conscience immediately told him he was right.
+
+"I should have thought more," he reflected, "of the spiritual Superior,
+and less of the individual. I should have spread my mantle over the
+frailties of my spiritual father, and done what I might to support his
+character, and, of course, to extend his utility among the brethren, as
+well as with others. The Abbot cannot be humbled, but what the community
+must be humbled in his person. Her boast is, that over all her children,
+especially over those called to places of distinction, she can diffuse
+those gifts which are necessary to render them illustrious."
+
+Actuated by these sentiments, Father Eustace frankly assented to the
+charge which his Superior, even in that moment of authority, had rather
+intimated than made, and signified his humble acquiescence in any mode
+of communicating his counsel which might be most agreeable to the Lord
+Abbot, and might best remove from himself all temptation to glory in
+his own wisdom. He then prayed the reverend Father to assign him such
+penance as might best suit his offence, intimating, at the same time,
+that he had already fasted the whole day.
+
+"And it is that I complain of," answered the Abbot, instead of giving
+him credit for his abstinence; "it is these very penances, fasts, and
+vigils, of which we complain; as tending only to generate airs and fumes
+of vanity, which, ascending from the stomach into the head, do but puff
+us up with vain-glory and self-opinion. It is meet and beseeming
+that novices should undergo fasts and vigils; for some part of every
+community must fast, and young stomachs may best endure it. Besides, in
+them it abates wicked thoughts, and the desire of worldly delights. But,
+reverend brother, for those to fast who are dead and mortified to the
+world, as I and thou, is work of supererogation, and is but the matter
+of spiritual pride. Wherefore, I enjoin thee, most reverend brother, go
+to the buttery and drink two cups at least of good wine, eating withal a
+comfortable morsel, such as may best suit thy taste and stomach. And
+in respect that thine opinion of thy own wisdom hath at times made thee
+less conformable to, and companionable with, the weaker and less learned
+brethren, I enjoin thee, during the said repast, to choose for thy
+companion, our reverend brother Nicolas, and without interruption or
+impatience, to listen for a stricken hour to his narration, concerning
+those things which befel in the times of our venerable predecessor,
+Abbot Ingilram, on whose soul may Heaven have mercy! And for such holy
+exercises as may farther advantage your soul, and expiate the faults
+whereof you have contritely and humbly avowed yourself guilty, we
+will ponder upon that matter, and announce our will unto you the next
+morning."
+
+It was remarkable, that after this memorable evening, the feelings of
+the worthy Abbot towards his adviser were much more kindly and friendly
+than when he deemed the Sub-Prior the impeccable and infallible person,
+in whose garment of virtue and wisdom no flaw was to be discerned. It
+seemed as if this avowal of his own imperfections had recommended Father
+Eustace to the friendship of the Superior, although at the same time
+this increase of benevolence was attended with some circumstances,
+which, to a man of the Sub-Prior's natural elevation of mind and temper,
+were more grievous than even undergoing the legends of the dull and
+verbose Father Nicolas. For instance, the Abbot seldom mentioned him to
+the other monks, without designing him our beloved Brother Eustace, poor
+man!--and now and then he used to warn the younger brethren against the
+snares of vainglory and spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more
+rigidly righteous, with such looks and demonstrations as did all but
+expressly designate the Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time
+under such delusions. Upon these occasions, it required all the votive
+obedience of a monk, all the philosophical discipline of the schools,
+and all the patience of a Christian, to enable Father Eustace to
+endure the pompous and patronizing parade of his honest, but somewhat
+thick-headed Superior. He began himself to be desirous of leaving the
+Monastery, or at least he manifestly declined to interfere with its
+affairs, in that marked and authoritative manner, which he had at first
+practised.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Chapter the Eleventh.
+
+
+    You call this education, do you not?
+    Why 'tis the forced march of a herd of bullocks
+    Before a shouting drover. The glad van
+    Move on at ease, and pause a while to snatch
+    A passing morsel from the dewy greensward,
+    While all the blows, the oaths, the indignation,
+    Fall on the croupe of the ill-fated laggard
+    That cripples in the rear.
+                                          OLD PLAY.
+
+Two or three years glided on, during which the storm of the approaching
+alteration in church government became each day louder and more
+perilous. Owing to the circumstances which we have intimated in the
+end of the last chapter, the Sub-Prior Eustace appeared to have altered
+considerably his habits of life. He afforded, on all extraordinary
+occasions, to the Abbot, whether privately, or in the assembled Chapter,
+the support of his wisdom and experience; but in his ordinary habits he
+seemed now to live more for himself, and less for the community, than
+had been his former practice.
+
+He often absented himself for whole days from the convent; and as the
+adventure of Glendearg dwelt deeply on his memory, he was repeatedly
+induced to visit that lonely tower, and to take an interest in the
+orphans who had their shelter under its roof. Besides, he felt a deep
+anxiety to know whether the volume which he had lost, when so strangely
+preserved from the lance of the murderer, had again found its way
+back to the Tower of Glendearg. "It was strange," he thought, "that a
+spirit," for such he could not help judging the being whose voice he had
+heard, "should, on the one side, seek the advancement of heresy, and, on
+the other, interpose to save the life of a zealous Catholic priest."
+
+But from no inquiry which he made of the various inhabitants of the
+Tower of Glendearg could he learn that the copy of the translated
+Scriptures, for which he made such diligent inquiry, had again been seen
+by any of them.
+
+In the meanwhile, the good father's occasional visits were of no
+small consequence to Edward Glendinning and to Mary Avenel. The former
+displayed a power of apprehending and retaining whatever was taught him,
+which tilled Father Eustace with admiration. He was at once acute and
+industrious, alert and accurate; one of those rare combinations of
+talent and industry, which are seldom united.
+
+It was the earnest desire of Father Eustace that the excellent qualities
+thus early displayed by Edward should be dedicated to the service of
+the Church, to which he thought the youth's own consent might be easily
+obtained, as he was of a calm, contemplative, retired habit, and seemed
+to consider knowledge as the principal object, and its enlargement as
+the greatest pleasure, in life. As to the mother, the Sub-Prior had
+little doubt that, trained as she was to view the monks of Saint
+Mary's with such profound reverence, she would be but too happy in an
+opportunity of enrolling one of her sons in its honoured community. But
+the good Father proved to be mistaken in both these particulars.
+
+When he spoke to Elspeth Glendinning of that which a mother best loves
+to hear--the proficiency and abilities of her son--she listened with a
+delighted ear. But when Father Eustace hinted at the duty of dedicating
+to the service of the Church, talents which seemed fitted to defend and
+adorn it, the dame endeavoured always to shift the subject; and when
+pressed farther, enlarged on her own incapacity, as a lone woman, to
+manage the feu; on the advantage which her neighbours of the township
+were often taking of her unprotected state, and on the wish she had that
+Edward might fill his father's place, remain in the tower, and close her
+eyes.
+
+On such occasions the Sub-Prior would answer, that even in a worldly
+point of view the welfare of the family would be best consulted by one
+of the sons entering into the community of Saint Mary's, as it was not
+to be supposed that he would fail to afford his family the important
+protection which he could then easily extend towards them. What could
+be a more pleasing prospect than to see him high in honour? or what more
+sweet than to have the last duties rendered to her by a son, reverend
+for his holiness of life and exemplary manners? Besides, he endeavoured
+to impress upon the dame, that her eldest son, Halbert, whose bold
+temper and headstrong indulgence of a wandering humour, rendered him
+incapable of learning, was, for that reason, as well as that he was her
+eldest born, fittest to bustle through the affairs of the world, and
+manage the little fief.
+
+Elspeth durst not directly dissent from what was proposed, for fear of
+giving displeasure, and yet she always had something to say against it.
+Halbert, she said, was not like any of the neighbour boys--he was taller
+by the head, and stronger by the half, than any boy of his years within
+the Halidome. But he was fit for no peaceful work that could be devised.
+If he liked a book ill, he liked a plough or a pattle worse. He had
+scoured his father's old broadsword--suspended it by a belt round his
+waist, and seldom stirred without it. He was a sweet boy and a gentle
+if spoken fair, but cross him and he was a born devil. "In a word," she
+said, bursting into tears, "deprive me of Edward, good father, and ye
+bereave my house of prop and pillar; for my heart tells me that Halbert
+will take to his father's gates, and die his father's death."
+
+When the conversation came to this crisis, the good-humoured monk
+was always content to drop the discussion for the time, trusting some
+opportunity would occur of removing her prejudices, for such he thought
+them, against Edward's proposed destination.
+
+When, leaving the mother, the Sub-Prior addressed himself to the son,
+animating his zeal for knowledge, and pointing out how amply it might
+be gratified should he agree to take holy orders, he found the same
+repugnance which Dame Elspeth had exhibited. Edward pleaded a want of
+sufficient vocation to so serious a profession--his reluctance to
+leave his mother, and other objections, which the Sub-Prior treated as
+evasive.
+
+"I plainly perceive," he said one day, in answer to them, "that the
+devil has his factors as well as Heaven, and that they are equally, or,
+alas! the former are perhaps more active, in bespeaking for their master
+the first of the market. I trust, young man, that neither idleness, nor
+licentious pleasure, nor the love of worldly gain and worldly grandeur,
+the chief baits with which the great Fisher of souls conceals his hook,
+are the causes of your declining the career to which I would incite you.
+But above all I trust--above all I hope--that the vanity of superior
+knowledge--a sin with which those who have made proficiency in learning
+are most frequently beset--has not led you into the awful hazard of
+listening to the dangerous doctrines which are now afloat concerning
+religion. Better for you that you were as grossly ignorant as the beasts
+which perish, that that the pride of knowledge should induce you to lend
+an ear to the voice of heretics." Edward Glendinning listened to the
+rebuke with a downcast look, and failed not, when it was concluded,
+earnestly to vindicate himself from the charge of having pushed his
+studies into any subjects which the Church inhibited; and so the monk
+was left to form vain conjectures respecting the cause of his reluctance
+to embrace the monastic state.
+
+It is an old proverb, used by Chaucer, and quoted by Elizabeth, that
+"the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;" and it is as true as if
+the poet had not rhymed, or the queen reasoned on it. If Father Eustace
+had not had his thoughts turned so much to the progress of heresy, and
+so little to what was passing in the tower, he might have read, in the
+speaking eyes of Mary Avenel, now a girl of fourteen or fifteen, reasons
+which might disincline her youthful companion towards the monastic vows.
+I have said, that she also was a promising pupil of the good father,
+upon whom her innocent and infantine beauty had an effect of which he
+was himself, perhaps, unconscious. Her rank and expectations entitled
+her to be taught the arts of reading and writing;--and each lesson which
+the monk assigned her was conned over in company with Edward, and by
+him explained and re-explained, and again illustrated, until she became
+perfectly mistress of it.
+
+In the beginning of their studies, Halbert had been their school
+companion. But the boldness and impatience of his disposition soon
+quarrelled with an occupation in which, without assiduity and unremitted
+attention, no progress was to be expected. The Sub-Prior's visits were
+at regular intervals, and often weeks would intervene between them, in
+which case Halbert was sure to forget all that had been prescribed
+for him to learn, and much which he had partly acquired before. His
+deficiencies on these occasions gave him pain, but it was not of that
+sort which produces amendment.
+
+For a time, like all who are fond of idleness, he endeavoured to detach
+the attention of his brother and Mary Avenel from their task, rather
+than to learn his own, and such dialogues as the following would ensue:
+
+"Take your bonnet, Edward, and make haste--the Laird of Colmslie is at
+the head of the glen with his hounds."
+
+"I care not, Halbert," answered the younger brother; "two brace of dogs
+may kill a deer without my being there to see them, and I must help Mary
+Avenel with her lesson."
+
+"Ay! you will labour at the monk's lessons till you turn monk yourself,"
+answered Halbert.--"Mary, will you go with me, and I will show you the
+cushat's nest I told you of?"
+
+"I cannot go with you, Halbert," answered Mary, "because I must study
+this lesson--it will take me long to learn it--I am sorry I am so dull,
+for if I could get my task as fast as Edward, I should like to go with
+you."
+
+"Should you indeed?" said Halbert; "then I will wait for you--and, what
+is more, I will try to get my lesson also."
+
+With a smile and a sigh he took up the primer, and began heavily to
+con over the task which had been assigned him. As if banished from the
+society of the two others, he sat sad and solitary in one of the deep
+window-recesses, and after in vain struggling with the difficulties
+of his task, and his disinclination to learn it, he found himself
+involuntarily engaged in watching the movements of the other two
+students, instead of toiling any longer.
+
+The picture which Halbert looked upon was delightful in itself, but
+somehow or other it afforded very little pleasure to him. The
+beautiful girl, with looks of simple, yet earnest anxiety, was bent
+on disentangling those intricacies which obstructed her progress to
+knowledge, and looking ever and anon to Edward for assistance, while,
+seated close by her side, and watchful to remove every obstacle from her
+way, he seemed at once to be proud of the progress which his pupil made,
+and of the assistance which he was able to render her. There was a bond
+betwixt them, a strong and interesting tie, the desire of obtaining
+knowledge, the pride of surmounting difficulties.
+
+Feeling most acutely, yet ignorant of the nature and source of his own
+emotions, Halbert could no longer endure to look upon this quiet scene,
+but, starting up, dashed his book from him, and exclaimed aloud, "To the
+fiend I bequeath all books, and the dreamers that make them!--I would
+a score of Southrons would come up the glen, and we should learn how
+little all this muttering and scribbling is worth."
+
+Mary Avenol and his brother started, and looked at Halbert with
+surprise, while he went on with great animation, his features swelling,
+and the tears starting into his eyes as he spoke.--"Yes, Mary--I wish
+a score of Southrons came up the glen this very day; and you should see
+one good hand, and one good sword, do more to protect you, than all
+the books that were ever opened, and all the pens that ever grew on a
+goose's wing."
+
+Mary looked a little surprised and a little frightened at his vehemence,
+but instantly replied affectionately, "You are vexed, Halbert, because
+you do not get your lesson so fast as Edward can; and so am I, for I am
+as stupid as you--But come, and Edward shall sit betwixt us and teach
+us."
+
+"He shall not teach _me_," said Halbert, in the same angry mood; "I
+never can teach _him_ to do any thing that is honourable and manly, and
+he shall not teach _me_ any of his monkish tricks.--I hate the monks,
+with their drawling nasal tone like so many frogs, and their long
+black petticoats like so many women, and their reverences, and their
+lordships, and their lazy vassals that do nothing but peddle in the mire
+with plough and harrow from Yule to Michaelmas. I will call none lord,
+but him who wears a sword to make his title good; and I will call none
+man, but he that can bear himself manlike and masterful."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, peace, brother!" said Edward; "if such words were
+taken up and reported out of the house, they would be our mother's
+ruin."
+
+"Report them yourself, then, and they will be _your_ making, and
+nobody's marring save mine own. Say that Halbert Glendinning will never
+be vassal to an old man with a cowl and shaven crown, while there are
+twenty barons who wear casque and plume that lack bold followers. Let
+them grant you these wretched acres, and much meal may they bear you to
+make your _brachan_." He left the room hastily, but instantly returned,
+and continued to speak with the same tone of quick and irritated
+feeling. "And you need not think so much, neither of you, and especially
+you, Edward, need not think so much of your parchment book there, and
+your cunning in reading it. By my faith, I will soon learn to read as
+well as you; and--for I know a better teacher than your grim old
+monk, and a better book than his printed breviary; and since you like
+scholarcraft so well, Mary Avenel, you shall see whether Edward or I
+have most of it." He left the apartment, and came not again.
+
+"What can be the matter with him?" said Mary, following Halbert with her
+eyes from the window, as with hasty and unequal steps he ran up the
+wild glen--"Where can your brother be going, Edward?--what book?--what
+teacher does he talk of?"
+
+"It avails not guessing," said Edward. "Halbert is angry, he knows not
+why, and speaks of he knows not what; let us go again to our lessons,
+and he will come home when he has tired himself with scrambling among
+the crags as usual."
+
+But Mary's anxiety on account of Halbert seemed more deeply rooted.
+She declined prosecuting the task in which they had been so pleasingly
+engaged, under the excuse of a headache; nor could Edward prevail upon
+her to resume it again that morning.
+
+Meanwhile Halbert, his head unbonneted, his features swelled with
+jealous anger, and the tear still in his eye, sped up the wild and upper
+extremity of the little valley of Glendearg with the speed of a roebuck,
+choosing, as if in desperate defiance of the difficulties of the way,
+the wildest and most dangerous paths, and voluntarily exposing himself a
+hundred times to dangers which he might have escaped by turning a little
+aside from them. It seemed as if he wished his course to be as straight
+as that of the arrow to its mark.
+
+He arrived at length in a narrow and secluded _cleuch_, or deep ravine,
+which ran down into the valley, and contributed a scanty rivulet to the
+supply of the brook with which Glendearg is watered. Up this he sped
+with the same precipitate haste which had marked his departure from
+the tower, nor did he pause and look around until he had reached the
+fountain from which the rivulet had its rise.
+
+Here Halbert stopt short, and cast a gloomy, and almost a frightened
+glance around him. A huge rock rose in front, from a cleft of which grew
+a wild holly-tree, whose dark green branches rustled over the spring
+which arose beneath. The banks on either hand rose so high, and
+approached each other so closely, that it was only when the sun was at
+its meridian height, and during the summer solstice, that its rays could
+reach the bottom of the chasm in which he stood. But it was now summer,
+and the hour was noon, so that the unwonted reflection of the sun was
+dancing in the pellucid fountain.
+
+"It is the season and the hour," said Halbert to himself; "and now I--I
+might soon become wiser than Edward with all his pains! Mary should see
+whether he alone is fit to be consulted, and to sit by her side, and
+hang over her as she reads, and point out every word and every letter.
+And she loves me better than him--I am sure she does--for she comes of
+noble blood, and scorns sloth and cowardice.--And do I myself not stand
+here slothful and cowardly as any priest of them all?--Why should I fear
+to call upon this form--this shape?--Already have I endured the vision,
+and why not again? What can it do to me, who am a man of lith and limb,
+and have by my side my father's sword? Does my heart beat--do my hairs
+bristle, at the thought of calling up a painted shadow, and how should
+I face a band of Southrons in flesh and blood? By the soul of the first
+Glendinning, I will make proof of the charm!"
+
+He cast the leathern brogue or buskin from his right foot, planted
+himself in a firm posture, unsheathed his sword, and first looking
+around to collect his resolution, he bowed three times deliberately
+towards the holly-tree, and as often to the little fountain, repeating
+at the same time, with a determined voice, the following rhyme:
+
+  "Thrice to the holly brake--
+  Thrice to the well:--
+  I bid thee awake,
+  White Maid of Avenel!
+
+  "Noon gleams on the Lake--
+  Noon glows on the Fell--
+  Wake thee, O wake,
+  White Maid of Avenel!"
+
+These lines were hardly uttered, when there stood the figure of a female
+clothed in white, within three steps of Halbert Glendinning.
+
+  "I guess'twas frightful there to see
+  A lady richly clad as she--
+  Beautiful exceedingly." [Footnote: Coleridge's Christabelle.]
+
+       *       *       *       *      *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twelfth.
+
+
+  There's something in that ancient superstition,
+  Which, erring as it is, our fancy loves.
+  The spring that, with its thousand crystal bubbles,
+  Bursts from the bosom of some desert rock
+  In secret solitude, may well be deem'd
+  The haunt of something purer, more refined,
+  And mightier than ourselves.
+              OLD PLAY.
+
+Young Halbert Glendinning had scarcely pronounced the mystical rhymes,
+than, as we have mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter, an
+appearance, as of a beautiful female, dressed in white, stood within two
+yards of him. His terror for the moment overcame his natural courage, as
+well as the strong resolution which he had formed, that the figure which
+he had now twice seen should not a third time daunt him. But it would
+seem there is something thrilling and abhorrent to flesh and blood, in
+the consciousness that we stand in presence of a being in form like to
+ourselves, but so different in faculties and nature, that we can neither
+understand its purposes, nor calculate its means of pursuing them.
+
+Halbert stood silent and gasped for breath, his hairs erecting
+themselves on his head---his mouth open--his eyes fixed, and, as the
+sole remaining sign of his late determined purpose, his sword pointed
+towards the apparition. At length with a voice of ineffable sweetness,
+the White Lady, for by that name we shall distinguish this being, sung,
+or rather chanted, the following lines:--
+
+  "Youth of the dark eye, wherefore didst thou call me?
+  Wherefore art thou here, if terrors can appal thee?
+  He that seeks to deal with us must know no fear nor failing!
+  To coward and churl our speech is dark, our gifts are unavailing.
+  The breeze that brought me hither now, must sweep Egyptian ground,
+  The fleecy cloud on which I ride for Araby is bound;
+  The fleecy cloud is drifting by, the breeze sighs for my stay,
+  For I must sail a thousand miles before the close of day."
+
+The astonishment of Halbert began once more to give way to his
+resolution, and he gained voice enough to say, though with a faltering
+accent, "In the name of God, what art thou?" The answer was in melody of
+a different tone and measure:--
+
+  "What I am I must not show--
+  What I am thou couldst not know--
+  Something betwixt heaven and hell--
+  Something that neither stood nor fell--
+  Something that through thy wit or will
+  May work thee good--may work thee ill.
+  Neither substance quite nor shadow,
+  Haunting lonely moor and meadow,
+  Dancing; by the haunted spring,
+  Riding on the whirlwind's wing;
+  Aping in fantastic fashion
+  Every change of human passion,
+
+  While o'er our frozen minds they pass,
+  Like shadows from the mirror'd glass.
+  Wayward, fickle is our mood,
+  Hovering betwixt bad and good,
+  Happier than brief-dated man,
+  Living twenty times his span;
+  Far less happy, for we have
+  Help nor hope beyond the grave!
+  Man awakes to joy or sorrow;
+  Ours the sleep that knows no morrow.
+  This is all that I can show--
+  This is all that thou mayest know."
+
+The White Lady paused, and appeared to await an answer; but, as Halbert
+hesitated how to frame his speech, the vision seemed gradually to fade,
+and became more and more incorporeal. Justly guessing this to be a
+symptom of her disappearance, Halbert compelled himself to say,--"Lady,
+when I saw you in the glen, and when you brought back the black book of
+Mary Avenel, thou didst say I should one day learn to read it."
+
+The White Lady replied,
+
+  "Ay! and I taught thee the word and the spell,
+  To waken me here by the Fairies' Well,
+  But thou hast loved the heron and hawk,
+  More than to seek my haunted walk;
+  And thou hast loved the lance and the sword,
+  More than good text and holy word;
+  And thou hast loved the deer to track,
+  More than the lines and the letters black;
+  And thou art a ranger of moss and of wood,
+  And scornest the nurture of gentle blood."
+
+"I will do so no longer, fair maiden," said Halbert; "I desire to learn;
+and thou didst promise me, that when I did so desire, thou wouldst be
+my helper; I am no longer afraid of thy presence, and I am no longer
+regardless of instruction." As he uttered these words, the figure of
+the White Maiden grew gradually as distinct as it had been at first;
+and what had well-nigh faded into an ill-defined and colourless shadow,
+again assumed an appearance at least of corporeal consistency, although
+the hues were less vivid, and the outline of the figure less distinct
+and defined--so at least it seemed to Halbert--than those of an ordinary
+inhabitant of earth. "Wilt thou grant my request," he said, "fair Lady,
+and give to my keeping the holy book which Mary of Avenel has so often
+wept for?"
+
+The White Lady replied:
+
+  "Thy craven fear my truth accused,
+  Thine idlehood my trust abused;
+  He that draws to harbour late,
+  Must sleep without, or burst the gate.
+
+  There is a star for thee which burn'd.
+  Its influence wanes, its course is turn'd;
+  Valour and constancy alone
+  Can bring thee back the chance that's flown."
+
+"If I have been a loiterer, Lady," answered young Glendinning, "thou
+shalt now find me willing to press forward with double speed. Other
+thoughts have filled my mind, other thoughts have engaged my heart,
+within a brief period--and by Heaven, other occupations shall
+henceforward fill up my time. I have lived in this day the space of
+years--I came hither a boy--I will return a man--a man, such as may
+converse not only with his own kind, but with whatever God permits to be
+visible to him. I will learn the contents of that mysterious volume--I
+will learn why the Lady of Avenel loved it--why the priests feared,
+and would have stolen it--why thou didst twice recover it from their
+hands.--What mystery is wrapt in it?--Speak, I conjure thee!" The lady
+assumed an air peculiarly sad and solemn, as drooping her head, and
+folding her arms on her bosom, she replied:
+
+  "Within that awful volume lies
+  The mystery of mysteries!
+  Happiest they of human race,
+  To whom God has granted grace
+
+  To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
+  To lift the latch, and force the way;
+  And better had they ne'er been born,
+  Who read, to doubt, or read to scorn."
+
+"Give me the volume, Lady," said young Glendinning. "They call me
+idle--they call me dull--in this pursuit my industry shall not fail,
+nor, with God's blessing, shall my understanding. Give me the volume."
+The apparition again replied:
+
+  "Many a fathom dark and deep
+  I have laid the book to sleep;
+  Ethereal fires around it glowing--
+  Ethereal music ever flowing--
+    The sacred pledge of Heav'n
+      All things revere.
+      Each in his sphere,
+    Save man for whom 'twas giv'n:
+  Lend thy hand, and thou shalt spy
+  Things ne'er seen by mortal eye."
+
+Halbert Glendinning boldly reached his hand to the White Lady.
+
+"Fearest thou to go with me?" she said, as his hand trembled at the soft
+and cold touch of her own--
+
+  "Fearest thou to go with me?
+  Still it is free to thee
+    A peasant to dwell:
+  Thou mayst drive the dull steer,
+  And chase the king's deer,
+  But never more come near
+  This haunted well."
+
+"If what thou sayest be true," said the undaunted boy, "my destinies are
+higher than thine own. There shall be neither well nor wood which I dare
+not visit. No fear of aught, natural or supernatural, shall bar my path
+through my native valley."
+
+He had scarce uttered the words, when they both descended through the
+earth with a rapidity which took away Halbert's breath and every other
+sensation, saving that of being hurried on with the utmost velocity. At
+length they stopped with a shock so sudden, that the mortal journeyer
+through this unknown space must have been thrown down with violence, had
+he not been upheld by his supernatural companion.
+
+It was more than a minute, ere, looking around him, he beheld a grotto,
+or natural cavern, composed of the most splendid spars and crystals,
+which returned in a thousand prismatic hues the light of a brilliant
+flame that glowed on an altar of alabaster. This altar, with its fire,
+formed the central point of the grotto, which was of a round form,
+and very high in the roof, resembling in some respects the dome of a
+cathedral. Corresponding to the four points of the compass, there went
+off four long galleries, or arcades, constructed of the same brilliant
+materials with the dome itself, and the termination of which was lost in
+darkness.
+
+No human imagination can conceive, or words suffice to describe, the
+glorious radiance which, shot fiercely forth by the flame, was returned
+from so many hundred thousand points of reflection, afforded by the
+sparry pillars and their numerous angular crystals. The fire itself did
+not remain steady and unmoved, but rose and fell, sometimes ascending
+in a brilliant pyramid of condensed flame half way up the lofty expanse,
+and again fading into a softer and more rosy hue, and hovering, as it
+were, on the surface of the altar to collect its strength for another
+powerful exertion. There was no visible fuel by which it was fed, nor
+did it emit either smoke or vapour of any kind.
+
+What was of all the most remarkable, the black volume so often mentioned
+lay not only unconsumed, but untouched in the slightest degree, amid
+this intensity of fire, which, while it seemed to be of force sufficient
+to melt adamant, had no effect whatever on the sacred book thus
+subjected to its utmost influence.
+
+The White Lady, having paused long enough to let young Glendinning take
+a complete survey of what was around him, now said in her usual chant,
+
+  "Here lies the volume thou boldly hast sought;
+  Touch it, and take it,--'twill dearly be bought!"
+
+Familiarized in some degree with marvels, and desperately desirous of
+showing the courage he had boasted, Halbert plunged his hand, without
+hesitation, into the flame, trusting to the rapidity of the motion, to
+snatch out the volume before the fire could greatly affect him. But he
+was much disappointed. The flame instantly caught upon his sleeve, and
+though he withdrew his hand immediately, yet his arm was so dreadfully
+scorched, that he had well-nigh screamed with pain. He suppressed the
+natural expression of anguish, however, and only intimated the agony
+which he felt by a contortion and a muttered groan. The White Lady
+passed her cold hand over his arm, and, ere she had finished the
+following metrical chant, his pain had entirely gone, and no mark of the
+scorching was visible:
+
+          "Rash thy deed,
+          Mortal weed
+    To immortal flames applying;
+          Rasher trust
+          Has thing of dust,
+    On his own weak worth relying:
+  Strip thee of such fences vain,
+  Strip, and prove thy luck, again."
+
+Obedient to what he understood to be the meaning of his conductress,
+Halbert bared his arm to the shoulder, throwing down the remains of
+his sleeve, which no sooner touched the floor on which he stood than
+it collected itself together, shrivelled itself up, and was without
+any visible fire reduced to light tinder, which a sudden breath of wind
+dispersed into empty space. The White Lady, observing the surprise of
+the youth, immediately repeated--
+
+  "Mortal warp and mortal woof.
+  Cannot brook this charmed roof;
+  All that mortal art hath wrought,
+  In our cell returns to nought.
+  The molten gold returns to clay,
+  The polish'd diamond melts away.
+  All is alter'd, all is flown,
+  Nought stands fast but truth alone.
+  Not for that thy quest give o'er:
+  Courage! prove thy chance once more."
+
+Imboldened by her words, Halbert Glendinning made a second effort, and,
+plunging his bare arm into the flame, took out the sacred volume without
+feeling either heat or inconvenience of any kind. Astonished, and almost
+terrified at his own success, he beheld the flame collect itself, and
+shoot up into one long and final stream, which seemed as if it would
+ascend to the very roof of the cavern, and then, sinking as suddenly,
+became totally extinguished. The deepest darkness ensued; but Halbert
+had no time to consider his situation, for the White Lady had already
+caught his hand, and they ascended to upper air with the same velocity
+with which they had sunk into the earth.
+
+They stood by the fountain in the Corri-nan-shian when they emerged from
+the bowels of the earth; but on casting a bewildered glance around him,
+the youth was surprised to observe, that the shadows had fallen far
+to the east, and that the day was well-nigh spent. He gazed on his
+conductress for explanation, but her figure began to fade before his
+eyes--her cheeks grew paler, her features less distinct, her form became
+shadowy, and blended itself with the mist which was ascending the hollow
+ravine. What had late the symmetry of form, and the delicate, yet clear
+hues of feminine beauty, now resembled the flitting and pale ghost of
+some maiden who has died for love, as it is seen indistinctly and by
+moonlight, by her perjured lover.
+
+"Stay, spirit!" said the youth, imboldened by his success in the
+subterranean dome, "thy kindness must not leave me, as one encumbered
+with a weapon he knows not how to wield. Thou must teach me the art
+to read, and to understand this volume; else what avails it me that I
+possess it?"
+
+But the figure of the White Lady still waned before his eye, until it
+became an outline as pale and indistinct as that of the moon, when the
+winter morning is far advanced, and ere she had ended the following
+chant, she was entirely invisible:--
+
+  "Alas! alas!
+  Not ours the grace
+  These holy characters to trace:
+      Idle forms of painted air,
+      Not to us is given to share
+  The boon bestow'd on Adam's race!
+      With patience bide.
+      Heaven will provide
+  The fitting time, the fitting guide."
+
+The form was already gone, and now the voice itself had melted away in
+melancholy cadence, softening, as if the Being who spoke had been slowly
+wafted from the spot where she had commenced her melody.
+
+It was at this moment that Halbert felt the extremity of the terror
+which he had hitherto so manfully suppressed. The very necessity of
+exertion had given him spirit to make it, and the presence of the
+mysterious Being, while it was a subject of fear in itself, had
+nevertheless given him the sense of protection being near to him. It
+was when he could reflect with composure on what had passed, that a cold
+tremor shot across his limbs, his hair bristled, and he was afraid to
+look around lest he should find at his elbow something more frightful
+than the first vision. A breeze arising suddenly, realized the beautiful
+and wild idea of the most imaginative of our modern bards [Footnote:
+Coleridge.]--
+
+  It fann'd his cheek, it raised his hair,
+    Like a meadow pale in spring;
+  It mingled strangely with his fears,
+    Yet it fell like a welcoming.
+
+The youth stood silent and astonished for a few minutes. It seemed to
+him that the extraordinary Being he had seen, half his terror, half his
+protectress, was still hovering on the gale which swept past him, and
+that she might again make herself sensible to his organs of sight.
+"Speak!" he said, wildly tossing his arms, "speak yet again--be once
+more present, lovely vision!--thrice have I now seen thee, yet the
+idea of thy invisible presence around or beside me, makes my heart beat
+faster than if the earth yawned and gave up a demon."
+
+But neither sound nor appearance indicated the presence of the White
+Lady, and nothing preternatural beyond what he had already witnessed,
+was again audible or visible. Halbert, in the meanwhile, by the very
+exertion of again inviting the presence of this mysterious Being, had
+recovered his natural audacity. He looked around once more, and resumed
+his solitary path down the valley into whose recesses he had penetrated.
+
+Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the storm of passion with
+which he had bounded over stock and crag, in order to plunge himself
+into the Corri-nan-shian, and the sobered mood in which he now returned
+homeward, industriously seeking out the most practicable path, not from
+a wish to avoid danger, but that he might not by personal toil distract
+his attention, deeply fixed on the extraordinary scene which he had
+witnessed. In the former case, he had sought by hazard and bodily
+exertion to indulge at once the fiery excitation of passion, and to
+banish the cause of the excitement from his recollection; while now he
+studiously avoided all interruption to his contemplative walk, lest the
+difficulty of the way should interfere with, or disturb, his own deep
+reflections. Thus slowly pacing forth his course, with the air of a
+pilgrim rather than of a deer-hunter, Halbert about the close of the
+evening regained his paternal tower.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirteenth.
+
+
+  The Miller was of manly make,
+    To meet him was na mows;
+  There durst na ten come him to take,
+    Sae noited he their pows.
+            CHRIST'S KIRK ON THE GREEN.
+
+It was after sunset, as we have already stated, when Halbert Glendinning
+returned to the abode of his father. The hour of dinner was at noon, and
+that of supper about an hour after sunset at this period of the year.
+The former had passed without Halbert's appearing; but this was no
+uncommon circumstance, for the chase, or any other pastime which
+occurred, made Halbert a frequent neglecter of hours; and his mother,
+though angry and disappointed when she saw him not at table, was so much
+accustomed to his occasional absence, and knew so little how to teach
+him more regularity, that a testy observation was almost all the censure
+with which such omissions were visited.
+
+On the present occasion, however, the wrath of good Dame Elspeth soared
+higher than usual. It was not merely on account of the special tup's
+head and trotters, the haggis and the side of mutton, with which her
+table was set forth, but also because of the arrival of no less a person
+than Hob Miller, as he was universally termed, though the man's name was
+Happer.
+
+The object of the Miller's visit to the Tower of Glendearg was like the
+purpose of those embassies which potentates send to each other's courts,
+partly ostensible, partly politic. In outward show, Hob came to visit
+his friends of the Halidome, and share the festivity common among
+country folk, after the barn-yard has been filled, and to renew old
+intimacies by new conviviality. But in very truth he also came to have
+an eye upon the contents of each stack, and to obtain such information
+respecting the extent of the crop reaped and gathered in by each feuar,
+as might prevent the possibility of _abstracted multures_.
+
+All the world knows that the cultivators of each barony or regality,
+temporal or spiritual, in Scotland, are obliged to bring their corn
+to be grinded at the mill of the territory, for which they pay a heavy
+charge, called the _intown multures_. I could speak to the thirlage
+of _invecta et illata_ too, but let that pass. I have said enough
+to intimate that I talk not without book. Those of the _Sucken_, or
+enthralled ground, were liable in penalties, if, deviating from this
+thirlage, (or thraldom,) they carried their grain to another mill. Now
+such another mill, erected on the lands of a lay-baron, lay within a
+tempting and convenient distance of Glendearg; and the Miller was so
+obliging, and his charges so moderate, that it required Hob Miller's
+utmost vigilance to prevent evasions of his right of monopoly.
+
+The most effectual means he could devise was this show of good
+fellowship and neighbourly friendship,--under colour of which he made
+his annual cruise through the barony--numbered every corn-stack, and
+computed its contents by the boll, so that he could give a shrewd hint
+afterwards whether or not the grist came to the right mill.
+
+Dame Elspeth, like her compeers, was obliged to take these domiciliary
+visits in the sense of politeness; but in her case they had not occurred
+since her husband's death, probably because the Tower of Glendearg was
+distant, and there was but a trifling quantity of arable or _infield_
+land attached to it. This year there had been, upon some speculation of
+old Martin's, several bolls sown in the exit-field, which, the season
+being fine, had ripened remarkably well. Perhaps this circumstance
+occasioned the honest Miller's including Glendearg, on this occasion, in
+his annual round Dame Glendinning received with pleasure a visit which
+she used formerly only to endure with patience; and she had changed her
+view of the matter chiefly, if not entirely, because Hob had brought
+with him his daughter Mysie, of whose features she could give so slight
+an account, but whose dress she had described so accurately to the
+Sub-Prior.
+
+Hitherto this girl had been an object of very trifling consideration in
+the eyes of the good widow; but the Sub-Prior's particular and somewhat
+mysterious inquiries had set her brains to work on the subject of Mysie
+of the Mill; and she had here asked a broad question, and there she had
+thrown out an innuendo, and there again she had gradually led on to a
+conversation on the subject of poor Mysie. And from all inquiries
+and investigations she had collected, that Mysie was a dark-eyed,
+laughter-loving wench, with cherry-cheeks, and a skin as white as her
+father's finest bolted flour, out of which was made the Abbot's own
+wastel-bread. For her temper, she sung and laughed from morning to
+night; and for her fortune, a material article, besides that which the
+Miller might have amassed by means of his proverbial golden thumb, Mysie
+was to inherit a good handsome lump of land, with a prospect of the mill
+and mill-acres descending to her husband on an easy lease, if a fair
+word were spoken in season to the Abbot, and to the Prior, and to the
+Sub-Prior, and to the Sacristan, and so forth.
+
+By turning and again turning these advantages over in her own mind,
+Elspeth at length came to be of opinion, that the only way to save her
+son Halbert from a life of "spur, spear, and snaffle," as they called
+that of the border-riders, from the dint of a cloth-yard shaft, or the
+loop of an inch-cord, was, that he should marry and settle, and that
+Mysie Happer should be his destined bride.
+
+As if to her wish, Hob Miller arrived on his strong-built mare, bearing
+on a pillion behind him the lovely Mysie, with cheeks like a peony-rose,
+(if Dame Glendinning had ever seen one,) spirits all afloat with rustic
+coquetry, and a profusion of hair as black as ebony. The _beau-ideal_
+which Dame Glendinning had been bodying forth in her imagination, became
+unexpectedly realized in the buxom form of Mysie Happer, whom, in the
+course of half an hour, she settled upon as the maiden who was to fix
+the restless and untutored Halbert. True, Mysie, as the dame soon saw,
+was like to love dancing round a May-pole as well as managing a domestic
+establishment, and Halbert was like to break more heads than he would
+grind stacks of corn. But then a miller should always be of manly
+make, and has been described so since the days of Chaucer and James I.
+[Footnote: The verse we have chosen for a motto, is from a poem imputed
+to James I. of Scotland. As for the Miller who figures among the
+Canterbury pilgrims, besides his sword and buckler, he boasted other
+attributes, all of which, but especially the last, show that he relied
+more on the strength of the outside than that of the inside of his
+skull.
+
+  The miller was a stout carl for the nones,
+  Full big he was of brawn, and eke of bones;
+  That proved well, for wheresoe'r he cam,
+  At wrestling he wold bear away the ram;
+  He was short shoulder'd, broad, a thick gnar;
+  There n'as no door that he n'old heave of bar,
+  Or break it at a running with his head, &c. ]
+
+Indeed, to be able to outdo and bully the whole _Sucken_, (once more we
+use this barbarous phrase,) in all athletic exercises, was one way to
+render easy the collection of dues which men would have disputed with a
+less formidable champion. Then, as to the deficiencies of the miller's
+wife, the dame was of opinion that they might be supplied by the
+activity of the miller's mother. "I will keep house for the young folk
+myself, for the tower is grown very lonely," thought Dame Glendinning,
+"and to live near the kirk will be mair comfortable in my auld age--and
+then Edward may agree with his brother about the feu, more especially as
+he is a favourite with the Sub-Prior, and then he may live in the auld
+tower like his worthy father before him--and wha kens but Mary Avenel,
+high-blood as she is, may e'en draw in her stool to the chimney-nook,
+and sit down here for good and a'?--It's true she has no tocher, but the
+like of her for beauty and sense ne'er crossed my een; and I have kend
+every wench in the Halidome of St. Mary's--ay, and their mothers that
+bore them--ay, she is a sweet and a lovely creature as ever tied snood
+over brown hair--ay, and then, though her uncle keeps her out of her ain
+for the present time, yet it is to be thought the gray-goose shaft will
+find a hole in his coat of proof, as, God help us! it has done in many a
+better man's--And, moreover, if they should stand on their pedigree and
+gentle race, Edward might say to them, that is, to her gentle kith and
+kin, 'whilk o' ye was her best friend, when she came down the glen to
+Glendearg in a misty evening, on a beast mair like a cuddie than aught
+else?'--And if they tax him with churl's blood, Edward might say, that,
+forby the old proverb, how
+
+  Gentle deed
+  Makes gentle bleid;
+
+yet, moreover, there comes no churl's blood from Glendinning or Brydone;
+for, says Edward--"
+
+The hoarse voice of the Miller at this moment recalled the dame from her
+reverie, and compelled her to remember that if she meant to realize her
+airy castle, she must begin by laying the foundation in civility to
+her guest and his daughter, whom she was at that moment most strangely
+neglecting, though her whole plan turned on conciliating their favour
+and good opinion, and that, in fact, while arranging matters for
+so intimate a union with her company, she was suffering them to sit
+unnoticed, and in their riding gear, as if about to resume their
+journey. "And so I say, dame," concluded the Miller, (for she had not
+marked the beginning of his speech,) "an ye be so busied with your
+housekep, or ought else, why, Mysie and I will trot our way down the
+glen again to Johnnie Broxmouth's, who pressed us right kindly to bide
+with him."
+
+Starting at once from her dream of marriages and intermarriages, mills,
+mill-lands, and baronies, Dame Elspeth felt for a moment like the
+milk-maid in the fable, when she overset the pitcher, on the contents
+of which so many golden dreams were founded. But the foundation of Dame
+Glendinning's hopes was only tottering, not overthrown, and she hastened
+to restore its equilibrium. Instead of attempting to account for her
+absence of mind and want of attention to her guests, which she might
+have found something difficult, she assumed the offensive, like an able
+general when he finds it necessary, by a bold attack, to disguise his
+weakness.
+
+A loud exclamation she made, and a passionate complaint she set up
+against the unkindness of her old friend, who could for an instant doubt
+the heartiness of her welcome to him and to his hopeful daughter; and
+then to think of his going back to Johnny Broxmouth's, when the auld
+tower stood where it did, and had room in it for a friend or two in the
+worst of times--and he too a neighbour that his umquhile gossip Simon,
+blessed be his cast, used to think the best friend he had in
+the Halidome! And on she went, urging her complaint with so much
+seriousness, that she had well-nigh imposed on herself as well as upon
+Hob Miller, who had no mind to take any thing in dudgeon; and as it
+suited his plans to pass the night at Glendearg, would have been
+equally contented to do so even had his reception been less vehemently
+hospitable.
+
+To all Elspeth's expostulations on the unkindness of his proposal to
+leave her dwelling, he answered composedly, "Nay, dame, what could I
+tell? ye might have had other grist to grind, for ye looked as if ye
+scarce saw us--or what know I? ye might bear in mind the words Martin
+and I had about the last barley ye sawed--for I ken dry multures
+[Footnote: Dry multures were a fine, or compensation in money, for not
+grinding at the mill of the thirl. It was, and is, accounted a vexatious
+exaction.] will sometimes stick in the throat. A man seeks but his awn,
+and yet folk shall hold him for both miller and miller's man, that is
+millar and knave, [Footnote: The under miller is, in the language of
+thirlage, called the knave, which, indeed, signified originally his lad.
+(_Knabe_--German,) but by degrees came to be taken in a worse sense. In
+the old translation of the Bible, Paul is made to term himself the knave
+of our Saviour. The allowance of meal taken by the miller's servant was
+called knave-ship.] all the country over."
+
+"Alas, that you will say so, neighbour Hob," said Dame Elspeth, "or that
+Martin should have had any words with you about the mill-dues! I will
+chide him roundly for it, I promise you, on the faith of a true widow.
+You know full well that a lone woman is sore put upon by her servants."
+
+"Nay, dame," said the miller, unbuckling the broad belt which made
+fast his cloak, and served, at the same time, to suspend by his side a
+swinging Andrea Ferrara, "bear no grudge at Martin, for I bear none--I
+take it on me as a thing of mine office, to maintain my right of
+multure, lock, and gowpen. [Note: The multure was the regular exaction
+for grinding the meal. The _lock_, signifying a small quantity, and the
+_gowpen_, a handful, were additional perquisites demanded by the
+miller, and submitted to or resisted by the _Suckener_ as circumstances
+permitted. These and other petty dues were called in general the
+_Sequels_.] And reason good, for as the old song says,
+
+  I live by my mill. God bless her,
+   She's parent, child, and wife.
+
+The poor old slut, I am beholden to her for my living, and bound to
+stand by her, as I say to my mill knaves, in right and in wrong. And so
+should every honest fellow stand by his bread-winner.--And so, Mysie,
+ye may doff your cloak since our neighbour is so kindly glad to see
+us--why, I think, we are as blithe to see her--not one in the Halidome
+pays their multures more duly, sequels, arriage, and carriage, and
+mill-services, used and wont."
+
+With that the Miller hung his ample cloak without farther ceremony upon
+a huge pair of stag's antlers, which adorned at once the naked walls of
+the tower, and served for what we vulgarly call cloak-pins.
+
+In the meantime Dame Elspeth assisted to disembarrass the damsel whom
+she destined for her future daughter-in-law, of her hood, mantle, and
+the rest of her riding gear, giving her to appear as beseemed the buxom
+daughter of the wealthy Miller, gay and goodly, in a white kirtle,
+the seams of which were embroidered with green silken lace or fringe,
+entwined with some silver thread. An anxious glance did Elspoth cast
+upon the good-humoured face, which was now more fully shown to her, and
+was only obscured by a quantity of raven black hair, which the maid
+of the mill had restrained by a snood of green silk, embroidered with
+silver, corresponding to the trimmings of her kirtle. The countenance
+itself was exceedingly comely--the eyes black, large, and roguishly
+good-humoured--the mouth was small--the lips well formed, though
+somewhat full--the teeth were pearly white--and the chin had a very
+seducing dimple in it. The form belonging to this joyous face was full
+and round, and firm and fair. It might become coarse and masculine
+some years hence, which is the common fault of Scottish beauty; but in
+Mysie's sixteenth year she had the shape of a Hebe. The anxious Elspeth,
+with all her maternal partiality, could not help admitting within
+herself, that a better man than Halbert might go farther and fare worse.
+She looked a little giddy, and Halbert was not nineteen; still it was
+time he should be settled, for to that point the dame always returned;
+and here was an excellent opportunity.
+
+The simple cunning of Dame Elspeth now exhausted itself in commendations
+of her fair guest, from the snood, as they say, to the single-soled
+shoe. Mysie listened and blushed with pleasure for the first five
+minutes; but ere ten had elapsed, she began to view the old lady's
+compliments rather as subjects of mirth than of vanity, and was much
+more disposed to laugh at than to be flattered with them, for Nature had
+mingled the good-humour with which she had endowed the damsel with no
+small portion of shrewdness. Even Hob himself began to tire of hearing
+his daughter's praises, and broke in with, "Ay, ay, she is a clever
+quean enough; and, were she five years older, she shall lay a loaded
+sack on an _aver_ [Note: _Aver_--properly a horse of labour.] with e'er
+a lass in the Halidome. But I have been looking for your two sons, dame.
+Men say downby that Halbert's turned a wild springald, and that we may
+have word of him from Westmoreland one moonlight night or another."
+
+"God forbid, my good neighbour; God, in his mercy, forbid!" said Dame
+Glendinning, earnestly; for it was touching the very key-note of her
+apprehensions, to hint any probability that Halbert might become one of
+the marauders so common in the age and country. But, fearful of having
+betrayed too much alarm on this subject, she immediately added, "That
+though, since the last rout at Pinkiecleuch, she had been all of a
+tremble when a gun or a spear was named, or when men spoke of fighting;
+yet, thanks to God and our Lady, her sons were like to live and die
+honest and peaceful tenants to the Abbey, as their father might have
+done, but for that awful hosting which he went forth to with mony a
+brave man that never returned."
+
+"Ye need not tell me of it, dame," said the Miller, "since I was there
+myself, and made two pair of legs (and these were not mine, but my
+mare's,) worth one pair of hands. I judged how it would be, when I
+saw our host break ranks, with rushing on through that broken ploughed
+field, and so as they had made a pricker of me, I e'en pricked off with
+myself while the play was good."
+
+"Ay, ay, neighbour," said the dame, "ye were aye a wise and a wary man;
+if my Simon had had your wit, he might have been here to speak about
+it this day; but he was aye cracking of his good blood and his high
+kindred, and less would not serve him than to bide the bang to the last,
+with the earls, and knights, and squires, that had no wives to greet for
+them, or else had wives that cared not how soon they were widows; but
+that is not for the like of us. But touching my son Halbert, there is no
+fear of him; for if it should be his misfortune to be in the like case,
+he has the best pair of heels in Halidome, and could run almost as fast
+as your mare herself."
+
+"Is this he, neighbour?" quoth the Miller.
+
+"No," replied the mother; "that is my youngest son, Edward, who can read
+and write like the Lord Abbot himself, if it were not a sin to say so."
+
+"Ay," said the Miller; "and is that the young clerk the Sub-Prior thinks
+so much of? they say he will come far ben that lad; wha kens but he may
+come to be Sub-Prior himself?--as broken a ship has come to land."
+
+"To be a Prior, neighbour Miller," said Edward, "a man must first be a
+priest, and for that I judge I have little vocation."
+
+"He will take to the pleugh-pettle, neighbour," said the good dame; "and
+so will Halbert too, I trust. I wish you saw Halbert.--Edward, where is
+your brother?"
+
+"Hunting, I think," replied Edward; "at least he left us this morning to
+join the Laird of Colmslie and his hounds. I have heard them baying in
+the glen all day."
+
+"And if I had heard that music," said the Miller, "it would have done my
+heart good, ay, and may be taken me two or three miles out of my road.
+When I was the Miller of Morebattle's knave, I have followed the hounds
+from Eckford to the foot of Hounam-law--followed them on foot, Dame
+Glendinning, ay, and led the chase when the Laird of Cessford and his
+gay riders were all thrown out by the mosses and gills. I brought the
+stag on my back to Hounam Cross, when the dogs had pulled him down. I
+think I see the old gray knight, as he sate so upright on his strong
+war-horse, all white with foam; and 'Miller,' said he to me, 'an thou
+wilt turn thy back on the mill, and wend with me, I will make a man of
+thee.' But I chose rather to abide by clap and happer, and the better
+luck was mine; for the proud Percy caused hang five of the Laird's
+henchmen at Alnwick for burning a rickle of houses some gate beyond
+Fowberry, and it might have been my luck as well as another man's."
+
+"Ah, neighbour, neighbour," said Dame Glendinning, "you were aye wise
+and wary; but if you like hunting, I must say Halbert's the lad to
+please you. He hath all those fair holiday terms of hawk and hound as
+ready in his mouth as Tom with the tod's tail, that is the Lord Abbot's
+ranger."
+
+"Ranges he not homeward at dinner-time, dame," demanded the Miller; "for
+we call noon the dinner-hour at Kennaquhair?"
+
+The widow was forced to admit that, even at this important period of the
+day, Halbert was frequently absent; at which the Miller shook his
+head, intimating, at the same time, some allusion to the proverb of
+MacFarlane's geese, which "liked their play better than their meat."
+[Footnote: A brood of wild-geese, which long frequented one of the
+uppermost islands in Loch-Lomond, called Inch-Tavoe, were supposed to
+have some mysterious connexion with the ancient family of MacFarlane of
+that ilk, and it is said were never seen after the ruin and extinction
+of that house. The MacFarlanes had a house and garden upon that same
+island of Inch-Tavoe. Here James VI. was, on one occasion, regaled by
+the chieftain. His Majesty had been previously much amused by the geese
+pursuing each other on the Loch. But, when one which was brought
+to table, was found to be tough and ill fed, James observed--"that
+MacFarlane's geese liked their play better than their meat," a proverb
+which has been current ever since.]
+
+That the delay of dinner might not increase the Miller's disposition to
+prejudge Halbert, Dame Glendinning called hastily on Mary Avenel to take
+her task of entertaining Mysie Happer, while she herself rushed to
+the kitchen, and, entering at once into the province of Tibb Tacket,
+rummaged among trenchers and dishes, snatched pots from the fire, and
+placed pans and gridirons on it, accompanying her own feats of personal
+activity with such a continued list of injunctions to Tibb, that Tibb at
+length lost patience, and said, "Here was as muckle wark about meating
+an auld miller, as if they had been to banquet the blood of Bruce." But
+this, as it was supposed to be spoken aside, Dame Glendinning did not
+think it convenient to hear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Fourteenth.
+
+
+  Nay, let me have the friends who eat my victuals,
+  As various as my dishes.--The feast's naught,
+  Where one huge plate predominates. John Plaintext,
+  He shall be mighty beef, our English staple;
+  The worthy Alderman, a butter'd dumpling;
+  Yon pair of whisker'd Cornets, ruffs and rees:
+  Their friend the Dandy, a green goose in sippets.
+  And so the hoard is spread at once and fill'd
+  On the same principle--Variety.
+                           NEW PLAY.
+
+"And what brave lass is this?" said Hob Miller, as Mary Avenel entered
+the apartment to supply the absence of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.
+
+"The young Lady of Avenel, father," said the Maid of the Mill, dropping
+as low a curtsy as her rustic manners enabled her to make. The Miller,
+her father, doffed his bonnet, and made his reverence, not altogether so
+low perhaps as if the young lady had appeared in the pride of rank and
+riches, yet so as to give high birth the due homage which the Scotch for
+a length of time scrupulously rendered to it.
+
+Indeed, from having had her mother's example before her for so many
+years, and from a native sense of propriety and even of dignity,
+Mary Avenel had acquired a demeanour, which marked her title to
+consideration, and effectually checked any attempt at familiarity on the
+part of those who might be her associates in her present situation, but
+could not be well termed her equals. She was by nature mild, pensive,
+and contemplative, gentle in disposition, and most placable when
+accidentally offended; but still she was of a retired and reserved
+habit, and shunned to mix in ordinary sports, even--when the rare
+occurrence of a fair or wake gave her an opportunity of mingling
+with companions of her own age. If at such scenes she was seen for an
+instant, she appeared to behold them with the composed indifference of
+one to whom their gaiety was a matter of no interest, and who seemed
+only desirous to glide away from the scene as soon as she possibly
+could.
+
+Something also had transpired concerning her being born on All-hallow
+Eve, and the powers with which that circumstance was supposed to invest
+her over the invisible world. And from all-these particulars combined,
+the young men and women of the Halidome used to distinguish Mary among
+themselves by the name of the Spirit of Avenel, as if the fair but
+fragile form, the beautiful but rather colourless cheek, the dark blue
+eye, and the shady hair, had belonged rather to the immaterial than
+the substantial world. The general tradition of the White Lady, who was
+supposed to wait on the fortunes of the family of Avenel, gave a sort of
+zest to this piece of rural wit. It gave great offence, however, to
+the two sons of Simon Glendinning; and when the expression was in
+their presence applied to the young lady, Edward was wont to check the
+petulance of those who used it by strength of argument, and Halbert by
+strength of arm. In such cases Halbert had this advantage, that although
+ho could render no aid to his brother's argument, yet when circumstances
+required it, he was sure to have that of Edward, who never indeed
+himself commenced a fray, but, on the other hand, did not testify any
+reluctance to enter into combat in Halbert's behalf or in his rescue.
+
+But the zealous attachment of the two youths, being themselves, from
+the retired situation in which they dwelt, comparative strangers in
+the Halidome, did not serve in any degree to alter the feelings of the
+inhabitants towards the young lady, who seemed to have dropped amongst
+them from another sphere of life. Still, however, she was regarded with
+respect, if not with fondness; and the attention of the Sub-Prior to the
+family, not to mention the formidable name of Julian Avenel, which every
+new incident of those tumultuous times tended to render more famous,
+attached to his niece a certain importance. Thus some aspired to her
+acquaintance out of pride while the more timid of the feuars were
+anxious to inculcate upon their children the necessity of being
+respectful to the noble orphan. So that Mary Avenel, little loved
+because little known, was regarded with a mysterious awe, partly derived
+from fear of her uncle's moss-troopers, and partly from her own retired
+and distant habits, enhanced by the superstitious opinions of the time
+and country.
+
+It was not without some portion of this awe, that Mysie felt herself
+left alone in company with a young person so distant in rank, and so
+different in bearing, from herself; for her worthy father had taken
+the first opportunity to step out unobserved, in order to mark how the
+barnyard was filled, and what prospect it afforded of grist to the mill.
+In youth, however, there is a sort of free-masonry, which, without much
+conversation, teaches young persons to estimate each other's character,
+and places them at ease on the shortest acquaintance. It is only when
+taught deceit by the commerce of the world, that we learn to shroud our
+character from observation, and to disguise our real sentiments from
+those with whom we are placed in communion.
+
+Accordingly, the two young women were soon engaged in such objects of
+interest as best became their age. They visited Mary Avenel's pigeons,
+which she nursed with the tenderness of a mother; they turned over her
+slender stores of finery, which yet contained some articles that excited
+the respect of her companion, though Mysie was too good-humoured
+to nourish envy. A golden rosary, and some female ornaments marking
+superior rank, had been rescued in the moment of their utmost adversity,
+more by Tibb Tacket's presence of mind, than by the care of their
+owner,--who was at that sad period too much sunk in grief to pay
+any attention to such circumstances. They struck Mysie with a deep
+impression of veneration; for, excepting what the Lord Abbot and the
+convent might possess, she did not believe there was so much real gold
+in the world as was exhibited in these few trinkets, and Mary, however
+sage and serious, was not above being pleased with the admiration of her
+rustic companion.
+
+Nothing, indeed, could exhibit a stronger contrast than the appearance
+of the two girls;--the good-humoured laughter-loving countenance of
+the Maid of the Mill, who stood gazing with unrepressed astonishment
+on whatever was in her inexperienced eye rare and costly, and with an
+humble, and at the same time cheerful acquiescence in her inferiority,
+asking all the little queries about the use and value of the ornaments,
+while Mary Avenel, with her quiet composed dignity and placidity
+of manner, produced them one after another for the amusement of her
+companion.
+
+As they became gradually more familiar, Mysie of the Mill was just
+venturing to ask, why Mary Avenel never appeared at the May-pole, and to
+express her wonder when the young lady said she disliked dancing, when
+a trampling of horses at the gate of the tower interrupted their
+conversation.
+
+Mysie flew to the shot-window in the full ardour of unrestrained female
+curiosity. "Saint Mary! sweet lady! here come two well-mounted gallants;
+will you step this way to look at them ?"
+
+"No," said Mary Avenel, "you shall tell me who they are."
+
+"Well, if you like it better," said Mysie--"but how shall I know
+them?---Stay, I do know one of them, and so do you, lady; he is a blithe
+man, somewhat light of hand, they say, but the gallants of these days
+think no great harm of that. He is your uncle's henchman, that they call
+Christie of the Clinthill; and he has not his old green jerkin and the
+rusty blackjack over it, but a scarlet cloak, laid down with silver lace
+three inches broad, and a breast-plate you might see to dress your hair
+in, as well as in that keeking-glass in the ivory frame that you showed
+me even now. Come, dear lady, come to the shot-window and see him."
+
+"If it be the man you mean, Mysie," replied the orphan of Avenel, "I
+shall see him soon enough, considering either the pleasure or comfort
+the sight will give me."
+
+"Nay, but if you will not come to see gay Christie," replied the Maid of
+the Mill, her face flushed with eager curiosity, "come and tell me who
+the gallant is that is with him, the handsomest, the very lovesomest
+young man I ever saw with sight."
+
+"It is my foster-brother, Halbert Glendinning," said Mary, with,
+apparent indifference; for she had been accustomed to call the sons of
+Elspeth her foster-brethren, and to live with them as if they had been
+brothers in earnest.
+
+"Nay, by Our Lady, that it is not," said Mysie; "I know the favour
+of both the Glendinnings well, and I think this rider be not of our
+country. He has a crimson velvet bonnet, and long brown hair falling
+down under it, and a beard on his upper lip, and his chin clean and
+close shaved, save a small patch on the point of the chin, and a
+sky-blue jerkin slashed and lined with white satin, and trunk-hose to
+suit, and no weapon but a rapier and dagger--Well, if I was a man, I
+would never wear weapon but the rapier! it is so slender and becoming,
+instead of having a cartload of iron at my back, like my father's
+broad-sword with its great rusty basket-hilt. Do you not delight in the
+rapier and poniard, lady?"
+
+"The best sword," answered Mary, "if I must needs answer a question of
+the sort, is that which is drawn in the best cause, and which is best
+used when it is out of the scabbard."
+
+"But can you not guess who this stranger should be?" said Mysie.
+
+"Indeed, I cannot even attempt it; but to judge by his companion, it is
+no matter how little he is known," replied Mary.
+
+"My benison on his bonny face," said Mysie, "if he is not going to
+alight here! Now, I am as much pleased as if my father had given me the
+silver earrings he has promised me so often;--nay, you had as well come
+to the window, for you must see him by and by whether you will or not."
+I do not know how much sooner Mary Avenel might have sought the point
+of observation, if she had not been scared from it by the unrestrained
+curiosity expressed by her buxom friend; but at length the same feeling
+prevailed over her sense of dignity, and satisfied with having displayed
+all the indifference that was necessary in point of decorum, she no
+longer thought herself bound to restrain her curiosity.
+
+From the outshot or projecting window, she could perceive that Christie
+of the Clinthill was attended on the present occasion by a very gay and
+gallant cavalier, who, from the nobleness of his countenance and manner,
+his rich and handsome dress, and the showy appearance of his horse and
+furniture, must, she agreed with her new friend, be a person of some
+consequence.
+
+Christie also seemed conscious of something, which made him call out
+with more than his usual insolence of manner, "What, ho! so ho!
+the house! Churl peasants, will no one answer when I call?--Ho!
+Martin,--Tibb,--Dame Glendinning--a murrain on you, must we stand
+keeping our horses in the cold here, and they steaming with heat, when
+we have ridden so sharply?"
+
+At length he was obeyed, and old Martin made his appearance. "Ha!" said
+Christie, "art thou there, old Truepenny? here, stable me these steeds,
+and see them well bedded, and stretch thine old limbs by rubbing them
+down; and see thou quit not the stable till there is not a turned hair
+on either of them."
+
+Martin took the horses to the stable as commanded, but suppressed not
+his indignation a moment after he could vent it with safety. "Would not
+any one think," he said to Jasper, an old ploughman, who, in coming to
+his assistance, had heard Christie's imperious injunctions, "that this
+loon, this Christie of the Clinthill, was laird or lord at least of him?
+No such thing, man! I remember him a little dirty turnspit boy in the
+house of Avenel, that every body in a frosty morning like this warmed
+his fingers by kicking or cuffing! and now he is a gentleman, and
+swears, d--n him and renounce him, as if the gentlemen could not so
+much as keep their own wickedness to themselves, without the like of
+him going to hell in their very company, and by the same road. I have as
+much a mind as ever I had to my dinner, to go back and tell him to sort
+his horse himself, since he is as able as I am."
+
+"Hout tout, man!" answered Jasper, "keep a calm sough; better to fleech
+a fool than fight with him."
+
+Martin acknowledged the truth of the proverb, and, much comforted
+therewith, betook himself to cleaning the stranger's horse with great
+assiduity, remarking, it was a pleasure to handle a handsome nag,
+and turned over the other to the charge of Jasper. Nor was it until
+Christie's commands were literally complied with that he deemed it
+proper, after fitting ablutions, to join the party in the spence; not
+for the purpose of waiting upon them, as a mere modern reader might
+possibly expect, but that he might have his share of dinner in their
+company.
+
+In the meanwhile, Christie had presented his companion to Dame
+Glendinning as Sir Piercie Shafton, a friend of his and of his master,
+come to spend three or four days with little din in the tower. The good
+dame could not conceive how she was entitled to such an honour, and
+would fain have pleaded her want of every sort of convenience to
+entertain a guest of that quality. But, indeed, the visiter, when
+he cast his eyes round the bare walls, eyed the huge black chimney,
+scrutinized the meagre and broken furniture of the apartment, and
+beheld the embarrassment of the mistress of the family, intimated great
+reluctance to intrude upon Dame Glendinning a visit, which could scarce,
+from all appearances, prove otherwise than an inconvenience to her, and
+a penance to himself.
+
+But the reluctant hostess and her guest had to do with an inexorable
+man, who silenced all expostulations with, "such was his master's
+pleasure. And, moreover," he continued, "though the Baron of Avenel's
+will must, and ought to prove law to all within ten miles around him,
+yet here, dame," he said, "is a letter from your petticoated baron, the
+lord-priest yonder, who enjoins you, as you regard his pleasure, that
+you afford to this good knight such decent accommodation as is in your
+power, suffering him to live as privately as he shall desire.--And
+for you, Sir Piercie Shafton," continued Christie, "you will judge for
+yourself, whether secrecy and safety is not more your object even now,
+than soft beds and high cheer. And do not judge of the dame's goods
+by the semblance of her cottage; for you will see by the dinner she is
+about to spread for us, that the vassal of the kirk is seldom found with
+her basket bare." To Mary Avenel, Christie presented the stranger, after
+the best fashion he could, as to the niece of his master the baron.
+
+While he thus laboured to reconcile Sir Piercie Shafton to his fate, the
+widow, having consulted her son Edward on the real import of the Lord
+Abbot's injunction, and having found that Christie had given a true
+exposition, saw nothing else left for her but to make that fate as easy
+as she could to the stranger. He himself also seemed reconciled to his
+lot by some feeling probably of strong necessity, and accepted with
+a good grace the hospitality which the dame offered with a very
+indifferent one.
+
+In fact, the dinner, which soon smoked before the assembled guests,
+was of that substantial kind which warrants plenty and comfort. Dame
+Glendinning had cooked it after her best manner; and, delighted with the
+handsome appearance which her good cheer made when placed on the table,
+forgot both her plans and the vexations which interrupted them, in the
+hospitable duty of pressing her assembled visiters to eat and drink,
+watching every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with fresh
+supplies ere the guest could utter a negative.
+
+In the meanwhile, the company attentively regarded each other's motions,
+and seemed endeavouring to form a judgment of each other's character.
+Sir Piercie Shafton condescended to speak to no one but to Mary Avenel,
+and on her he conferred exactly the same familiar and compassionate,
+though somewhat scornful sort of attention, which a pretty fellow of
+these days will sometimes condescend to bestow on a country miss, when
+there is no prettier or more fashionable woman present. The manner
+indeed was different, for the etiquette of those times did not permit
+Sir Piercie Shafton to pick his teeth, or to yawn, or to gabble like the
+beggar whose tongue (as he says) was cut out by the Turks, or to affect
+deafness or blindness, or any other infirmity of the organs. But though
+the embroidery of his conversation was different, the groundwork was the
+same, and the high-flown and ornate compliments with which the gallant
+knight of the sixteenth century inter-larded his conversation, were as
+much the offspring of egotism and self-conceit, as the jargon of the
+coxcombs of our own days.
+
+The English knight was, however, something daunted at finding that Mary
+Avenel listened with an air of indifference, and answered with wonderful
+brevity, to all the fine things which ought, as he conceived, to have
+dazzled her with their brilliancy, and puzzled her by their obscurity.
+But if he was disappointed in making the desired, or rather the expected
+impression, upon her whom he addressed, Sir Piercie Shafton's discourse
+was marvellous in the ears of Mysie the Miller's daughter, and not the
+less so that she did not comprehend the meaning of a single word which
+he uttered. Indeed, the gallant knight's language was far too courtly to
+be understood by persons of much greater acuteness than Mysie's.
+
+It was about this period, that the "only rare poet of his time, the
+witty, comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John Lylly--he
+that sate at Apollo's table, and to whom Phoebus gave a wreath of his
+own bays without snatching" [Footnote: Such, and yet more extravagant,
+are the compliments paid to this author by his editor, Blount.
+Notwithstanding all exaggeration, Lylly was really a man of wit and
+imagination, though both were deformed by the most unnatural affectation
+that ever disgraced a printed page.]--he, in short, who wrote that
+singularly coxcomical work, called _Euphues and his England_, was in the
+very zenith of his absurdity and his reputation. The quaint, forced,
+and unnatural style which he introduced by his "Anatomy of Wit," had
+a fashion as rapid as it was momentary--all the court ladies were his
+scholars, and to _parler Euphuisme_, was as necessary a qualification to
+a courtly gallant, as those of understanding how to use his rapier, or
+to dance a measure.
+
+It was no wonder that the Maid of the Mill was soon as effectually
+blinded by the intricacies of this erudite and courtly style of
+conversation, as she had ever been by the dust of her father's own
+meal-sacks. But there she sate with her mouth and eyes as open as the
+mill-door and the two windows, showing teeth as white as her father's
+bolted flour, and endeavouring to secure a word or two for her own
+future use out of the pearls of rhetoric which Sir Piercie Shafton
+scattered around him with such bounteous profusion.
+
+For the male part of the company, Edward felt ashamed of his own manner
+and slowness of speech, when he observed the handsome young courtier,
+with an ease and volubility of which he had no conception, run over
+all the commonplace topics of high-flown gallantry. It is true the good
+sense and natural taste of young Glendinning soon informed him that the
+gallant cavalier was speaking nonsense. But, alas! where is the man of
+modest merit, and real talent, who has not suffered from being outshone
+in conversation and outstripped in the race of life, by men of less
+reserve, and of qualities more showy, though less substantial? and well
+constituted must the mind be, that can yield up the prize without envy
+to competitors more worthy than himself.
+
+Edward Glendinning had no such philosophy. While he despised the jargon
+of the gay cavalier, he envied the facility with which he could run on,
+as well as the courtly tone and expression, and the perfect ease and
+elegance with which he offered all the little acts of politeness to
+which the duties of the table gave opportunity. And if I am to speak
+truth, I must own that he envied those qualities the more as they
+were all exercised in Mary Avenel's service, and, although only so
+far accepted as they could not be refused, intimated a wish on the
+stranger's part to place himself in her good graces, as the only person
+in the room to whom he thought it worth while to recommend himself. His
+title, rank, and very handsome figure, together with some sparks of wit
+and spirit which flashed across the cloud of nonsense which he uttered,
+rendered him, as the words of the old song say, "a lad for a lady's
+viewing;" so that poor Edward, with all his real worth and acquired
+knowledge, in his home-spun doublet, blue cap, and deerskin trowsers,
+looked like a clown beside the courtier, and, feeling the full
+inferiority, nourished no good-will to him by whom he was eclipsed.
+
+Christie, on the other hand, as soon as he had satisfied to the full a
+commodious appetite, by means of which persons of his profession could,
+like the wolf and eagle, gorge themselves with as much food at one meal
+as might serve them for several days, began also to feel himself more in
+the back-ground than he liked to be. This worthy had, amongst his other
+good qualities, an excellent opinion of himself; and, being of a bold
+and forward disposition, had no mind to be thrown into the shade by
+any one. With an impudent familiarity which such persons mistake for
+graceful ease, he broke in upon the knight's finest speeches with as
+little remorse as he would have driven the point of his lance through a
+laced doublet. Sir Piercie Shafton, a man of rank and high birth, by no
+means encouraged or endured this familiarity, and requited the intruder
+either with total neglect, or such laconic replies as intimated a
+sovereign contempt for the rude spearman, who affected to converse with
+him upon terms of equality.
+
+The Miller held his peace; for, as his usual conversation turned chiefly
+on his clapper and toll-dish, he had no mind to brag of his wealth in
+presence of Christie of the Clinthill, or to intrude his discourse on
+the English cavalier.
+
+A little specimen of the conversation may not be out of place, were it
+but to show young ladies what fine things they have lost by living when
+Euphuism is out of fashion.
+
+"Credit me, fairest lady," said the knight, "that such is the cunning
+of our English courtiers, of the hodiernal strain, that, as they
+have infinitely refined upon the plain and rusticial discourse of
+our fathers, which, as I may say, more beseemed the mouths of country
+roisterers in a May-game than that of courtly gallants in a galliard,
+so I hold it ineffably and unutterably impossible, that those who may
+succeed us in that garden of wit and courtesy shall alter or amend it.
+Venus delighted but in the language of Mercury, Bucephalus will stoop to
+no one but Alexander, none can sound Apollo's pipe but Orpheus."
+
+"Valiant sir," said Mary, who could scarcely help laughing, "we have
+but to rejoice in the chance which hath honoured this solitude with a
+glimpse of the sun of courtesy, though it rather blinds than enlightens
+us."
+
+"Pretty and quaint, fairest lady," answered the Euphuist. "Ah, that I
+had with me my Anatomy of Wit--that all-to-be-unparalleled volume--that
+quintessence of human wit--that treasury of quaint
+invention--that exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and
+inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered manual, of all that is worthy
+to be known--which indoctrines the rude in civility, the dull in
+intellectuality, the heavy in jocosity, the blunt in gentility, the
+vulgar in nobility, and all of them in that unutterable perfection, of
+human utterance, that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient
+to praise, that art which, when we call it by its own name of Euphuism,
+we bestow on it its richest panegyric."
+
+"By Saint Mary," said Christie of the Clinthill, "if your worship
+had told me that you had left such stores of wealth as you talk of at
+Prudhoe Castle, Long Dickie and I would have had them off with us if man
+and horse could have carried them; but you told us of no treasure I wot
+of, save the silver tongs for turning up your mustachoes."
+
+The knight treated this intruder's mistake--for certainly Christie had
+no idea that all these epithets which sounded so rich and splendid,
+were lavished upon a small quarto volume--with a stare, and then turning
+again to Mary Avenel, the only person whom he thought worthy to address,
+he proceeded in his strain of high-flown oratory, "Even thus," said he,
+"do hogs contemn the splendour of Oriental pearls; even thus are the
+delicacies of a choice repast in vain offered to the long-eared grazer
+of the common, who turneth from them to devour a thistle. Surely as
+idle is it to pour forth the treasures of oratory before the eyes of the
+ignorant, and to spread the dainties of the intellectual banquet before
+those who are, morally and metaphysically speaking, no better than
+asses."
+
+"Sir Knight, since that is your quality," said Edward, "we cannot strive
+with you in loftiness of language; but I pray you in fair courtesy,
+while you honour my father's house with your presence, to spare us such
+vile comparisons."
+
+"Peace, good villagio," said the knight, gracefully waving his hand, "I
+prithee peace, kind rustic; and you, my guide, whom I may scarce call
+honest, let me prevail upon you to imitate the laudable taciturnity of
+that honest yeoman, who sits as mute as a mill-post, and of that
+comely damsel, who seems as with her ears she drank in what she did not
+altogether comprehend, even as a palfrey listening to a lute, whereof,
+howsoever, he knoweth not the gamut."
+
+"Marvellous fine words," at length said Dame Glendinning, who began to
+be tired of sitting so long silent, "marvellous fine words, neighbour
+Happer, are they not?"
+
+"Brave words--very brave words--very exceeding pyet words," answered the
+Miller; "nevertheless, to speak my mind, a lippy of bran were worth a
+bushel of them."
+
+"I think so too, under his worship's favour," answered Christie of the
+Clinthill. "I well remember that at the race of Morham, as we call
+it, near Berwick, I took a young Southern fellow out of saddle with my
+lance, and cast him, it might be, a gad's length from his nag; and so,
+as he had some gold on his laced doublet, I deemed he might ha' the like
+on it in his pocket too, though that is a rule that does not aye hold
+good--So I was speaking to him of ransom, and out he comes with a
+handful of such terms as his honour there hath gleaned up, and craved me
+for mercy, as I was a true son of Mars, and such like."
+
+"And obtained no mercy at thy hand, I dare be sworn," said the knight,
+who deigned not to speak Euphuism excepting to the fair sex.
+
+"By my troggs," replied Christie, "I would have thrust my lance down his
+throat, but just then they flung open that accursed postern-gate, and
+forth pricked old Hunsdon, and Henry Carey, and as many fellows at their
+heels as turned the chase northward again. So I e'en pricked Bayard with
+the spur, and went off with the rest; for a man should ride when he may
+not wrestle, as they say in Tynedale."
+
+"Trust me," said the knight, again turning to Mary Avenel, "if I do
+not pity you, lady, who, being of noble blood, are thus in a manner
+compelled to abide in the cottage of the ignorant, like the precious
+stone in the head of the toad, or like a precious garland on the brow of
+an ass.--But soft, what gallant have we here, whose garb savoureth more
+of the rustic than doth his demeanour, and whose looks seem more lofty
+than his habit; even as--"
+
+"I pray you, Sir Knight," said Mary, "to spare your courtly similitudes
+for refined ears, and give me leave to name unto you my foster-brother,
+Halbert Glendinning."
+
+"The son of the good dame of the cottage, as I opine," answered the
+English knight; "for by some such name did my guide discriminate
+the mistress of this mansion, which you, madam, enrich with your
+presence.--And yet, touching this juvenal, he hath that about him which
+belongeth to higher birth, for all are not black who dig coals--"
+
+"Nor all white who are millers," said honest Happer, glad to get in a
+word, as they say, edgeways.
+
+Halbert, who had sustained the glance of the Englishman with some
+impatience, and knew not what to make of his manner and language,
+replied with some asperity, "Sir Knight, we have in this land of
+Scotland an ancient saying, 'Scorn not the bush that bields you'--you
+are a guest of my father's house to shelter you from danger, if I am
+rightly informed by the domestics. Scoff not its homeliness, nor that of
+its inmates--ye might long have abidden at the court of England, ere
+we had sought your favour, or cumbered you with our society. Since your
+fate has sent you hither amongst us, be contented with such fare and
+such converse as we can afford you, and scorn us not for our kindness;
+for the Scots wear short patience and long daggers."
+
+All eyes were turned on Halbert while he was thus speaking, and
+there was a general feeling that his countenance had an expression of
+intelligence, and his person an air of dignity, which they had never
+before observed. Whether it were that the wonderful Being with whom
+he had so lately held communication, had bestowed on him a grace and
+dignity of look and bearing which he had not before, or whether the
+being conversant in high matters, and called to a destiny beyond that
+of other men, had a natural effect in giving becoming confidence to his
+language and manner, we pretend not to determine. But it was evident
+to all, that, from this day, young Halbert was an altered man; that
+he acted with the steadiness, promptitude, and determination,
+which belonged to riper years, and bore himself with a manner which
+appertained to higher rank.
+
+The knight took the rebuke with good humour. "By my mine honour," he
+said, "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal--nevertheless, I spoke
+not as in ridicule of the roof which relieves me, but rather in your own
+praise, to whom, if this roof be native, thou mayst nevertheless rise
+from its lowliness; even as the lark, which maketh its humble nest
+in the furrow, ascendeth towards the sun, as well as the eagle which
+buildeth her eyry in the cliff."
+
+This high-flown discourse was interrupted by Dame Glendinning, who, with
+all the busy anxiety of a mother, was loading her son's trencher with
+food, and dinning in his ear her reproaches on account of his prolonged
+absence. "And see," she said, "that you do not one day get such a sight
+while you are walking about among the haunts of them that are not of our
+flesh and bone, as befell Mungo Murray when he slept on the greensward
+ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at daybreak in the wild
+hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are looking for deer, the
+red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon Thorburn, who never
+overcast the wound that he took from a buck's horn. And see, when you go
+swaggering about with a long broadsword by your side, whilk it
+becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet with them that have
+broadsword and lance both--there are enow of rank riders in this land,
+that neither fear God nor regard man."
+
+Here her eye "in a fine frenzy rolling," fell full upon that of Christie
+of the Clinthill, and at once her fears for having given offence
+interrupted the current of maternal rebuke, which, like rebuke
+matrimonial, may be often better meant than timed. There was something
+of sly and watchful significance in Christie's eye, an eye gray, keen,
+fierce, yet wily, formed to express at once cunning, and malice, which
+made the dame instantly conjecture she had said too much, while she
+saw in imagination her twelve goodly cows go lowing down the glen in a
+moonlight night, with half a score of Border spearsmen at their heels.
+
+Her voice, therefore, sunk from the elevated tone of maternal authority
+into a whimpering apologetic sort of strain, and she proceeded to say,
+"It is no that I have ony ill thoughts of the Border riders, for Tibb
+Tacket there has often heard me say that I thought spear and bridle as
+natural to a Borderman as a pen to a priest, or a feather-fan to a lady;
+and--have you not heard me say it, Tibb?"
+
+Tibb showed something less than her expected alacrity in attesting her
+mistress's deep respect for the freebooters of the southland hills; but,
+thus conjured, did at length reply, "Hout ay, mistress, I'se warrant I
+have heard you say something like that."
+
+"Mother!" said Halbert, in a firm and commanding tone of voice, "what
+or whom is it that you fear under my father's roof?--I well hope that
+it harbours not a guest in whose presence you are afraid to say your
+pleasure to me or my brother? I am sorry I have been detained so late,
+being ignorant of the fair company which I should encounter on my
+return.--I pray you let this excuse suffice: and what satisfies you,
+will, I trust, be nothing less than acceptable to your guests."
+
+An answer calculated so jistly betwixt the submission due to his parent,
+and the natural feeling of dignity in one who was by birth master of
+the mansion, excited universal satisfaction. And as Elspeth herself
+confessed to Tibb on the same evening, "She did not think it had been in
+the callant. Till that night, he took pets and passions if he was spoke
+to, and lap through the house like a four-year-auld at the least word of
+advice that was minted at him, but now he spoke as grave and as douce as
+the Lord Abbot himself. She kendna," she said, "what might be the upshot
+of it, but it was like he was a wonderfu' callant even now."
+
+The party then separated, the young men retiring to their apartments,
+the elder to their household cares. While Christie went to see his horse
+properly accommodated, Edward betook himself to his book, and Halbert,
+who was as ingenious in employing his hands as he had hitherto appeared
+imperfect in mental exertion, applied himself to constructing a place
+of concealment in the floor of his apartment by raising a plank, beneath
+which he resolved to deposit that copy of the Holy Scriptures which had
+been so strangely regained from the possession of men and spirits.
+
+In the meanwhile Sir Piercie Shafton sate still as a stone, in the chair
+in which he had deposited himself, his hands folded on his breast, his
+legs stretched straight out before him and resting upon the heels, his
+eyes cast up to the ceiling as if he had meant to count every mesh of
+every cobweb with which the arched roof was canopied, wearing at the
+same time a face of as solemn and imperturbable gravity, as if his
+existence had depended on the accuracy of his calculation.
+
+He could scarce be roused from his listless state of contemplative
+absorption so as to take some supper, a meal at which the younger
+females appeared not. Sir Piercie stared around twice or thrice as if he
+missed something; but he asked not for them, and only evinced his sense
+of a proper audience being wanting, by his abstraction and absence of
+mind, seldom speaking until he was twice addressed, and then replying,
+without trope or figure, in that plain English which nobody could speak
+better when he had a mind.
+
+Christie, finding himself in undisturbed possession of the conversation,
+indulged all who chose to listen with details of his own wild and
+inglorious warfare, while Dame Elspeth's curch bristled with horror,
+and Tibb Tacket, rejoiced to find herself once more in the company of
+a jackman, listened to his tales, like Desdemona to Othello's, with
+undisguised delight. Meantime the two young Glendinnings were each
+wrapped up in his own reflections, and only interrupted in them by the
+signal to move bedward.
+
+        *        *         *        *         *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Fifteenth.
+
+
+  He strikes no coin,'tis true, but coins new phrases,
+  And vends them forth as knaves vend gilded counters,
+  Which wise men scorn, and fools accept in payment.
+                             OLD PLAY.
+
+In the morning Christie of the Clinthill was nowhere to be seen. As this
+worthy personage did seldom pique himself on sounding a trumpet before
+his movements, no one was surprised at his moonlight departure, though
+some alarm was excited lest he had not made it empty-handed. So, in the
+language of the national ballad,
+
+  Some ran to cupboard, and some to kist,
+  But nought was away that could be mist.
+
+All was in order, the key of the stable left above the door, and that of
+the iron-grate in the inside of the lock. In short, the retreat had been
+made with scrupulous attention to the security of the garrison, and so
+far Christie left them nothing to complain of.
+
+The safety of the premises was ascertained by Halbert, who instead of
+catching up a gun or cross-bow, and sallying out for the day as had been
+his frequent custom, now, with a gravity beyond his years, took a survey
+of all around the tower, and then returned to the spence, or public
+apartment, in which, at the early hour of seven, the morning meal was
+prepared.
+
+There he found the Euphuist in the same elegant posture of abstruse
+calculation which he had exhibited on the preceding evening, his arms
+folded in the same angle, his eyes turned up to the same cobwebs, and
+his heels resting on the ground as before. Tired of this affectation of
+indolent importance, and not much flattered with his guest's persevering
+in it to the last, Halbert resolved at once to break the ice, being
+determined to know what circumstance had brought to the tower of
+Glendinning a guest at once so supercilious and so silent.
+
+"Sir Knight," he said with some firmness, "I have twice given you good
+morning, to which the absence of your mind hath, I presume, prevented
+you from yielding attention, or from making return. This exchange of
+courtesy is at your pleasure to give or withhold--But, as what I have
+further to say concerns your comfort and your motions in an especial
+manner, I will entreat you to give me some signs of attention, that I
+may be sure I am not wasting my words on a monumental image."
+
+At this unexpected address, Sir Piercie Shafton opened his eyes, and
+afforded the speaker a broad stare; but as Halbert returned the glance
+without either confusion or dismay, the knight thought proper to
+change his posture, draw in his legs, raise his eyes, fix them on young
+Glendinning, and assume the appearance of one who listens to what is
+said to him. Nay, to make his purpose more evident, he gave voice to his
+resolution in these words, "Speak! we do hear."
+
+"Sir Knight," said the youth, "it is the custom of this Halidome, or
+patrimony of St. Mary's, to trouble with inquiries no guests who receive
+our hospitality, providing they tarry in our house only for a single
+revolution of the sun. We know that both criminals and debtors come
+hither for sanctuary, and we scorn to extort from the pilgrim, whom
+chance may make our guest, an avowal of the cause of his pilgrimage and
+penance. But when one so high above our rank as yourself, Sir Knight,
+and especially one to whom the possession of such pre-eminence is not
+indifferent, shows his determination to be our guest for a longer time,
+it is our usage to inquire of him whence he comes, and what is the cause
+of his journey?"
+
+The English knight gaped twice or thrice before he answered, and then
+replied in a bantering tone, "Truly, good villagio, your question hath
+in it somewhat of embarrassment, for you ask me of things concerning
+which I am not as yet altogether determined what answer I may find it
+convenient to make. Let it suffice thee, kind juvenal, that thou hast
+the Lord Abbot's authority for treating me to the best of that power
+of thine, which, indeed, may not always so well suffice for my
+accommodation as either of us would desire."
+
+"I must have a more precise answer than this, Sir Knight," said the
+young Glendinning.
+
+"Friend," said the knight, "be not outrageous. It may suit your northern
+manners thus to press harshly upon the secrets of thy betters; but
+believe me, that even as the lute, struck by an unskilful hand, doth
+produce discords, so----" At this moment the door of the apartment
+opened, and Mary Avenel presented herself--"But who can talk of
+discords," said the knight, assuming his complimentary vein and humour,
+"when the soul of harmony descends upon us in the presence of surpassing
+beauty! For even as foxes, wolves, and other animals void of sense and
+reason, do fly from the presence of the resplendent sun of heaven when
+he arises in his glory, so do strife, wrath, and all ireful passions
+retreat, and, as it were, scud away, from the face which now beams upon
+us, with power to compose our angry passions, illuminate our errors and
+difficulties, soothe our wounded minds, and lull to rest our disorderly
+apprehensions; for as the heat and warmth of the eye of day is to the
+material and physical world, so is the eye which I now bow down before
+to that of the intellectual microcosm."
+
+He concluded with a profound bow; and Mary Avenel, gazing from one to
+the other, and plainly seeing that something was amiss, could only say,
+"For heaven's sake, what is the meaning of this?"
+
+The newly-acquired tact and intelligence of her foster-brother was as
+yet insufficient to enable him to give an answer. He was quite uncertain
+how he ought to deal with a guest, who preserving a singularly high tone
+of assumed superiority and importance, seemed nevertheless so little
+serious in what he said, that it was quite impossible to discern with
+accuracy whether he was in jest or earnest.
+
+Forming, however, the internal resolution to bring Sir Piercie Shafton
+to a reckoning at a more fit place and season, he resolved to prosecute
+the matter no farther at present; and the entrance of his mother with
+the damsel of the Mill, and the return of the honest Miller from the
+stack-yard, where he had been numbering and calculating the probable
+amount of the season's grist, rendered farther discussion impossible for
+the moment.
+
+In the course of the calculation it could not but strike the man of meal
+and grindstones, that after the church's dues were paid, and after all
+which he himself could by any means deduct from the crop, still the
+residue which must revert to Dame Glendinning could not be less than
+considerable. I wot not if this led the honest Miller to nourish any
+plans similar to those adopted by Elspeth; but it is certain that he
+accepted with grateful alacrity an invitation which the dame gave to his
+daughter, to remain a week or two as her guest at Glendearg.
+
+The principal persons being thus in high good humour with each other,
+all business gave place to the hilarity of the morning repast; and so
+much did Sir Piercie appear gratified by the attention which was paid to
+every word that he uttered by the nut-brown Mysie, that, notwithstanding
+his high birth and distinguished quality, he bestowed on her some of the
+more ordinary and second-rate tropes of his elocution.
+
+Mary Avenel, when relieved from the awkwardness of feeling the full
+weight of his conversation addressed to herself, enjoyed it much
+more; and the good knight, encouraged by those conciliating marks of
+approbation from the sex, for whose sake he cultivated his oratorical
+talents, made speedy intimation of his purpose to be more communicative
+than he had shown himself in his conversation with Halbert Glendinning,
+and gave them to understand, that it was in consequence of some pressing
+danger that he was at present their involuntary guest.
+
+The conclusion of the breakfast was a signal for the separation of the
+company. The Miller went to prepare for his departure; his daughter
+to arrange matters for her unexpected stay; Edward was summoned to
+consultation by Martin concerning some agricultural matter, in which
+Halbert could not be brought to interest himself; the dame left the room
+upon her household concerns, and Mary was in the act of following her,
+when she suddenly recollected, that if she did so, the strange knight
+and Halbert must be left alone together, at the risk of another quarrel.
+
+The maiden no sooner observed this circumstance, than she instantly
+returned from the door of the apartment, and, seating herself in a small
+stone window-seat, resolved to maintain that curb which she was sensible
+her presence imposed on Halbert Glendinning, of whose quick temper she
+had some apprehensions.
+
+The stranger marked her motions, and, either interpreting them as
+inviting his society, or obedient to those laws of gallantry which
+permitted him not to leave a lady in silence and solitude, he instantly
+placed himself near to her side and opened the conversation as
+follows:--
+
+"Credit me, fair lady" he said, addressing Mary Avenel, "it much
+rejoiceth me, being, as I am, a banished man from the delights of mine
+own country, that I shall find here in this obscure and silvan cottage
+of the north, a fair form and a candid soul, with whom I may explain my
+mutual sentiments. And let me pray you in particular, lovely lady, that,
+according to the universal custom now predominant in our court, the
+garden of superior wits, you will exchange with me some epithet whereby
+you may mark my devotion to your service. Be henceforward named, for
+example, my Protection, and let me be your Affability."
+
+"Our northern and country manners, Sir Knight, do not permit us to
+exchange epithets with those to whom we are strangers," replied Mary
+Avenel.
+
+"Nay, but see now," said the knight, "how you are startled! even as the
+unbroken steed, which swerves aside from the shaking of a handkerchief,
+though he must in time encounter the waving of a pennon. This courtly
+exchange of epithets of honour, is no more than the compliments which
+pass between valour and beauty, wherever they meet, and under whatever
+circumstances. Elizabeth of England herself calls Philip Sydney
+her Courage, and he in return calls that princess his Inspiration.
+Wherefore, my fair Protection, for by such epithet it shall be mine to
+denominate you--"
+
+"Not without the young lady's consent, sir!" interrupted Halbert; "most
+truly do I hope your courtly and quaint breeding will not so far prevail
+over the more ordinary rules of civil behaviour."
+
+"Fair tenant of an indifferent copyhold," replied the knight, with the
+same coolness and civility of mien, but in a tone somewhat more lofty
+than he used to the young lady, "we do not in the southern parts, much
+intermingle discourse, save with those with whom we may stand on some
+footing of equality; and I must, in all discretion, remind you, that the
+necessity which makes us inhabitants of the same cabin, doth not place
+us otherwise on a level with each other."
+
+"By Saint Mary," replied young Glendinning, "it is my thought that it
+does; for plain men hold, that he who asks the shelter is indebted to
+him who gives it; and so far, therefore, is our rank equalized while
+this roof covers us both."
+
+"Thou art altogether deceived," answered Sir Piercie; "and that thou
+mayst fully adapt thyself to our relative condition, know that I account
+not myself thy guest, but that of thy master, the Lord Abbot of Saint
+Mary's, who, for reasons best known to himself and me, chooseth to
+administer his hospitality to me through the means of thee, his servant
+and vassal, who art, therefore, in good truth, as passive an instrument
+of my accommodation as this ill-made and rugged joint-stool on which
+I sit, or as the wooden trencher from which I eat my coarse commons.
+Wherefore," he added, turning to Mary, "fairest mistress, or rather,
+as I said before, most lovely Protection--" [Footnote: There are many
+instances to be met with in the ancient dramas of this whimsical and
+conceited custom of persons who formed an intimacy, distinguishing:
+each, other by some quaint epithet. In _Every Man out of his Humour_,
+there is a humorous debate upon names most fit to bind the relation
+betwixt Sogliardo and Cavaliero Shift, which ends by adopting those of
+Countenance and Resolution. What is more to the point is in the speech
+of Hedon, a voluptuary and a courtier in _Cynthia's Revels_. "you
+know that I call Madam Plilantia my _Honour,_ and she calls me her
+_Ambition._ Now, when I meet her in the presence, anon, I will come to
+her and say, 'Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my sense with the
+lilies of your hand, and now I will taste the roses of your lip.' To
+which she cannot but blushing answer, 'Nay, now you are too ambitious;'
+and then do I reply, 'I cannot be too ambitious of Honour, sweet lady.
+Wilt not be good?'"--I think there is some remnant of this foppery
+preserved in masonic lodges, where each brother is distinguished by a
+name in the Lodge, signifying some abstract quality as Discretion, or
+the like. See the poems of Gavin Wilson.]
+
+Mary Avenel was about to reply to him, when the stern, fierce, and
+resentful expression of voice and countenance with which Halbert
+exclaimed, "not from the King of Scotland, did he live, would I brook
+such terms!" induced her to throw herself between him and the stranger,
+exclaiming, "for God's sake, Halbert, beware what you do!"
+
+"Fear not, fairest Protection," replied Sir Piercie, with the utmost
+serenity, "that I can be provoked by this rustical and mistaught juvenal
+to do aught misbecoming your presence or mine own dignity; for as soon
+shall the gunner's linstock give fire unto the icicle, as the spark of
+passion inflame my blood, tempered as it is to serenity by the respect
+due to the presence of my gracious Protection."
+
+"You may well call her your protection, Sir Knight" said Halbert; "by
+Saint Andrew, it is the only sensible word I have heard you speak! But
+we may meet where her protection shall no longer afford you shelter."
+
+"Fairest Protection," continued the courtier, not even honouring with a
+look, far less with a direct reply, the threat of the incensed Halbert,
+"doubt not that thy faithful Affability will be more commoved by the
+speech of this rudesby, than the bright and serene moon is perturbed by
+the baying of the cottage-cur, proud of the height of his own dunghill,
+which, in his conceit, lifteth him nearer unto the majestic luminary."
+
+To what lengths so unsavoury a simile might have driven Halbert's
+indignation, is left uncertain; for at that moment Edward rushed into
+the apartment with the intelligence that two most important officers
+of the Convent, the Kitchener and Refectioner, were just arrived with
+a sumpter-mule, loaded with provisions, announcing that the Lord
+Abbot, the Sub-Prior, and the Sacristan, were on their way thither. A
+circumstance so very extraordinary had never been recorded in the annals
+of Saint Mary's, or in the traditions of Glendearg, though there was a
+faint legendary report that a certain Abbot had dined there in old days,
+after having been bewildered in a hunting expedition amongst the wilds
+which lie to the northward. But that the present Lord Abbot should
+have taken a voluntary journey to so wild and dreary a spot, the very
+Kamtschatka of the Halidome, was a thing never dreamt of; and the news
+excited the greatest surprise in all the members of the family saving
+Halbert alone.
+
+This fiery youth was too full of the insult he had received to think of
+anything as unconnected with it. "I am glad of it," he exclaimed; "I
+am glad the Abbot comes hither. I will know of him by what right this
+stranger is sent hither to domineer over us under our father's roof, as
+if we were slaves and not freemen. I will tell the proud priest to his
+beard--"
+
+"Alas! alas! my brother," said Edward, "think what these words may cost
+thee!"
+
+"And what will, or what can they cost me," said Halbert, "that I should
+sacrifice my human feelings and my justifiable resentment to the fear of
+what the Abbot can do?"
+
+"Our mother--our mother!" exclaimed Edward; "think, if she is deprived
+of her home, expelled from her property, how can you amend what your
+rashness may ruin?"
+
+"It is too true, by Heaven!" said Halbert, striking his forehead. Then,
+stamping his foot against the floor to express the full energy of the
+passion to which he dared no longer give vent, he turned round and left
+the apartment.
+
+Mary Avenel looked at the stranger knight, while she was endeavouring to
+frame a request that he would not report the intemperate violence of her
+foster-brother to the prejudice of his family, in the mind of the Abbot.
+But Sir Piercie, the very pink of courtesy, conjectured her meaning from
+her embarrassment, and waited not to be entreated.
+
+"Credit me, fairest Protection," said he, "your Affability is less than
+capable of seeing or hearing, far less of reciting or reiterating, aught
+of an unseemly nature which may have chanced while I enjoyed the Elysium
+of your presence. The winds of idle passion may indeed rudely agitate
+the bosom of the rude; but the heart of the courtier is polished to
+resist them. As the frozen lake receives not the influence of the
+breeze, even so--"
+
+The voice of Dame Glendinning, in shrill summons, here demanded Mary
+Avenel's attendance, who instantly obeyed, not a little glad to escape
+from the compliments and similes of this courtlike gallant. Nor was it
+apparently less a relief on his part; for no sooner was she past
+the threshold of the room, than he exchanged the look of formal and
+elaborate politeness which had accompanied each word he had uttered
+hitherto, for an expression of the utmost lassitude and ennui; and after
+indulging in one or two portentous yawns, broke forth into a soliloquy.
+
+"What the foul fiend sent this wench hither? As if it were not
+sufficient plague to be harboured in a hovel that would hardly serve for
+a dog's kennel in England, baited by a rude peasant-boy, and dependent
+on the faith of a mercenary ruffian, but I cannot even have time to
+muse over my own mishap, but must come aloft, frisk, fidget, and make
+speeches, to please this pale hectic phantom, because she has gentle
+blood in her veins? By mine honour, setting prejudice aside, the
+mill-wench is the more attractive of the two--But patienza, Piercie
+Shafton; thou must not lose thy well-earned claim to be accounted
+a devout servant of the fair sex, a witty-brained, prompt, and
+accomplished courtier. Rather thank heaven, Piercie Shafton, which hath
+sent thee a subject, wherein, without derogating from thy rank, (since
+the honours of the Avenel family are beyond dispute,) thou mayest find
+a whetstone for thy witty compliments, a strop whereon to sharpen thine
+acute engine, a butt whereat to shoot the arrows of thy gallantry. For
+even as a Bilboa blade, the more it is rubbed, the brighter and the
+sharper will it prove, so--But what need I waste my stock of similitudes
+in holding converse with myself?--Yonder comes the monkish retinue, like
+some half score of crows winging their way slowly up the valley--I hope,
+a'gad, they have not forgotten my trunk-mails of apparel amid the ample
+provision they have made for their own belly-timber--Mercy, a'gad, I
+were finely helped up if the vesture has miscarried among the thievish
+Borderers!"
+
+Stung by this reflection, he ran hastily down stairs, and caused his
+horse to be saddled, that he might, as soon as possible, ascertain this
+important point, by meeting the Lord Abbot and his retinue as they came
+up the glen. He had not ridden a mile before he met them advancing
+with the slowness and decorum which became persons of their dignity and
+profession. The knight failed not to greet the Lord Abbot with all
+the formal compliments with which men of rank at that period exchanged
+courtesies. He had the good fortune to find that his mails were numbered
+among the train of baggage which attended upon the party; and, satisfied
+in that particular, he turned his horse's head, and accompanied the
+Abbot to the Tower of Glendearg.
+
+Great, in the meanwhile, had been the turmoil of the good Dame Elspeth
+and her coadjutors, to prepare for the fitting reception of the Father
+Lord Abbot and his retinue. The monks had indeed taken care not to trust
+too much to the state of her pantry; but she was not the less anxious
+to make such additions as might enable her to claim the thanks of her
+feudal lord and spiritual father. Meeting Halbert, as, with his blood on
+fire, he returned from his altercation with her guest, she commanded him
+instantly to go forth to the hill, and not to return without venison;
+reminding him that he was apt enough to go thither for his own pleasure,
+and must now do so for the credit of the house.
+
+The Miller, who was now hastening his journey homewards, promised to
+send up some salmon by his own servant. Dame Elspeth, who by this time
+thought she had guests enough, had begun to repent of her invitation
+to poor Mysie, and was just considering by what means, short of giving
+offence, she could send off the Maid of the Mill behind her father, and
+adjourn all her own aerial architecture till some future opportunity,
+when this unexpected generosity on the part of the sire rendered
+any present attempt to return his daughter on his hands too highly
+ungracious to be farther thought on. So the Miller departed alone on his
+homeward journey.
+
+Dame Elspeth's sense of hospitality proved in this instance its own
+reward; for Mysie had dwelt too near the Convent to be altogether
+ignorant of the noble art of cookery, which her father patronized to the
+extent of consuming on festival days such dainties as his daughter could
+prepare in emulation of the luxuries of the Abbot's kitchen. Laying
+aside, therefore, her holiday kirtle, and adopting a dress more suitable
+to the occasion, the good-humored maiden bared her snowy arms above the
+elbows; and, as Elspeth acknowledged, in the language of the time and
+country, took "entire and aefauld part with her" in the labours of the
+day; showing unparalleled talent, and indefatigable industry, in
+the preparation of _mortreux_, _blanc-manger_, and heaven knows what
+delicacies besides, which Dame Glendinning, unassisted by her skill,
+dared not even have dreamt of presenting. Leaving this able substitute
+in the kitchen, and regretting that Mary Avenel was so brought up, that
+she could intrust nothing to her care, unless it might be seeing the
+great chamber strewed with rushes, and ornamented with such flowers and
+branches as the season afforded, Dame Elspeth hastily donned her best
+attire, and with a beating heart presented herself at the door of her
+little tower, to make her obeisance to the Lord Abbot as he crossed
+her humble threshold. Edward stood by his mother, and felt the same
+palpitation, which his philosophy was at a loss to account for. He was
+yet to learn how long it is ere our reason is enabled to triumph over
+the force of external circumstances, and how much our feelings are
+affected by novelty, and blunted by use and habit.
+
+On the present occasion, he witnessed with wonder and awe the approach
+of some half-score of riders, sober men upon sober palfreys, muffled in
+their long black garments, and only relieved by their white scapularies,
+showing more like a funeral procession than aught else, and not
+quickening their pace beyond that which permitted easy conversation and
+easy digestion. The sobriety of the scene was indeed somewhat enlivened
+by the presence of Sir Piercie Shafton, who, to show that his skill
+in the manege was not inferior to his other accomplishments, kept
+alternately pressing and checking his gay courser, forcing him to
+piaffe, to caracole, to passage, and to do all the other feats of the
+school, to the great annoyance of the Lord Abbot, the wonted sobriety
+of whose palfrey became at length discomposed by the vivacity of its
+companion, while the dignitary kept crying out in bodily alarm, "I do
+pray you--Sir Knight--good now, Sir Piercie--Be quiet, Benedict, there
+is a good steed--soh, poor fellow" and uttering all the other precatory
+and soothing exclamations by which a timid horseman usually bespeaks the
+favour of a frisky companion, or of his own unquiet nag, and concluding
+the bead-roll with a sincere _Deo gratias_ so soon as he alighted in the
+court-yard of the Tower of Glendearg.
+
+The inhabitants unanimously knelt down to kiss the hand of the Lord
+Abbot, a ceremony which even the monks were often condemned to. Good
+Abbot Boniface was too much fluttered by the incidents of the latter
+part of his journey, to go through this ceremony with much solemnity,
+or indeed with much patience. He kept wiping his brow with a snow-white
+handkerchief with one hand, while another was abandoned to the homage of
+his vassals; and then signing the cross with his outstretched arm,
+and exclaiming, "Bless ye--bless ye, my children" he hastened into the
+house, and murmured not a little at the darkness and steepness of the
+rugged winding stair, whereby he at length scaled the spence destined
+for his entertainment, and, overcome with fatigue, threw himself, I do
+not say into an easy chair, but into the easiest the apartment afforded.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Sixteenth.
+
+
+     A courtier extraordinary, who by diet
+     Of meats and drinks, his temperate exercise,
+     Choice music, frequent bath, his horary shifts
+     Of shirts and waistcoats, means to immortalize
+     Mortality itself, and makes the essence
+     Of his whole happiness the trim of court.
+                                         MAGNETIC LADY.
+
+
+When the Lord Abbot had suddenly and superciliously vanished from
+the eyes of his expectant vassals, the Sub-Prior made amends for the
+negligence of his principal, by the kind and affectionate greeting
+which he gave to all the members of the family, but especially to Dame
+Elspeth, her foster-daughter, and her son Edward. "Where," he even
+condescended to inquire, "is that naughty Nimrod, Halbert?--He hath
+not yet, I trust, turned, like his great prototype, his hunting-spear
+against man!"
+
+"O no, an it please your reverence," said Dame Glendinning, "Halbert
+is up at the glen to get some venison, or surely he would not have been
+absent when such a day of honour dawned upon me and mine."
+
+"Oh, to get savoury meat, such as our soul loveth," muttered the
+Sub-Prior; "it has been at times an acceptable gift.--I bid you good
+morrow, my good dame, as I must attend upon his lordship the Father
+Abbot."
+
+"And O, reverend sir," said the good widow, detaining him, "if it might
+be your pleasure to take part with us if there is any thing wrong; and
+if there is any thing wanted, to say that it is just coming, or to make
+some excuses your learning best knows how. Every bit of vassail and
+silver work have we been spoiled of since Pinkie Cleuch, when I lost
+poor Simon Glendinning, that was the warst of a'."
+
+"Never mind--never fear," said the Sub-Prior, gently extricating his
+garment from the anxious grasp of Dame Elspeth, "the Refectioner has
+with him the Abbot's plate and drinking cups; and I pray you to believe
+that whatever is short in your entertainment will be deemed amply made
+up in your good-will."
+
+So saying, he escaped from her and went into the spence, where such
+preparations as haste permitted were making for the noon collation of
+the Abbot and the English knight. Here he found the Lord Abbot, for whom
+a cushion, composed of all the plaids in the house, had been unable to
+render Simon's huge elbow-chair a soft or comfortable place of rest.
+
+"Benedicite!" said Abbot Boniface, "now marry fie upon these hard
+benches with all my heart--they are as uneasy as the _scabella_ of our
+novices. Saint Jude be with us, Sir Knight, how have you contrived to
+pass over the night in this dungeon? An your bed was no softer than your
+seat, you might as well have slept on the stone couch of Saint Pacomius.
+After trotting a full ten miles, a man needs a softer seat than has
+fallen to my hard lot."
+
+With sympathizing faces, the Sacristan and the Refectioner ran to raise
+the Lord Abbot, and to adjust his seat to his mind, which was at length
+accomplished in some sort, although he continued alternately to bewail
+his fatigue, and to exult in the conscious sense of having discharged
+an arduous duty. "You errant cavaliers," said he, addressing the knight,
+"may now perceive that others have their travail and their toils to
+undergo as well as your honoured faculty. And this I will say for myself
+and the soldiers of Saint Mary, among whom I may be termed captain,
+that it is not our wont to flinch from the heat of the service, or to
+withdraw from the good fight. No, by Saint Mary!--no sooner did I
+learn that you were here, and dared not for certain reasons come to the
+Monastery, where, with as good will, and with more convenience, we might
+have given you a better reception, than, striking the table with
+my hammer, I called a brother--Timothy, said I, let them saddle
+Benedict--let them saddle my black palfrey, and bid the Sub-Prior and
+some half-score of attendants be in readiness tomorrow after matins--we
+would ride to Glendearg.--Brother Timothy stared, thinking, I imagine,
+that his ears had scarce done him justice--but I repeated my commands,
+and said, Let the Kitchener and Refectioner go before to aid the poor
+vassals to whom the place belongs in making a suitable collation. So
+that you will consider, good Sir Piercie, our mutual in commodities, and
+forgive whatever you may find amiss."
+
+"By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to
+forgive--If you spiritual warriors have to submit to the grievous
+incommodities which your lordship narrates, it would ill become me,
+a sinful and secular man, to complain of a bed as hard as a board, of
+broth which relished as if made of burnt wool, of flesh, which, in
+its sable and singed shape, seemed to put me on a level with Richard
+Coeur-de-Lion,--when he ate up the head of a Moor carbonadoed, and of
+other viands savouring rather of the rusticity of this northern region."
+
+"By the good Saints, sir," said the Abbot, somewhat touched in point of
+his character for hospitality, of which he was in truth a most faithful
+and zealous professor, "it grieves me to the heart that you have found
+our vassals no better provided for your reception--Yet I crave leave
+to observe, that if Sir Piercie Shafton's affairs had permitted him to
+honour with his company our poor house of Saint Mary's, he might have
+had less to complain of in respect of easements."
+
+"To give your lordship the reasons," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "why I
+could not at this present time approach your dwelling, or avail myself
+of its well-known and undoubted hospitality, craves either some delay,
+or," looking around him, "a limited audience."
+
+The Lord Abbot immediately issued his mandate to the Refectioner: "Hie
+thee to the kitchen, Brother Hilarius, and there make inquiry of our
+brother the Kitchener, within what time he opines that our collation may
+be prepared, since sin and sorrow it were, considering the hardships of
+this noble and gallant knight, no whit mentioning or--weighing those we
+ourselves have endured, if we were now either to advance or retard the
+hour of refection beyond the time when the viands are fit to be set
+before us."
+
+Brother Hilarius parted with an eager alertness to execute the will of
+his Superior, and returned with the assurance, that punctually at one
+afternoon would the collation be ready.
+
+"Before that time," said the accurate Refectioner, "the wafers, flamms,
+and pastry-meat, will scarce have had the just degree of fire which
+learned pottingers prescribe as fittest for the body; and if it should
+be past one o'clock, were it but ten minutes, our brother the Kitchener
+opines, that the haunch of venison would suffer in spite of the skill of
+the little turn-broche whom he has recommended to your holiness by his
+praises."
+
+"How!" said the Abbot, "a haunch of venison!--from whence comes that
+dainty? I remember not thou didst intimate its presence in thy hamper of
+vivers."
+
+"So please your holiness and lordship," said the Refectioner, "he is a
+son of the woman of the house who has shot it and sent it in--killed
+but now; yet, as the animal heat hath not left the body, the Kitchener
+undertakes it shall eat as tender as a young chicken--and this youth
+hath a special gift in shooting deer, and never misses the heart or the
+brain; so that the blood is not driven through the flesh, as happens
+too often with us. It is a hart of grease--your holiness has seldom seen
+such a haunch."
+
+"Silence, Brother Hilarius," said the Abbot, wiping his mouth; "it is
+not beseeming our order to talk of food so earnestly, especially as we
+must oft have our animal powers exhausted by fasting, and be accessible
+(as being ever mere mortals) to those signs of longing" (he again
+wiped his mouth) "which arise on the mention of victuals to an hungry
+man.--Minute down, however, the name of that youth--it is fitting merit
+should be rewarded, and he shall hereafter be a _frater ad succurrendum_
+in the kitchen and buttery."
+
+"Alas! reverend Father and my good lord," replied the Refectioner,
+"I did inquire after the youth, and I learn he is one who prefers the
+casque to the cowl, and the sword of the flesh to the weapons of the
+spirit."
+
+"And if it be so," said the Abbot, "see that thou retain him as
+a deputy-keeper and man-at-arms, and not as a lay brother of the
+Monastery--for old Tallboy, our forester, waxes dim-eyed, and hath twice
+spoiled a noble buck, by hitting him unwarily on the haunch. Ah! 'tis a
+foul fault, the abusing by evil-killing, evil-dressing, evil-appetite,
+or otherwise, the good creatures indulged to us for our use. Wherefore,
+secure us the service of this youth, Brother Hilarius, in the way that
+may best suit him.--And now, Sir Piercie Shafton, since the fates have
+assigned us a space of well-nigh an hour, ere we dare hope to enjoy
+more than the vapour or savour of our repast, may I pray you, of your
+courtesy, to tell me the cause of this visit; and, above all, to inform
+us, why you will not approach our more pleasant and better furnished
+_hospitium_?"
+
+"Reverend Father, and my very good lord," said Sir Piercie Shafton,
+"it is well known to your wisdom, that there are stone walls which have
+ears, and that secrecy is to be looked to in matters which concern
+a man's head." The Abbot signed to his attendants, excepting the
+Sub-Prior, to leave the room, and then said, "Your valour, Sir Piercie,
+may freely unburden yourself before our faithful friend and counsellor
+Father Eustace, the benefits of whose advice we may too soon lose,
+inasmuch as his merits will speedily recommend him to an higher station,
+in which we trust he may find the blessing of a friend and adviser as
+valuable as himself, since I may say of him, as our claustral rhyme
+goeth,[Footnote: The rest of this doggerel rhyme may be found in
+Fosbrooke's Learned work on British Monachism.]
+
+  'Dixit Abbas ad Prioris,
+  Tu es homo boni moris,
+  Quia semper sanioris
+  Mihi das concilia.'
+
+Indeed," he added, "the office of Sub-Prior is altogether beneath our
+dear brother; nor can we elevate him unto that of Prior, which, for
+certain reasons, is at present kept vacant amongst us. Howbeit, Father
+Eustace is fully possessed of my confidence, and worthy of yours, and
+well may it be said of him, _Intravit in secretis nostris_."
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton bowed to the reverend brethren, and, heaving a sigh,
+as if he would burst his steel cuirass, he thus commenced his speech:--
+
+"Certes, reverend sirs, I may well heave such a suspiration, who have,
+as it were, exchanged heaven for purgatory, leaving the lightsome sphere
+of the royal court of England for a remote nook in this inaccessible
+desert--quitting the tilt-yard, where I was ever ready among my compeers
+to splinter a lance, either for the love of honour, or for the honour
+of love, in order to couch my knightly spear against base and pilfering
+besognios and marauders--exchanging the lighted halls, wherein I used
+nimbly to pace the swift coranto, or to move with a loftier grace in the
+stately galliard, for this rugged and decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured
+stone--quitting the gay theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a
+Scottish dog-house--bartering the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and
+the love-awaking viol-de-gamba, for the discordant squeak of a northern
+bagpipe--above all, exchanging the smiles of those beauties, who form
+a gay galaxy around the throne of England, for the cold courtesy of an
+untaught damsel, and the bewildered stare of a miller's maiden. More
+might I say of the exchange of the conversation of gallant knights and
+gay courtiers of mine own order and capacity, whose conceits are bright
+and vivid as the lightning, for that of monks and churchmen--but it were
+discourteous to urge that topic."
+
+The Abbot listened to this list of complaints with great round eyes,
+which evinced no exact intelligence of the orator's meaning; and
+when the knight paused to take breath, he looked with a doubtful and
+inquiring eye at the Sub-Prior, not well knowing in what tone he should
+reply to an exordium so extraordinary. The Sub-Prior accordingly stepped
+in to the relief of his principal.
+
+"We deeply sympathize with you, Sir Knight, in the several
+mortifications and hardships to which fate has subjected you,
+particularly in that which has thrown you into the society of those,
+who, as they were conscious they deserved not such an honour, so neither
+did they at all desire it. But all this goes little way to expound the
+cause of this train of disasters, or, in plainer words, the reason which
+has compelled you into a situation having so few charms for you."
+
+"Gentle and reverend sir," replied the knight, "forgive an unhappy
+person, who, in giving a history of his miseries, dilateth upon them
+extremely, even as he who, having fallen from a precipice, looketh
+upward to measure the height from which he hath been precipitated."
+
+"Yea, but," said Father Eustace, "methinks it were wiser in him to tell
+those who come to lift him up, which of his bones have been broken."
+
+"You, reverend sir," said the knight, "have, in the encounter of our
+wits, made a fair attaint; whereas I may be in some sort said to have
+broken my staff across. [Footnote: _Attaint_ was a term of tilting
+used to express the champion's having _attained_ his mark, or, in other
+words, struck his lance straight and fair against the helmet or breast
+of his adversary. Whereas to break the lance across, intimated a total
+failure in directing the point of the weapon on the object of his aim.]
+Pardon me, grave sir, that I speak in the language of the tilt-yard,
+which is doubtless strange to your reverend years.--Ah! brave resort
+of the noble, the fair and the gay!--Ah! throne of love, and citadel
+of honour!--Ah! celestial beauties, by whose bright eyes it is graced!
+Never more shall Piercie Shafton advance, as the centre of your radiant
+glances, couch his lance, and spur his horse at the sound of the
+spirit-stirring trumpets, nobly called the voice of war--never more
+shall he baffle his adversary's encounter boldly, break his spear
+dexterously, and ambling around the lovely circle, receive the rewards
+with which beauty honours chivalry!"
+
+Here he paused, wrung his hands, looked upwards, and seemed lost in
+contemplation of his own fallen fortunes.
+
+"Mad, very mad," whispered the Abbot to the Sub-Prior; "I would we were
+fairly rid of him; for, of a truth, I expect he will proceed from raving
+to mischief--Were it not better to call up the rest of the brethren?"
+
+But the Sub-Prior knew better than his Superior how to distinguish the
+jargon of affectation from the ravings of insanity, and although the
+extremity of the knight's passion seemed altogether fantastic, yet
+he was not ignorant to what extravagancies the fashion of the day can
+conduct its votaries.
+
+Allowing, therefore, two minutes' space to permit the knight's
+enthusiastic feelings to exhaust themselves, he again gravely reminded
+him that the Lord Abbot had taken a journey, unwonted to his age and
+habits, solely to learn in what he could serve Sir Piercie Shafton--that
+it was altogether impossible he could do so without his receiving
+distinct information of the situation in which he had now sought refuge
+in Scotland.--"The day wore on," he observed, looking at the window;
+"and if the Abbot should be obliged to return to the Monastery without
+obtaining the necessary intelligence, the regret might be mutual, but
+the inconvenience was like to be all on Sir Piercie's own side."
+
+The hint was not thrown away.
+
+"O, goddess of courtesy!" said the knight, "can I so far have forgotten
+thy behests as to make this good prelate's ease and time a sacrifice to
+my vain complaints! Know, then, most worthy, and not less worshipful,
+that I, your poor visitor and guest, am by birth nearly bound to the
+Piercie of Northumberland, whose fame is so widely blown through all
+parts of the world where English worth hath been known. Now, this
+present Earl of Northumberland, of whom I propose to give you the brief
+history----"
+
+"It is altogether unnecessary," said the Abbot; "we know him to be a
+good and true nobleman, and a sworn upholder of our Catholic faith,
+in the spite of the heretical woman who now sits upon the throne of
+England. And it is specially as his kinsman, and as knowing that ye
+partake with him in such devout and faithful belief and adherence to our
+holy Mother Church, that we say to you, Sir Piercie Shafton, that ye be
+heartily welcome to us, and that, and we wist how, we would labour to do
+you good service in your extremity."
+
+"For such kind offer I rest your most humble debtor," said Sir Piercie,
+"nor need I at this moment say more than that my Right Honourable Cousin
+of Northumberland, having devised with me and some others, the choice
+and picked spirits of the age, how and by what means the worship of God,
+according to the Catholic Church, might be again introduced into this
+distracted kingdom of England, (even as one deviseth, by the assistance
+of his friend, to catch and bridle a runaway steed,) it pleased him so
+deeply to intrust me in those communications, that my personal safety
+becomes, as it were, entwined or complicated therewith. Natheless, as
+we have had sudden reason to believe, this Princess Elizabeth, who
+maintaineth around her a sort of counsellors skilful in tracking
+whatever schemes may be pursued for bringing her title into challenge,
+or for erecting again the discipline of the Catholic Church, has
+obtained certain knowledge of the trains which we had laid before we
+could give fire unto them. Wherefore, my Right Honourable Cousin of
+Northumberland, thinking it best belike that one man should take
+both blame and shame for the whole, did lay the burden of all this
+trafficking upon my back; which load I am the rather content to bear,
+in that he hath always shown himself my kind and honourable kinsman,
+as well as that my estate, I wot not how, hath of late been somewhat
+insufficient to maintain the expense of those braveries, wherewith it
+is incumbent on us, who are chosen and selected spirits, to distinguish
+ourselves from the vulgar."
+
+"So that possibly," said the Sub-Prior, "your private affairs rendered a
+foreign journey less incommodious to you than it might have been to the
+noble earl, your right worthy cousin?"
+
+"You are right, reverend sir," answered the courtier; "_rem acu_--you
+have touched the point with a needle--My cost and expenses had been
+indeed somewhat lavish at the late triumphs and tourneys, and the
+flat-capp'd citizens had shown themselves unwilling to furnish my pocket
+for new gallantries for the honour of the nation, as well as for mine
+own peculiar glory--and, to speak truth, it was in some part the hope
+of seeing these matters amended that led me to desire a new world in
+England."
+
+"So that the miscarriage of your public enterprise, with the derangement
+of your own private affairs," said the Sub-Prior, "have induced you to
+seek Scotland as a place of refuge?"
+
+"_Rem acu_, once again," said Sir Piercie; "and not without good cause,
+since my neck, if I remained, might have been brought within the
+circumstances of a halter--and so speedy was my journey northward, that
+I had but time to exchange my peach-coloured doublet of Genoa velvet,
+thickly laid over with goldsmith's work, for this cuirass, which was
+made by Bonamico of Milan, and travelled northward with all speed,
+judging that I might do well to visit my Right Honourable Cousin of
+Northumberland, at one of his numerous castles. But as I posted towards
+Alnwick, even with the speed of a star, which, darting from its native
+sphere, shoots wildly downwards, I was met at Northallerton by one Henry
+Vaughan, a servant of my right honourable kinsman, who showed me, that
+as then I might not with safety come to his presence, seeing that, in
+obedience to orders from his court, he was obliged to issue out letters
+for my incarceration."
+
+"This," said the Abbot, "seems but hard measure on the part of your
+honourable kinsman."
+
+"It might be so judged, my lord," replied Sir Piercie; "nevertheless, I
+will stand to the death for the honour of my Right Honourable Cousin of
+Northumberland. Also, Henry Vaughan gave me, from my said cousin, a
+good horse, and a purse of gold, with two Border-prickers, as they are
+called, for my guides, who conducted me, by such roads and by-paths as
+have never been seen since the days of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristrem,
+into this kingdom of Scotland, and to the house of a certain baron, or
+one who holds the style of such, called Julian Avenel, with whom I found
+such reception as the place and party could afford."
+
+"And that," said the Abbot, "must have been right wretched; for to
+judge from the appetite which Julian showeth when abroad, he hath not, I
+judge, over-abundant provision at home."
+
+"You are right, sir--your reverence is in the right," continued Sir
+Piercie; "we had but lenten fare, and, what was worse, a score to
+clear at the departure; for though this Julian Avenel called us to
+no reckoning, yet he did so extravagantly admire the fashion of my
+poniard--the _poignet_ being of silver exquisitely hatched, and indeed
+the weapon being altogether a piece of exceeding rare device and
+beauty--that in faith I could not for very shame's sake but pray his
+acceptance of it; words which he gave me not the trouble of repeating
+twice, before he had stuck it into his greasy buff-belt, where,
+credit me, reverend sir, it showed more like a butcher's knife than a
+gentleman's dagger."
+
+"So goodly a gift might at least have purchased you a few days'
+hospitality," said Father Eustace.
+
+"Reverend sir," said Sir Piercie, "had I abidden with him, I should have
+been complimented out of every remnant of my wardrobe--actually flayed,
+by the hospitable gods I swear it! Sir, he secured my spare doublet, and
+had a pluck at my galligaskins--I was enforced to beat a retreat before
+I was altogether unrigged. That Border knave, his serving man, had
+a pluck at me too, and usurped a scarlet cassock and steel cuirass
+belonging to the page of my body, whom I was fain to leave behind me. In
+good time I received a letter from my Right Honourable Cousin, showing
+me that he had written to you in my behalf, and sent to your charge two
+mails filled with wearing apparel--namely, my rich crimson silk doublet,
+slashed out and lined with cloth of gold, which I wore at the last
+revels, with baldric and trimmings to correspond--also two pair
+black silk slops, with hanging garters of carnation silk--also the
+flesh-coloured silken doublet, with the trimmings of fur, in which I
+danced the salvage man at the Gray's-Inn mummery--also----"
+
+"Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "I pray you to spare the farther
+inventory of your wardrobe. The monks of Saint Mary's are no
+free-booting barons, and whatever part of your vestments arrived at
+our house, have been this day faithfully brought hither, with the mails
+which contained them. I may presume from what has been said, as we have
+indeed been, given to understand by the Earl of Northumberland, that
+your desire is to remain for the present as unknown and as unnoticed, as
+may be consistent with your high worth and distinction?"
+
+"Alas, reverend father!" replied the courtier, "a blade when it is in
+the scabbard cannot give lustre, a diamond when it is in the casket
+cannot give light, and worth, when it is compelled by circumstances to
+obscure itself, cannot draw observation--my retreat can only attract
+the admiration of those few to whom circumstances permit its displaying
+itself."
+
+"I conceive now, my venerable father and lord," said the Sub-Prior,
+"that your wisdom will assign such a course of conduct to this noble
+knight, as may be alike consistent with his safety, and with the weal of
+the community. For you wot well, that perilous strides have been made
+in these audacious days, to the destruction of all ecclesiastical
+foundations, and that our holy community has been repeatedly menaced.
+Hitherto they have found no flaw in our raiment; but a party, friendly
+as well to the Queen of England, as to the heretical doctrines of
+the schismatical church, or even to worse and wilder forms of heresy,
+prevails now at the court of our sovereign, who dare not yield to her
+suffering clergy the protection she would gladly extend to them."
+
+"My lord, and reverend sir," said the knight, "I will gladly relieve
+you of my presence, while ye canvass this matter at your freedom; and
+to speak truly, I am desirous to see in what case the chamberlain of my
+noble kinsman hath found my wardrobe, and how he hath packed the same,
+and whether it has suffered from the journey--there are four suits of
+as pure and elegant device as ever the fancy of a fair lady doated upon,
+every one having a treble, and appropriate change of ribbons, trimmings,
+and fringes, which, in case of need, may as it were renew each of
+them, and multiply the four into twelve.--There is also my sad-coloured
+riding-suit, and three cut-work shirts with falling bands--I pray you,
+pardon me--I must needs see how matters stand with them without farther
+dallying."
+
+Thus speaking, he left the room; and the Sub-Prior, looking after him
+significantly, added, "Where the treasure is will the heart be also."
+
+"Saint Mary preserve our wits!" said the Abbot, stunned with the
+knight's abundance of words; "were man's brains ever so stuffed with
+silk and broadcloth, cut-work, and I wot not what besides! And
+what could move the Earl of Northumberland to assume for his bosom
+counsellor, in matters of death and danger, such a feather-brained
+coxcomb as this?"
+
+"Had he been other than what he is, venerable father," said the
+Sub-Prior, "he had been less fitted for the part of scape-goat, to
+which his Right Honourable Cousin had probably destined him from the
+commencement, in case of their plot failing. I know something of this
+Piercie Shafton. The legitimacy of his mother's descent from the Piercie
+family, the point on which he is most jealous, hath been called in
+question. If hairbrained courage, and an outrageous spirit of gallantry,
+can make good his pretensions to the high lineage he claims, these
+qualities have never been denied him. For the rest, he is one of the
+ruffling gallants of the time, like Howland Yorke, Stukely,
+
+[Footnote: "Yorke," says Camden, "was a Londoner, a man of loose and
+dissolute behaviour, and desperately audacious--famous in his time
+amongst the common bullies and swaggerers, as being the first that, to
+the great admiration of many at his boldness, brought into England the
+bold and dangerous way of fencing with the rapier in duelling. Whereas,
+till that time, the English used to fight with long swords and bucklers,
+striking with the edge, and thought it no part of man either to push or
+strike beneath the girdle.
+
+Having a command in the Low Countries, Yorke revolted to the Spaniards,
+and died miserably, poisoned, as was supposed, by his new allies. Three
+years afterwards, his bones were dug up and gibbeted by the command of
+the States of Holland.
+
+Thomas Stukely, another distinguished gallant of the time, was bred a
+merchant, being the son of a rich clothier in the west. He wedded the
+daughter and heiress of a wealthy alderman of London, named Curtis,
+after whose death he squandered the riches he thus acquired in all
+manner of extravagance. His wife, whose fortune supplied his waste,
+represented to him that he ought to make more of her. Stukely replied,
+"I will make as much of thee, believe me, as it is possible for any to
+do;" and he kept his word in one sense, having stripped her even of her
+wearing apparel, before he finally ran away from her.
+
+Having fled to Italy, he contrived to impose upon the Pope, with a
+plan of invading Ireland, for which he levied soldiers, and made some
+preparations, but ended by engaging himself and his troops in the
+service of King Sebastian of Portugal. He sailed with that prince on his
+fatal voyage to Barbary, and fell with him at the battle of Alcazar.
+
+Stukely, as one of the first gallants of the time, has had the honour
+to be chronicled in song, in Evans' Old Ballads, vol. iii, edition 1810.
+His fate is also introduced in a tragedy, by George Peel, as has been
+supposed, called the Battle of Alcazar, from which play Dryden is
+alleged to have taken the idea of Don Sebastian; if so, it is surprising
+he omitted a character so congenial to King Charles the Second's time as
+the witty, brave, and profligate Thomas Stukely.]
+
+and others, who wear out their fortunes, and endanger their lives,
+in idle braveries, in order that they may be esteemed the only choice
+gallants of the time; and afterwards endeavour to repair their estate,
+by engaging in the desperate plots and conspiracies which wiser
+heads have devised. To use one of his own conceited similitudes, such
+courageous fools resemble hawks, which the wiser conspirator keeps
+hooded and blinded on his wrist until the quarry is on the wing, and who
+are then flown at them."
+
+"Saint Mary," said the Abbot, "he were an evil guest to introduce into
+our quiet household. Our young monks make bustle enough, and more than
+is beseeming God's servants, about their outward attire already--this
+knight were enough to turn their brains, from the _Vestiarius_ down to
+the very scullion boy."
+
+"A worse evil might follow," said the Sub-Prior: "in these bad days, the
+patrimony of the church is bought and sold, forfeited and distrained,
+as if it were the unhallowed soil appertaining to a secular baron. Think
+what penalty awaits us, were we convicted of harbouring a rebel to her
+whom they call the Queen of England! There would neither be wanting
+Scottish parasites to beg the lands of the foundation, nor an army from
+England to burn and harry the Halidome. The men of Scotland were once
+Scotsmen, firm and united in the love of their country, and throwing
+every other consideration aside when the frontier was menaced--now
+they are--what shall I call them--the one part French, the other
+part English, considering their dear native country merely as a
+prize-fighting stage, upon which foreigners are welcome to decide their
+quarrels."
+
+"Benedictine!" replied the Abbot, "they are indeed slippery and evil
+times."
+
+"And therefore," said Father Eustace, "we must walk warily--we must not,
+for example, bring this man--this Sir Piercie Shafton, to our house of
+Saint Mary's."
+
+"But how then shall we dispose of him?" replied the Abbot; "bethink thee
+that he is a sufferer for holy Church's sake--that his patron, the Earl
+of Northumberland, hath been our friend, and that, lying so near us, he
+may work us weal or wo according as we deal with his kinsman."
+
+"And, accordingly," said the Sub-Prior, "for these reasons, as well as
+for discharge of the great duty of Christian charity, I would protect
+and relieve this man. Let him not go back to Julian Avenel--that
+unconscientious baron would not stick to plunder the exiled
+stranger--Let him remain here--the spot is secluded, and if the
+accommodation be beneath his quality, discovery will become the less
+likely. We will make such means for his convenience as we can devise."
+
+"Will he be persuaded, thinkest thou?" said the Abbot; "I will leave my
+own travelling bed for his repose, and send up a suitable easy-chair."
+
+"With such easements," said the Sub-Prior, "he must not complain; and
+then, if threatened by any sudden danger, he can soon come down to
+the sanctuary, where we will harbour him in secret until means can be
+devised of dismissing him in safety."
+
+"Were we not better," said the Abbot, "send him on to the court, and get
+rid of him at once?"
+
+"Ay, but at the expense of our friends--this butterfly may fold his
+wings, and lie under cover in the cold air of Glendearg; but were he
+at Holyrood, he would, did his life depend on it, expand his spangled
+drapery in the eyes of the queen and court--Rather than fail of
+distinction, he would sue for love to our gracious sovereign--the eyes
+of all men would be upon him in the course of three short days, and
+the international peace of the two ends of the island endangered for a
+creature, who, like a silly moth, cannot abstain from fluttering round a
+light."
+
+"Thou hast prevailed with me, Father Eustace," said the Abbot, "and it
+will go hard but I improve on thy plan--I will send up in secret, not
+only household stuff, but wine and wassell-bread. There is a young
+swankie here who shoots venison well. I will give him directions to see
+that the knight lacks none."
+
+"Whatever accommodation he can have, which infers not a risk of
+discovery," said the Sub-Prior, "it is our duty to afford him."
+
+"Nay," said the Abbot, "we will do more, and will instantly despatch a
+servant express to the keeper of our revestiary to send us such things
+as he may want, even this night. See it done, good father."
+
+"I will," answered Father Eustace; "but I hear the gull clamorous for
+some one to truss his points.[Footnote: The points were the strings of
+cord or ribbon, (so called, because _pointed_ with metal like the laces
+of women's stays,) which attached the doublet to the hose. They were
+very numerous, and required assistance to tie them properly, which was
+called _trussing_.] He will be fortunate if he lights on any one here
+who can do him the office of groom of the chamber."
+
+"I would he would appear," said the Abbot, "for here comes the
+Refectioner with the collation--By my faith, the ride hath given me a
+sharp appetite!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Seventeenth.
+
+
+  I'll seek for other aid--Spirits, they say,
+  Flit round invisible, as thick as motes
+  Dance in the sunbeam. If that spell
+  Or necromancer's sigil can compel them,
+  They shall hold council with me.
+                JAMES DUFF.
+
+The reader's attention must be recalled to Halbert Glendinning, who had
+left the Tower of Glendearg immediately after his quarrel with its new
+guest, Sir Piercie Shafton. As he walked with a rapid pace up the glen,
+Old Martin followed him, beseeching him to be less hasty.
+
+"Halbert," said the old man, "you will never live to have white hair, if
+you take fire thus at every spark of provocation."
+
+"And why should I wish it, old man," said Halbert, "if I am to be the
+butt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against?--What avails it,
+old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal,
+and repose on thy hard pallet?--Why art thou so well pleased that the
+morning should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again lay
+thee down a wearied-out wretch? Were it not better sleep and wake no
+more, than to undergo this dull exchange of labour for insensibility and
+of insensibility for labour?"
+
+"God help me," answered Martin, "there may be truth in what thou
+sayest--but walk slower, for my old limbs cannot keep pace with your
+young legs--walk slower, and I will tell you why age, though unlovely,
+is yet endurable."
+
+"Speak on then," said Halbert, slackening his pace, "but remember we
+must seek venison to refresh the fatigues of these holy men, who will
+this morning have achieved a journey of ten miles; and if we reach not
+the Brocksburn head we are scarce like to see an antler."
+
+"Then know, my good Halbert," said Martin, "whom I love as my own son,
+that I am satisfied to live till death calls me, because my Maker wills
+it. Ay, and although I spend what men call a hard life, pinched with
+cold in winter, and burnt with heat in summer, though I feed hard and
+sleep hard, and am held mean and despised, yet I bethink me, that were I
+of no use on the face of this fair creation, God would withdraw me from
+it."
+
+"Thou poor old man," said Halbert, "and can such a vain conceit as this
+of thy fancied use, reconcile thee to a world where thou playest so poor
+a part?"
+
+"My part was nearly as poor," said Martin, "my person nearly as much
+despised, the day that I saved my mistress and her child from perishing
+in the wilderness."
+
+"Right, Martin," answered Halbert; "there, indeed, thou didst what might
+be a sufficient apology for a whole life of insignificance."
+
+"And do you account it for nothing, Halbert, that I should have
+the power of giving you a lesson of patience, and submission to the
+destinies of Providence? Methinks there is use for the grey hairs on
+the old scalp, were it but to instruct the green head by precept and by
+example."
+
+Halbert held down his face, and remained silent for a minute or two, and
+then resumed his discourse: "Martin, seest thou aught changed in me of
+late?"
+
+"Surely," said Martin. "I have always known you hasty, wild, and
+inconsiderate, rude, and prompt to speak at the volley and without
+reflection; but now, methinks, your bearing, without losing its natural
+fire, has something in it of force and dignity which it had not before.
+It seems as if you had fallen asleep a carle, and awakened a gentleman."
+
+"Thou canst judge, then, of noble bearing?" said Halbert.
+
+"Surely," answered Martin, "in some sort I can; for I have travelled
+through court, and camp, and city, with my master, Walter Avenel,
+although he could do nothing for me in the long run, but give me room
+for two score of sheep on the hill--and surely even now, while I speak
+with you, I feel sensible that my language is more refined than it is my
+wont to use, and that--though I know not the reason--the rude northern
+dialect, so familiar to my tongue, has given place to a more town-bred
+speech."
+
+"And this change in thyself and me, thou canst by no means account for?"
+said young Glendinning.
+
+"Change!" replied Martin, "by our Lady it is not so much a change which
+I feel, as a recalling and renewing sentiments and expressions which I
+had some thirty years since, ere Tibb and I set up our humble household.
+It is singular, that your society should have this sort of influence
+over me, Halbert, and that I should never have experienced it ere now."
+
+"Thinkest thou," said Halbert, "thou seest in me aught that can raise
+me from this base, low, despised state, into one where I may rank with
+those proud men, who now despise my clownish poverty?"
+
+Martin paused an instant, and then answered, "Doubtless you may,
+Halbert; as broken a ship has come to land. Heard ye never of Hughie
+Dun, who left this Halidome some thirty-five years gone by? A deliverly
+fellow was Hughie--could read and write like a priest, and could wield
+brand and buckler with the best of the riders. I mind him--the like of
+him was never seen in the Halidome of Saint Mary's, and so was seen of
+the preferment that God sent him."
+
+"And what was that?" said Halbert, his eyes sparkling with eagerness.
+
+"Nothing less," answered Martin, "than body-servant to the Archbishop of
+Saint Andrews!"
+
+Halbert's countenance fell.--"A servant--and to a priest? Was this all
+that knowledge and activity could raise him to?"
+
+Martin, in his turn, looked with wistful surprise in the face of his
+young friend. "And to what could fortune lead him farther?" answered
+he. "The son of a kirk-feuar is not the stuff that lords and knights
+are made of. Courage and school craft cannot change churl's blood into
+gentle blood, I trow. I have heard, forby, that Hughie Dun left a good
+five hundred punds of Scots money to his only daughter, and that she
+married the Bailie of Pittenweem."
+
+At this moment, and while Halbert was embarrassed with devising a
+suitable answer, a deer bounded across their path. In an instant the
+crossbow was at the youth's shoulder, the bolt whistled, and the deer,
+after giving one bound upright, dropt dead on the green sward.
+
+"There lies the venison our dame wanted," said Martin; "who would
+have thought of an out-lying stag being so low down the glen at this
+season?--And it is a hart of grease too, in full season, and three
+inches of fat on the brisket. Now this is all your luck, Halbert, that
+follows you, go where you like. Were you to put in for it, I would
+warrant you were made one of the Abbot's yeoman-prickers, and ride about
+in a purple doublet as bold as the best."
+
+"Tush, man," answered Halbert, "I will serve the Queen or no one. Take
+thou care to have down the venison to the Tower, since they expect it. I
+will on to the moss. I have two or three bird-bolts at my girdle, and it
+may be I shall find wild-fowl."
+
+He hastened his pace, and was soon out of sight. Martin paused for a
+moment, and looked after him. "There goes the making of a right gallant
+stripling, an ambition have not the spoiling of him--Serve the Queen!
+said he. By my faith, and she hath worse servants, from all that I e'er
+heard of him. And wherefore should he not keep a high head? They that
+ettle to the top of the ladder will at least get up some rounds. They
+that mint [Footnote: _Mint_--aim at.] at a gown of gold, will always get
+a sleeve of it. But come, sir, (addressing the stag,) you shall go to
+Glendearg on my two legs somewhat more slowly than you were frisking it
+even now on your own four nimble shanks. Nay, by my faith, if you be so
+heavy, I will content me with the best of you, and that's the haunch and
+the nombles, and e'en heave up the rest on the old oak-tree yonder, and
+come back for it with one of the yauds." [Footnote: _Yauds_--horses;
+more particularly horses of labour.]
+
+While Martin returned to Glendearg with the venison, Halbert prosecuted
+his walk, breathing more easily since he was free of his companion. "The
+domestic of a proud and lazy priest--body-squire to the Archbishop of
+Saint Andrews," he repeated to himself; "and this, with the privilege of
+allying his blood with the Bailie of Pittenween, is thought a preferment
+worth a brave man's struggling for;--nay more, a preferment which, if
+allowed, should crown the hopes, past, present, and to come, of the
+son of a Kirk-vassal! By Heaven, but that I find in me a reluctance to
+practise their acts of nocturnal rapine, I would rather take the jack
+and lance, and join with the Border-riders.--Something I will do. Here,
+degraded and dishonoured, I will not live the scorn of each whiffling
+stranger from the South, because, forsooth, he wears tinkling spurs on a
+tawney boot. This thing--this phantom, be it what it will, I will see
+it once more. Since I spoke with her, and touched her hand, thoughts
+and feelings have dawned on me, of which my former life had not even
+dreamed; but shall I, who feel my father's glen too narrow for my
+expanding spirit, brook to be bearded in it by this vain gewgaw of a
+courtier, and in the sight too of Mary Avenel? I will not stoop to it,
+by Heaven!"
+
+As he spoke thus, he arrived in the sequestered glen of Corri-nan-shian,
+as it verged upon the hour of noon. A few moments he remained looking
+upon the fountain, and doubting in his own mind with what countenance
+the White Lady might receive him. She had not indeed expressly
+forbidden his again evoking her; but yet there was something like such
+a prohibition implied in the farewell, which recommended him to wait for
+another guide.
+
+Halbert Glendinning did not long, however, allow himself to pause.
+Hardihood was the natural characteristic of his mind; and under the
+expansion and modification which his feelings had lately undergone, it
+had been augmented rather than diminished. He drew his sword, undid the
+buskin from his foot, bowed three times with deliberation towards the
+fountain, and as often towards the tree, and repeated the same rhyme as
+formerly,--
+
+  "Thrice to the holy brake--
+    Thrice to the well:--
+  I bid thee awake,
+    White Maid of Avenel!
+
+  Noon gleams on the lake--
+    Noon glows on the fell--
+  Wake thee, O wake,
+    White Maid of Avenel!"
+
+His eye was on the holly bush as he spoke the last line; and it was not
+without an involuntary shuddering that he saw the air betwixt his eye
+and that object become more dim, and condense, as it were, into
+the faint appearance of a form, through which, however, so thin and
+transparent was the first appearance of the phantom, he could discern
+the outline of the bush, as through a veil of fine crape. But,
+gradually, it darkened into a more substantial appearance, and the White
+Lady stood before him with displeasure on her brow. She spoke, and her
+speech was still song, or rather measured chant; but, as if now more
+familiar, it flowed occasionally in modulated blank-verse, and at other
+times in the lyrical measure which she had used at their former meeting.
+
+  "This is the day when the fairy kind
+    Sits weeping alone for their hopeless lot,
+  And the wood-maiden sighs to the sighing wind,
+    And the mer-maiden weeps in her crystal grot:
+  For this is the day that a deed was wrought,
+    In which we have neither part nor share.
+  For the children of clay was salvation bought,
+    But not for the forms of sea or air!
+  And ever the mortal is most forlorn.
+    Who meeteth our race on the Friday morn."
+
+"Spirit," said Halbert Glendinning, boldly, "it is bootless to threaten.
+one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do I
+think thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far. The terrors
+which your race produce upon others, are vain against me. My heart is
+hardened against fear, as by a sense of despair. If I am, as thy words
+infer, of a race more peculiarly the care of Heaven than thine, it is
+mine to call, it must be thine to answer. I am the nobler being."
+
+As he spoke, the figure looked upon him with a fierce and ireful
+countenance, which, without losing the similitude of that which it
+usually exhibited, had a wilder and more exaggerated cast of features.
+The eyes seemed to contract and become more fiery, and slight
+convulsions passed over the face, as if it was about to be transformed
+into something hideous. The whole appearance resembled those faces which
+the imagination summons up when it is disturbed by laudanum, but which
+do not remain under the visionary's command, and, beautiful in their
+first appearance, become wild and grotesque ere we can arrest them.
+
+But when Halbert had concluded his bold speech, the White Lady stood
+before him with the same pale, fixed, and melancholy aspect, which she
+usually bore. He had expected the agitation which she exhibited would
+conclude in some frightful metamorphosis. Folding her arms on her bosom,
+the phantom replied,--
+
+  "Daring youth! for thee it is well,
+  Here calling me in haunted dell,
+  That thy heart has not quail'd,
+       Nor thy courage fail'd,
+       And that thou couldst brook
+  The angry look
+       Of Her of Avenel.
+
+  Did one limb shiver,
+       Or an eyelid quiver,
+  Thou wert lost for ever.
+  Though I am form'd from the ether blue,
+  And my blood is of the unfallen dew.
+       And thou art framed of mud and dust,
+  'Tis thine to speak, reply I must."
+
+"I demand of thee, then," said the youth, "by what charm it is that I
+am thus altered in mind and in wishes--that I think no longer of deer
+or dog, of bow or bolt--that my soul spurns the bounds of this obscure
+glen--that my blood boils at an insult from one by whose stirrup I
+would some days since have run for a whole summer's morn, contented and
+honoured by the notice of a single word? Why do I now seek to mate
+me with princes, and knights, and nobles?--Am I the same, who but
+yesterday, as it were, slumbered in contented obscurity, but who am
+to-day awakened to glory and ambition?--Speak--tell me, if thou canst,
+the meaning of this change?--Am I spell-bound?--or have I till now been
+under the influence of a spell, that I feel as another being, yet
+am conscious of remaining the same? Speak and tell me, is it to thy
+influence that the change is owing?"
+
+The White Lady replied,--
+
+  "A mightier wizard far than I
+    Wields o'er the universe his power;
+  Him owns the eagle in the sky,
+    The turtle in the bower.
+  Chanceful in shape, yet mightiest still,
+  He wields the heart of man at will,
+  From ill to good, from good, to ill,
+  In cot and castle-tower."
+
+"Speak not thus darkly," said the youth, colouring so deeply, that
+face, neck, and hands were in a sanguine glow; "make me sensible of thy
+purpose."
+
+The spirit answered,--
+
+  "Ask thy heart,--whose secret cell
+  Is fill'd with Marv Avenel!
+  Ask thy pride,--why scornful look
+  In Mary's view it will not brook?
+  Ask it, why thou seek'st to rise
+  Among the mighty and the wise?--
+  Why thou spurn'st thy lowly lot?--
+  Why thy pastimes are forgot?
+  Why thou wouldst in bloody strife
+  Mend thy luck or lose thy life?
+  Ask thy heart, and it shall tell,
+  Sighing from its secret cell,
+  'Tis for Mary Avenel."
+
+"Tell me, then," said Halbert, his cheek still deeply crimsoned, "thou
+who hast said to me that which I dared not say to myself, by what means
+shall I urge my passion--by what means make it known?"
+
+The White Lady replied,--
+
+  "Do not ask me;
+  On doubts like these thou canst not task me.
+  We only see the passing show
+  Of human passions' ebb and flow;
+  And view the pageant's idle glance
+  As mortals eye the northern dance,
+  When thousand streamers, flashing bright,
+  Career it o'er the brow of night.
+  And gazers mark their changeful gleams,
+  But feel no influence from their beams."
+
+"Yet thine own fate," replied Halbert, "unless men greatly err, is
+linked with that of mortals?"
+
+The phantom answered,
+
+  "By ties mysterious link'd, our fated race
+  Holds strange connexion with the sons of men.
+  The star that rose upon the House of Avenel,
+  When Norman Ulric first assumed the name,
+  That star, when culminating in its orbit,
+  Shot from its sphere a drop of diamond dew,
+  And this bright font received it--and a Spirit
+  Rose from the fountain, and her date of life
+  Hath co-existence with the House of Avenel,
+  And with the star that rules it."
+
+"Speak yet more plainly," answered young Glendinning; "of this I
+can understand nothing. Say, what hath forged thy wierded [Footnote:
+_Wierded_--fated.] link of destiny with the House of Avenel? Say,
+especially, what fate now overhangs that house?"
+
+The White Lady replied,--
+
+  "Look on my girdle--on this thread of gold--
+  'Tis fine as web of lightest gossamer.
+  And, but there is a spell on't, would not bind,
+  Light as they are, the folds of my thin robe.
+  But when 'twas donn'd, it was a massive chain,
+  Such as might bind the champion of the Jews,
+
+  Even when his looks were longest--it hath dwindled,
+  Hath minish'd in its substance and its strength,
+  As sunk the greatness of the House of Avenel.
+  When this frail thread gives way. I to the elements
+  Resign the principles of life they lent me.
+  Ask me no more of this!--the stars forbid it."
+
+"Then canst thou read the stars," answered the youth; "and mayest tell
+me the fate of my passion, if thou canst not aid it?"
+
+The White Lady again replied,--
+
+  "Dim burns the once bright star of Avenel,
+  Dim as the beacon when the morn is nigh,
+  And the o'er-wearied warder leaves the light-house;
+  There is an influence sorrowful and fearful.
+  That dogs its downward course. Disastrous passion,
+  Fierce hate and rivalry, are in the aspect
+  That lowers upon its fortunes."
+
+"And rivalry?" repeated Glendinning; "it is, then, as I feared!--But
+shall that English silkworm presume to beard me in my father's house,
+and in the presence of Mary Avenel?--Give me to meet him, spirit--give
+me to do away the vain distinction of rank on which he refuses me the
+combat. Place us on equal terms, and gleam the stars with what aspect
+they will, the sword of my father shall control their influences."
+
+She answered as promptly as before,--
+
+  "Complain not of me, child of clay,
+  If to thy harm I yield the way.
+  We, who soar thy sphere above,
+  Know not aught of hate or love;
+  As will or wisdom rules thy mood,
+  My gifts to evil turn, or good."
+
+"Give me to redeem my honour," said Halbert Glendinning--"give me to
+retort on my proud rival the insults he has thrown on me, and let the
+rest fare as it will. If I cannot revenge my wrong, I shall sleep quiet,
+and know nought of my disgrace."
+
+The phantom failed not to reply,--
+
+  "When Piercie Shafton boasteth high,
+  Let this token meet his eye.
+  The sun is westering from the dell,
+  Thy wish is granted--fare thee well!"
+
+As the White Lady spoke or chanted these last words, she undid from her
+locks a silver bodkin around which they were twisted, and gave it to
+Halbert Glendinning; then shaking her dishevelled hair till it fell like
+a veil around her, the outlines of her form gradually became as diffuse
+as her flowing tresses, her countenance grew pale as the moon in her
+first quarter, her features became indistinguishable, and she melted
+into the air.
+
+Habit inures us to wonders; but the youth did not find himself alone
+by the fountain without experiencing, though in a much less degree,
+the revulsion of spirits which he had felt upon the phantom's former
+disappearance. A doubt strongly pressed upon his mind, whether it
+were safe to avail himself of the gifts of a spirit which did not even
+pretend to belong to the class of angels, and might, for aught he knew,
+have a much worse lineage than that which she was pleased to avow. "I
+will speak of it," he said, "to Edward, who is clerkly learned, and will
+tell me what I should do. And yet, no--Edward is scrupulous and wary.--I
+will prove the effect of her gift on Sir Piercie Shafton, if he again
+braves me, and by the issue, I will be myself a sufficient judge whether
+there is danger in resorting to her counsel. Home, then, home--and we
+shall soon learn whether that home shall longer hold me; for not again
+will I brook insult, with my father's sword by my side, and Mary for the
+spectator of my disgrace."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Eighteenth.
+
+
+  I give thee eighteenpence a-day,
+    And my bow shall thou bear,
+  And over all the north country,
+    I make thee the chief rydere.
+  And I thirteenpence a-day, quoth the queen,
+    By God and by my faye,
+  Come fetch thy payment when thou wilt,
+    No man shall say thee nay.
+              WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEY.
+
+The manners of the age did not permit the inhabitants of Glendearg to
+partake of the collation which was placed in the spence of that ancient
+tower, before the Lord Abbot and his attendants, and Sir Piercie
+Shafton. Dame Glendinning was excluded, both by inferiority of rank and
+by sex, for (though it was a rule often neglected) the Superior of Saint
+Mary's was debarred from taking his meals in female society. To Mary
+Avenel the latter, and to Edward Glendinning the former, incapacity
+attached; but it pleased his lordship to require their presence in
+the apartment, and to say sundry kind words to them upon the ready and
+hospitable reception which they had afforded him.
+
+The smoking haunch now stood upon the table; a napkin, white as snow,
+was, with due reverence, tucked under the chin of the Abbot by the
+Refectioner; and nought was wanting to commence the repast, save the
+presence of Sir Piercie Shafton, who at length appeared, glittering
+like the sun, in a carnation-velvet doublet, slashed and puffed out with
+cloth of silver, his hat of the newest block, surrounded by a hatband
+of goldsmith's work, while around his neck he wore a collar of gold, set
+with rubies and topazes so rich, that it vindicated his anxiety for the
+safety of his baggage from being founded upon his love of mere finery.
+This gorgeous collar or chain, resembling those worn by the knights of
+the highest orders of chivalry, fell down on his breast, and terminated
+in a medallion.
+
+"We waited for Sir Piercie Shafton," said the Abbot, hastily assuming
+his place in the great chair which the Kitchener advanced to the table
+with ready hand.
+
+"I pray your pardon, reverend father, and my good lord," replied that
+pink of courtesy; "I did but wait to cast my riding slough, and
+to transmew myself into some civil form meeter for this worshipful
+company."
+
+"I cannot but praise your gallantry, Sir Knight," said the Abbot,
+"and your prudence, also, for choosing the fitting time to appear thus
+adorned. Certes, had that goodly chain been visible in some part of your
+late progress, there was risk that the lawful owner might have parted
+company therewith."
+
+"This chain, said your reverence?" answered Sir Piercie; "surely it is
+but a toy, a trifle, a slight thing which shows but poorly with this
+doublet--marry, when I wear that of the murrey-coloured double-piled
+Genoa velvet, puffed out with ciprus, the gems, being relieved and set
+off by the darker and more grave ground of the stuff, show like stars
+giving a lustre through dark clouds."
+
+"I nothing doubt it," said the Abbot, "but I pray you to sit down at the
+board."
+
+But Sir Piercie had now got into his element, and was not easily
+interrupted--"I own," he continued, "that slight as the toy is, it might
+perchance have had some captivation for Julian--Santa Maria!" said
+he, interrupting himself; "what was I about to say, and my fair and
+beauteous Protection, or shall I rather term her my Discretion, here
+in presence!--Indiscreet hath it been in your Affability, O most lovely
+Discretion, to suffer a stray word to have broke out of the penfold of
+his mouth, that might overleap the fence of civility, and trespass on
+the manor of decorum."
+
+"Marry!" said the Abbot, somewhat impatiently, "the greatest discretion
+that I can see in the matter is, to eat our victuals being hot--Father
+Eustace, say the Benedicite, and cut up the haunch."
+
+The Sub-Prior readily obeyed the first part of the Abbot's injunction,
+but paused upon the second--"It is Friday, most reverend," he said in
+Latin, desirous that the hint should escape, if possible, the ears of
+the stranger.
+
+"We are travellers," said the Abbot, in reply, "and _viatoribus licitum
+est_--You know the canon--a traveller must eat what food his hard fate
+sets before him. I grant you all a dispensation to eat flesh this day,
+conditionally that you, brethren, say the Confiteor at curfew time, that
+the knight give alms to his ability, and that all and each of you
+fast from flesh on such day within the next month that shall seem
+most convenient;--wherefore fall to and eat your food with cheerful
+countenances, and you, Father Refectioner, _da mixtus_."
+
+While the Abbot was thus stating the conditions on which his indulgence
+was granted, he had already half finished a slice of the noble haunch,
+and now washed it down with a flagon of Rhenish, modestly tempered with
+water.
+
+"Well is it said," he observed, as he required from the Refectioner
+another slice, "that virtue is its own reward; for though this is but
+humble fare, and hastily prepared, and eaten in a poor chamber, I do not
+remember me of having had such an appetite since I was a simple brother
+in the Abbey of Dundrennan, and was wont to labour in the garden from
+morning until nones, when our Abbot struck the _Cymbalum_. Then would I
+enter keen with hunger, parched with thirst, (_da mihi vinum quaeso, et
+merum sit_,) and partake with appetite of whatever was set before us,
+according to our rule; feast or fast day, _caritas_ or _penitentia_, was
+the same to me. I had no stomach complaints then, which now crave both
+the aid of wine and choice cookery, to render my food acceptable to my
+palate, and easy of digestion."
+
+"It may be, holy father," said the Sub-Prior, "an occasional ride to the
+extremity of Saint Mary's patrimony, may have the same happy effect on
+your health as the air of the garden at Dundrennan."
+
+"Perchance, with our patroness's blessing, such progresses may advantage
+us," said the Abbot; "having an especial eye that our venison is
+carefully killed by some woodsman that is master of his craft."
+
+"If the Lord Abbot will permit me," said the Kitchener, "I think the
+best way to assure his lordship on that important point, would be to
+retain as a yeoman-pricker, or deputy-ranger, the eldest son of this
+good woman, Dame Glendinning, who is here to wait upon us. I should
+know by mine office what belongs to killing of game, and I can safely
+pronounce, that never saw I, or any other _coquinarius_, a bolt so
+justly shot. It has cloven the very heart of the buck."
+
+"What speak you to us of one good shot, father?" said Sir Piercie;
+"I would advise you that such no more maketh a shooter, than doth one
+swallow make a summer--I have seen this springald of whom you speak, and
+if his hand can send forth his shafts as boldly as his tongue doth utter
+presumptuous speeches, I will own him as good an archer as Robin Hood."
+
+"Marry," said the Abbot, "and it is fitting we know the truth of this
+matter from the dame herself; for ill advised were we to give way to
+any rashness in this matter, whereby the bounties which Heaven and our
+patroness provide might be unskilfully mangled, and rendered unfit for
+worthy men's use.--Stand forth, therefore, dame Glendinning, and tell to
+us, as thy liege lord and spiritual Superior, using plainness and truth,
+without either fear or favour, as being a matter wherein we are deeply
+interested, Doth this son of thine use his bow as well as the Father
+Kitchener avers to us?"
+
+"So please your noble fatherhood," answered Dame Glendinning with a
+deep curtsy, "I should know somewhat of archery to my cost, seeing my
+husband--God assoilzie him!--was slain in the field of Pinkie with an
+arrow-shot, while he was fighting under the Kirk's banner, as became
+a liege vassal of the Halidome. He was a valiant man, please your
+reverence, and an honest; and saving that he loved a bit of venison, and
+shifted for his living at a time as Border-men will sometimes do, I wot
+not of sin that he did. And yet, though I have paid for mass after mass
+to the matter of a forty shilling, besides a quarter of wheat and four
+firlocks of rye, I can have no assurance yet that he has been delivered
+from purgatory."
+
+"Dame," said the Lord Abbot, "this shall be looked into heedfully; and
+since thy husband fell, as thou sayest, in the Kirk's quarrel, and
+under her banner, rely upon it that we will have him out of purgatory
+forthwith--that is, always provided he be there.--But it is not of
+thy husband whom we now devise to speak, but of thy son; not of a shot
+Scotsman, but of a shot deer--Wherefore, I say, answer me to the point,
+is thy son a practised archer, ay or no?"
+
+"Alack! my reverend lord," replied the widow, "and my croft would
+be better tilled, if I could answer your reverence that he is
+not.--Practised archer!--marry, holy sir, I would he would practise
+something else--cross-bow and long-bow, hand-gun and hack-but, falconet
+and saker, he can shoot with them all. And if it would please this right
+honourable gentleman, our guest, to hold out his hat at the distance of
+a hundred yards, our Halbert shall send shaft, bolt, or bullet through
+it, (so that right honourable gentleman swerve not, but hold out
+steady,) and I will forfeit a quarter of barley if he touch but a knot
+of his ribands. I have seen our old Martin do as much, and so has our
+right reverend the Sub-Prior, if he be pleased to remember it."
+
+"I am not like to forget it, dame," said Father Eustace; "for I knew
+not which most to admire, the composure of the young marksman, or the
+steadiness of the old mark. Yet I presume not to advise Sir Piercie
+Shafton to subject his valuable beaver, and yet more valuable person, to
+such a risk, unless it should be his own special pleasure."
+
+"Be assured it is not," said Sir Piercie Shafton, something hastily;
+"be well assured, holy father, that it is not. I dispute not the lad's
+qualities, for which your reverence vouches. But bows are but wood,
+strings are but flax, or the silk-worm excrement at best; archers are
+but men, fingers may slip, eyes may dazzle, the blindest may hit the
+butt, the best marker may shoot a bow's length beside. Therefore will we
+try no perilous experiments."
+
+"Be that as you will, Sir Piercie," said the Abbot; "meantime we will
+name this youth bow-bearer in the forest granted to us by good King
+David, that the chase might recreate our wearied spirits, the flesh of
+the dear improve our poor commons, and the hides cover the books of our
+library; thus tending at once to the sustenance of body and soul."
+
+"Kneel down, woman, kneel down," said the Refectioner and the Kitchener,
+with one voice, to Dame Glendinning, "and kiss his lordship's hand, for
+the grace which he has granted to thy son."
+
+They then, as if they had been chanting the service and the responses,
+set off in a sort of duetto, enumerating the advantages of the
+situation.
+
+"A green gown and a pair of leathern galligaskins every Pentecost," said
+the Kitchener.
+
+"Four marks by the year at Candlemas," answered the Refectioner.
+
+"A hogshead of ale at Martlemas, of the double strike, and single ale at
+pleasure, as he shall agree with the Cellarer--"
+
+"Who is a reasonable man," said the Abbot, "and will encourage an active
+servant of the convent."
+
+"A mess of broth and a dole of mutton or beef, at the Kitchener's, on
+each high holiday," resumed the Kitchener.
+
+"The gang of two cows and a palfrey on our Lady's meadow." answered his
+brother officer.
+
+"An ox-hide to make buskins of yearly, because of the brambles," echoed
+the Kitchener.
+
+"And various other perquisites, _quae nunc praescribere longum_," said
+the Abbot, summing, with his own lordly voice, the advantages attached
+to the office of conventional bow-bearer.
+
+Dame Glendinning was all this while on her knees, her head mechanically
+turning from the one church officer to the other, which, as they stood
+one on each side of her, had much the appearance of a figure moved by
+clock-work, and so soon as they were silent, most devotedly did she
+kiss the munificent hand of the Abbot. Conscious, however, of Halbert's
+intractability in some points, she could not help qualifying her
+grateful and reiterated thanks for the Abbot's bountiful proffer, with a
+hope that Halbert would see his wisdom, and accept of it.
+
+"How," said the Abbot, bending his brows, "accept of it?--Woman, is thy
+son in his right wits?"
+
+Elspeth, stunned by the tone in which this question was asked, was
+altogether unable to reply to it. Indeed, any answer she might have made
+could hardly have been heard, as it pleased the two office-bearers of
+the Abbot's table again to recommence their alternate dialogue.
+
+"Refuse!" said the Kitchener.
+
+"Refuse!" answered the Refectioner, echoing the other's word in a tone
+of still louder astonishment.
+
+"Refuse four marks by the year!" said the one.
+
+"Ale and beer--broth and mutton--cow's grass and palfrey's!" shouted the
+Kitchener.
+
+"Gown and galligaskins!" responded the Refectioner.
+
+"A moment's patience, my brethren," answered the Sub-Prior, "and let us
+not be thus astonished before cause is afforded of our amazement. This
+good dame best knoweth the temper and spirit of her son--this much I can
+say, that it lieth not towards letters or learning, of which I have in
+vain endeavoured to instil into him some tincture. Nevertheless, he is
+a youth of no common spirit, but much like those (in my weak judgment)
+whom God raises up among a people when he meaneth that their deliverance
+shall be wrought out with strength of hand and valour of heart. Such
+men we have seen marked with a waywardness, and even an obstinacy of
+character, which hath appeared intractability and stupidity to those
+among whom they walked and were conversant, until the very opportunity
+hath arrived in, which it was the will of Providence that they should be
+the fitting instrument of great things."
+
+"Now, in good time hast thou spoken, Father Eustace," said the Abbot;
+"and we will see this swankie before we decide upon the means of
+employing him.--How say you, Sir Piercie Shafton, is it not the court
+fashion to suit the man to the office, and not the office to the man?"
+
+"So please your reverence and lordship," answered the Northumbrian
+knight, "I do partly, that is, in some sort, subscribe to what your
+wisdom hath delivered--Nevertheless, under reverence of the Sub-Prior,
+we do not look for gallant leaders and national deliverers in the hovels
+of the mean common people. Credit me, that if there be some flashes of
+martial spirit about this young person, which I am not called upon to
+dispute, (though I have seldom seen that presumption and arrogance were
+made good upon the upshot by deed and action,) yet still these will
+prove insufficient to distinguish him, save in his own limited and lowly
+sphere--even as the glowworm, which makes a goodly show among the grass
+of the field, would be of little avail if deposited in a beacon-grate."
+
+"Now, in good time," said the Sub-Prior, "and here comes the young
+huntsman to speak for himself;" for, being placed opposite to the
+window, he could observe Halbert as he ascended the little mound on
+which the tower was situated.
+
+"Summon him to our presence," said the Lord Abbot; and with an obedient
+start the two attendant monks went off with emulous alertness. Dame
+Glendinning sprung away at the same moment, partly to gain an instant to
+recommend obedience to her son, partly to prevail with him to change his
+apparel before coming in presence of the Abbot. But the Kitchener and
+Refectioner, both speaking at once, had already seized each an arm, and
+were leading Halbert in triumph into the apartment, so that she could
+only ejaculate, "His will be done; but an he had but had on him his
+Sunday's hose!"
+
+Limited and humble as this desire was, the fates did not grant it, for
+Halbert Glendinning was hurried into the presence of the Lord Abbot and
+his party, without a word of explanation, and without a moment's time
+being allowed to assume his holiday hose, which, in the language of the
+time, implied both breeches and stockings.
+
+Yet, though thus suddenly presented amid the centre of all eyes, there
+was something in Halbert's appearance which commanded a certain degree
+of respect from the company into which he was so unceremoniously
+intruded, and the greater part of whom were disposed to consider him
+with hauteur if not with absolute contempt. But his appearance and
+reception we must devote to another chapter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Nineteenth.
+
+
+  Now choose thee, gallant, betwixt wealth and honour;
+  There lies the pelf, in sum to bear thee through
+  The dance of youth, and the turmoil of manhood,
+  Yet leave enough for age's chimney-corner;
+  But an thou grasp to it, farewell ambition,
+  Farewell each hope of bettering thy condition,
+  And raising thy low rank above the churls
+  That till the earth for bread.
+                                 OLD PLAY.
+
+It is necessary to dwell for some brief space on the appearance and
+demeanour of young Glendinning, ere we proceed to describe his interview
+with the Abbot of St. Mary's, at this momentous crisis of his life.
+
+Halbert was now about nineteen years old, tall and active rather than
+strong, yet of that hardy conformation of limb and sinew, which promises
+great strength when the growth shall be complete, and the system
+confirmed. He was perfectly well made, and, like most men who have that
+advantage, possessed a grace and natural ease of manner and carriage,
+which prevented his height from being the distinguished part of his
+external appearance. It was not until you had compared his stature with
+that of those amongst or near to whom he stood, that you became
+sensible that the young Glendinning was upwards of six feet high. In the
+combination of unusual height with perfect symmetry, ease, and grace of
+carriage, the young heir of Glendearg, notwithstanding his rustic birth
+and education, had greatly the advantage even of Sir Piercie Shafton
+himself, whose stature was lower, and his limbs, though there was
+no particular point to object to, were on the whole less exactly
+proportioned. On the other hand, Sir Piercie's very handsome countenance
+afforded him as decided an advantage over the Scotsman, as regularity of
+features and brilliance of complexion could give over traits which were
+rather strongly marked than beautiful, and upon whose complexion the
+"skyey influences," to which he was constantly exposed, had blended
+the red and white into the purely nut-brown hue, which coloured alike
+cheeks, neck, and forehead, and blushed only in a darker glow upon the
+former.--Halbert's eyes supplied a marked and distinguished part of
+his physiognomy. They were large and of a hazel colour, and sparkled in
+moments of animation with such uncommon brilliancy, that it seemed as
+if they actually emitted light. Nature had closely curled the locks of
+dark-brown hair, which relieved and set off the features, such as we
+have described them, displaying a bold and animated disposition, much
+more than might have been expected from his situation, or from his
+previous manners, which hitherto had seemed bashful, homely, and
+awkward.
+
+Halbert's dress was certainly not of that description which sets off to
+the best advantage a presence of itself prepossessing. His jerkin and
+hose were of coarse rustic cloth, and his cap of the same. A belt
+round his waist served at once to sustain the broad-sword which we have
+already mentioned, and to hold five or six arrows and bird-bolts, which
+were stuck into it on the right side, along with a large knife hilted
+with buck-horn, or, as it was then called, a dudgeon-dagger. To complete
+his dress, we must notice his loose buskins of deer's hide, formed so as
+to draw up on the leg as high as the knee, or at pleasure to be thrust
+down lower than the calves. These were generally used at the period by
+such as either had their principal occupation, or their chief pleasure,
+in silvan sports, as they served to protect the legs against the rough
+and tangled thickets into which the pursuit of game frequently led
+them.--And these trifling particulars complete his external appearance.
+
+It is not easy to do justice to the manner in which young Glendinning's
+soul spoke through his eyes when ushered so suddenly into the company of
+those whom his earliest education had taught him to treat with awe and
+reverence. The degree of embarrassment, which his demeanor evinced, had
+nothing in it either meanly servile, or utterly disconcerted. It was no
+more than became a generous and ingenuous youth of a bold spirit, but
+totally inexperienced, who should for the first time be called upon to
+think and act for himself in such society and under such disadvantageous
+circumstances. There was not in his carriage a grain either of
+forwardness or of timidity, which a friend could have wished away.
+
+He kneeled and kissed the Abbot's hand, then rose, and retiring two
+paces, bowed respectfully to the circle around, smiling gently as he
+received an encouraging nod from the Sub-Prior, to whom alone he was
+personally known, and blushing as he encountered the anxious look of
+Mary Avenel, who beheld with painful interest the sort of ordeal to
+which her foster-brother was about to be subjected. Recovering from the
+transient flurry of spirits into which the encounter of her glance had
+thrown him, he stood composedly awaiting till the Abbot should express
+his pleasure.
+
+The ingenuous expression of countenance, noble form, and graceful
+attitude of the young man, failed not to prepossess in his favor the
+churchmen in whose presence he stood. The Abbot looked round, and
+exchanged a gracious and approving glance with his counsellor Father
+Eustace, although probably the appointment of a ranger, or bow-bearer,
+was one in which he might have been disposed to proceed without the
+Sub-Prior's advice, were it but to show his own free agency. But the
+good mien of the young man now in nomination was such, that he rather
+hastened to exchange congratulation on meeting with so proper a subject
+of promotion, than to indulge any other feeling. Father Eustace enjoyed
+the pleasure which a well-constituted mind derives from seeing a benefit
+light on a deserving object; for as he had not seen Halbert since
+circumstances had made so material a change in his manner and feelings,
+he scarce doubted that the proffered appointment would, notwithstanding
+his mother's uncertainty, suit the disposition of a youth who had
+appeared devoted to woodland sports, and a foe alike to sedentary or
+settled occupation of any kind. The Refectioner and Kitchener were so
+well pleased with Halbert's prepossessing appearance, that they seemed
+to think that the salary, emoluments, and perquisites, the dole, the
+grazing, the gown, and the galligaskins, could scarce be better bestowed
+than on the active and graceful figure before them.
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton, whether from being more deeply engaged in his own
+cogitations, or that the subject was unworthy of his notice, did not
+seem to partake of the general feeling of approbation excited by the
+young man's presence. He sate with his eyes half shut, and his arms
+folded, appearing to be wrapped in contemplations of a nature deeper
+than those arising out of the scene before him. But, notwithstanding his
+seeming abstraction and absence of mind, there was a flutter of vanity
+in Sir Piercie's very handsome countenance, an occasional change of
+posture from one striking attitude (or what he conceived to be such)
+to another, and an occasional stolen glance at the female part of the
+company, to spy how far he succeeded in riveting their attention, which
+gave a marked advantage, in comparison, to the less regular and more
+harsh features of Halbert Glendinning, with their composed, manly, and
+deliberate expression of mental fortitude.
+
+Of the females belonging to the family of Glendearg, the Miller's
+daughter alone had her mind sufficiently at leisure to admire, from time
+to time, the graceful attitudes of Sir Piercie Shafton; for both Mary
+Avenel and Dame Glendinning were waiting in anxiety and apprehension
+the answer which Halbert was to return to the Abbot's proposal, and
+fearfully anticipating the consequences of his probable refusal.
+The conduct of his brother Edward, for a lad constitutionally shy,
+respectful, and even timid, was at once affectionate and noble. This
+younger son of Dame Elspeth had stood unnoticed in a corner, after
+the Abbot, at the request of the Sub-Prior, had honoured him with some
+passing notice, and asked him a few common-place questions about his
+progress in Donatus, and in the _Promptuarium Parvulorum_, without
+waiting for the answers. From his corner he now glided round to his
+brother's side, and keeping a little behind him, slid his right hand
+into the huntsman's left, and by a gentle pressure, which Halbert
+instantly and ardently returned, expressed at once his interest in his
+situation, and his resolution to share his fate.
+
+The group was thus arranged, when, after the pause of two or three
+minutes, which he employed in slowly sipping his cup of wine, in order
+that he might enter on his proposal with due and deliberate dignity, the
+Abbot at length expressed himself thus:--
+
+"My son--we your lawful Superior, and the Abbot, under God's favour,
+of the community of Saint Mary's, have heard of your manifold good
+gifts--a-hem--especially touching wood-craft--and the huntsman-like
+fashion in which you strike your game, truly and as a yeoman should, not
+abusing Heaven's good benefits by spoiling the flesh, as is too often
+seen in careless rangers--a-hem." He made here a pause, but observing
+that Glendinning only replied to his compliment by a bow, he
+proceeded,--"My son, we commend your modesty; nevertheless, we will
+that thou shouldst speak freely to us touching that which we have
+premeditated for thine advancement, meaning to confer on thee the office
+of bow-bearer and ranger, as well over the chases and forests wherein
+our house hath privilege by the gifts of pious kings and nobles, whose
+souls now enjoy the fruits of their bounties to the Church as to those
+which belong to us in exclusive right of property and perpetuity. Thy
+knee, my son--that we may, with our own hand, and without loss of time,
+induct thee into office."
+
+"Kneel down," said the Kitchener on the one side; and "Kneel down," said
+the Refectioner on the other.
+
+But Halbert Glendinning remained standing.
+
+"Were it to show gratitude and good-will for your reverend lordship's
+noble offer, I could not," he said, "kneel low enough, or remain long
+enough kneeling. But I may not kneel to take investure of your
+noble gift, my Lord Abbot, being a man determined to seek my fortune
+otherwise."
+
+"How is that, sir?" said the Abbot, knitting his brows; "do I hear you
+speak aright? and do you, a born vassal of the Halidome, at the moment
+when I am destining to you such a noble expression of my good-will,
+propose exchanging my service for that of any other?"
+
+"My lord," said Halbert Glendinning, "it grieves me to think you hold
+me capable of undervaluing your gracious offer, or of exchanging
+your service for another. But your noble proffer doth but hasten the
+execution of a determination which I have long since formed."
+
+"Ay, my son," said the Abbot, "is it indeed so?--right early have
+you learned to form resolutions without consulting those on whom you
+naturally depend. But what may it be, this sagacious resolution, if I
+may so far pray you?"
+
+"To yield up to my brother and mother," answered Halbert, "mine
+interest in the fief of Glendearg, lately possessed by my father, Simon
+Glendinning: and having prayed your lordship to be the same kind and
+generous master to them, that your predecessors, the venerable Abbots
+of Saint Mary's, have been to my fathers in times past; for myself, I am
+determined to seek my fortune where I may best find it."
+
+Dame Glendinning here ventured, emboldened by maternal anxiety, to
+break silence with an exclamation of "O my son!" Edward clinging to his
+brother's side, half spoke, half whispered, a similar ejaculation, of
+"Brother! brother!"
+
+The Sub-Prior took up the matter in a tone of grave reprehension, which,
+as he conceived, the interest he had always taken in the family at
+Glendearg required at his hand.
+
+"Wilful young man," he said, "what folly can urge thee to push back the
+hand that is stretched out to aid thee? What visionary aim hast
+thou before thee, that can compensate for the decent and sufficient
+independence which thou art now rejecting with scorn?"
+
+"Four marks by the year, duly and truly," said the Kitchener.
+
+"Cow's-grass, doublet, and galligaskins," responded the Refectioner.
+
+"Peace, my brethren," said the Sub-Prior; "and may it please your
+lordship, venerable father, upon my petition, to allow this headstrong
+youth a day for consideration, and it shall be my part so to
+indoctrinate him, as to convince him what is due on this occasion to
+your lordship, and to his family, and to himself."
+
+"Your kindness, reverend father," said the youth, "craves my dearest
+thanks--it is the continuance of a long train of benevolence towards me,
+for which I give you my gratitude, for I have nothing else to offer. It
+is my mishap, not your fault, that your intentions have been frustrated.
+But my present resolution is fixed and unalterable. I cannot accept the
+generous offer of the Lord Abbot; my fate calls me elsewhere, to scenes
+where I shall end it or mend it."
+
+"By our Lady," said the Abbot, "I think the youth be mad indeed--or that
+you, Sir Piercie, judged of him most truly, when you prophesied that he
+would prove unfit for the promotion we designed him--it may be you knew
+something of this wayward humour before?"
+
+"By the mass, not I," answered Sir Piercie Shafton, with his usual
+indifference. "I but judged of him by his birth and breeding; for seldom
+doth a good hawk come out of a kite's egg."
+
+"Thou art thyself a kite, and kestrel to boot," replied Halbert
+Glendinning, without a moment's hesitation.
+
+"This in our presence, and to a man of worship?" said the Abbot, the
+blood rushing to his face.
+
+"Yes, my lord," answered the youth; "even in your presence I return to
+this gay man's face, the causeless dishonour--which he has flung on my
+name. My brave father, who fell in the cause of his country, demands
+that justice at the hands of his son!"
+
+"Unmannered boy!" said the Abbot.
+
+"Nay, my good lord," said the knight, "praying pardon for the
+coarse interruption, let me entreat you not to be wroth with this
+rustical--Credit me, the north wind shall as soon puff one of your rocks
+from its basis, as aught which I hold so slight and inconsiderate as the
+churlish speech of an untaught churl, shall move the spleen of Piercie
+Shafton."
+
+"Proud as you are, Sir Knight," said Halbert, "in your imagined
+superiority, be not too confident that you cannot be moved."
+
+"Faith, by nothing that thou canst urge," said Sir Piercie.
+
+"Knowest thou, then, this token?" said young Glendinning, offering to
+him the silver bodkin he had received from the White Lady.
+
+Never was such an instant change, from the most contemptuous serenity,
+to the most furious state of passion, as that which Sir Piercie Shafton
+exhibited. It was the difference between a cannon lying quiet in its
+embrasure, and the same gun when touched by the linstock. He started
+up, every limb quivering with rage, and his features so inflamed and
+agitated by passion, that he more resembled a demoniac, than a man under
+the regulation of reason. He clenched both his fists, and thrusting them
+forward, offered them furiously at the face of Glendinning, who was even
+himself startled at the frantic state of excitation which his action
+had occasioned. The next moment he withdrew them, struck his open palm
+against his own forehead, and rushed out of the room in a state of
+indescribable agitation. The whole matter had been so sudden, that no
+person present had time to interfere.
+
+When Sir Piercie Shafton had left the apartment, there was a moment's
+pause of astonishment; and then a general demand that Halbert
+Glendinning should instantly explain by what means he had produced such
+a violent change in the deportment of the English cavalier.
+
+"I did nought to him," answered Halbert Glendinning, "but what you all
+saw--am I to answer for his fantastic freaks of humour?"
+
+"Boy," said the Abbot, in his most authoritative manner, "these
+subterfuges shall not avail thee. This is not a man to be driven from
+his temperament without some sufficient cause. That cause was given by
+thee, and must have been known to thee. I command thee, as thou wilt
+save thyself from worse measure, to explain to me by what means thou
+hast moved our friend thus--We choose not that our vassals shall drive
+our guests mad in our very presence, and we remain ignorant of the means
+whereby that purpose is effected."
+
+"So may it please your reverence, I did but show him this token," said
+Halbert Glendinning, delivering it at the same time to the Abbot, who
+looked at it with much attention, and then, shaking his head, gravely
+delivered it to the Sub-Prior, without speaking a word.
+
+Father Eustace looked at the mysterious token with some attention; and
+then addressing Halbert in a stern and severe voice, said, "Young man,
+if thou wouldst not have us suspect thee of some strange double-dealing
+in this matter, let us instantly know whence thou hadst this token, and
+how it possesses an influence on Sir Piercie Shafton?"--It would have
+been extremely difficult for Halbert, thus hard pressed, to have either
+evaded or answered so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth
+might, in those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake,
+although, in ours, his confession would have only gained for him the
+credit of a liar beyond all rational credibility. He was fortunately
+relieved by the return of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught,
+as he entered, the sound of the Sub-Prior's question.
+
+Without waiting until Halbert Glendinning replied, he came forward,
+whispering to him as he passed, "Be secret--thou shalt have the
+satisfaction thou hast dared to seek for."
+
+When he returned to his place, there were still marks of discomposure on
+his brow; but, becoming apparently collected and calm, he looked around
+him, and apologized for the indecorum of which he had been guilty, which
+he ascribed to sudden and severe indisposition. All were silent, and
+looked on each other with some surprise.
+
+The Lord Abbot gave orders for all to retire from the apartment, save
+himself, Sir Piercie Shafton, and the Sub-Prior. "And have an eye," he
+added, "on that bold youth, that he escape not; for if he hath practised
+by charm, or otherwise, on the health of our worshipful guest, I swear
+by the alb and mitre which I wear, that his punishment shall be most
+exemplary."
+
+"My lord and venerable father," said Halbert, bowing respectfully, "fear
+not but that I will abide my doom. I think you will best learn from the
+worshipful knight himself, what is the cause of his distemperature, and
+how slight my share in it has been."
+
+"Be assured," said the knight, without looking up, however, while he
+spoke, "I will satisfy the Lord Abbot."
+
+With these words the company retired, and with them young Glendinning.
+When the Abbot, the Sub-Prior, and the English knight were left alone,
+Father Eustace, contrary to his custom, could not help speaking the
+first. "Expound unto us, noble sir," he said, "by what mysterious means
+the production of this simple toy could so far move your spirit, and
+overcome your patience, after you had shown yourself proof to all the
+provocation offered by this self-sufficient and singular youth?"
+
+The knight took the silver bodkin from the good father's hand, looked at
+it with great composure, and, having examined it all over, returned it
+to the Sub-Prior, saying at the same time, "In truth, venerable father,
+I cannot but marvel, that the wisdom implied alike in your silver hairs,
+and in your eminent rank, should, like a babbling hound, (excuse the
+similitude,) open thus loudly on a false scent. I were, indeed, more
+slight to be moved than the leaves of the aspen-tree, which wag at the
+least breath of heaven, could I be touched by such a trifle as this,
+which in no way concerns me more than if the same quantity of silver
+were stricken into so many groats. Truth is, that from my youth upward,
+I have been subjected to such a malady as you saw me visited with even
+now--a cruel and searching pain, which goeth through nerve and bone,
+even as a good brand in the hands of a brave soldier sheers through limb
+and sinew--but it passes away speedily, as you yourselves may judge."
+
+"Still," said the Sub-Prior, "this will not account for the youth
+offering to you this piece of silver, as a token by which you were
+to understand something, and, as we must needs conjecture, something
+disagreeable."
+
+"Your reverence is to conjecture what you will," said Sir Piercie; "but
+I cannot pretend to lay your judgment on the right scent when I see it
+at fault. I hope I am not liable to be called upon to account for the
+foolish actions of a malapert boy?"
+
+"Assuredly," said the Sub-Prior, "we shall prosecute no inquiry which
+is disagreeable to our guest. Nevertheless," said he, looking to his
+Superior, "this chance may, in some sort, alter the plan your lordship
+had formed for your worshipful guest's residence for a brief term in
+this tower, as a place alike of secrecy and of security; both of which,
+in the terms which we now stand on with England, are circumstances to be
+desired."
+
+"In truth," said the Abbot, "and the doubt is well thought on, were it
+as well removed; for I scarce know in the Halidome so fitting a place
+of refuge, yet see I not how to recommend it to our worshipful guest,
+considering the unrestrained petulance of this headstrong youth."
+
+"Tush! reverend sirs--what would you make of me?" said Sir Piercie
+Shafton. "I protest, by mine honour, I would abide in this house were I
+to choose. What! I take no exceptions at the youth for showing a flash
+of spirit, though the spark may light on mine own head. I honour the
+lad for it. I protest I will abide here, and he shall aid me in striking
+down a deer. I must needs be friends with him, and he be such a shot:
+and we will speedily send down to my lord Abbot a buck of the first
+head, killed so artificially as shall satisfy even the reverend
+Kitchener."
+
+This was said with such apparent ease and good-humour, that the Abbot
+made no farther observation on what had passed, but proceeded to
+acquaint his guest with the details of furniture, hangings, provisions,
+and so forth, which he proposed to send up to the Tower of Glendearg for
+his accommodation. This discourse, seasoned with a cup or two of
+wine, served to prolong the time until the reverend Abbot ordered his
+cavalcade to prepare for their return to the Monastery.
+
+"As we have," he said, "in the course of this our toilsome journey,
+lost our meridian, [Footnote: The hour of repose at noon, which, in the
+middle ages, was employed in slumber, and which the monastic rules of
+nocturnal vigils rendered necessary.] indulgence shall be given to those
+of our attendants who shall, from very weariness, be unable to attend
+the duty at prime, [Footnote: _Prime_ was the midnight service of the
+monks.] and this by way of misericord or _indulgentia._" [Footnote:
+_Misericord,_ according to the learned work of Fosbrooke on British
+Monachism, meant not only an indulgence, or exoneration from particular
+duties, but also a particular apartment in a convent, where the monks
+assembled to enjoy such indulgences or allowances as were granted beyond
+the rule.]
+
+Having benevolently intimated a boon to his faithful followers, which he
+probably judged would be far from unacceptable, the good Abbot, seeing
+all ready for his journey, bestowed his blessing on the assembled
+household--gave his hand to be kissed by Dame Glendinning--himself
+kissed the cheek of Mary Avenel, and even of the Miller's maiden, when
+they approached to render him the same homage--commanded Halbert to rule
+his temper, and to be aiding and obedient in all things to the
+English Knight--admonished Edward to be _discipulus impiger atque
+strenuus_--then took a courteous farewell of Sir Piercie Shafton,
+advising him to lie close, for fear of the English borderers, who might
+be employed to kidnap him; and having discharged these various offices
+of courtesy, moved forth to the courtyard, followed by the whole
+establishment. Here, with a heavy sigh, approaching to a groan, the
+venerable father heaved himself upon his palfrey, whose dark purple
+housings swept the ground; and, greatly comforted that the discretion of
+the animal's pace would be no longer disturbed by the gambadoes of Sir
+Piercie and his prancing war-horse, he set forth at a sober and steady
+trot upon his return to the Monastery.
+
+When the Sub-Prior had mounted to accompany his principal, his eye
+sought out Halbert, who, partly hidden by a projection of the outward
+wall of the court, stood apart from, and gazing upon the departing
+cavalcade, and the group which assembled around them. Unsatisfied with
+the explanation he had received concerning the mysterious transaction
+of the silver bodkin, yet interesting himself in the youth, of whose
+character he had formed a favourable idea, the worthy monk resolved
+to take an early opportunity of investigating that matter. In the
+meanwhile, he looked upon Halbert with a serious and warning aspect, and
+held up his finger to him as he signed farewell. He then joined the rest
+of the churchmen, and followed his Superior down the valley.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twentieth.
+
+
+  I hope you'll give me cause to think you noble.
+  And do me right with your sword, sir, as becomes
+  One gentleman of honour to another;
+
+  All this is fair, sir--let us make no days on't,
+  I'll lead your way.
+
+LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE.
+
+The look and sign of warning which the Sub-Prior gave to Halbert
+Glendinning as they parted, went to his heart; for although he had
+profited much less than Edward by the good man's instructions, he had
+a sincere reverence for his person; and even the short time he had for
+deliberation tended to show him he was embarked in a perilous adventure.
+The nature of the provocation which he had given to Sir Piercie Shafton
+he could not even conjecture; but he saw that it was of a mortal
+quality, and he was now to abide the consequences.
+
+That he might not force these consequences forward by any premature
+renewal of their quarrel, he resolved to walk apart for an hour, and
+consider on what terms he was to meet this haughty foreigner. The time
+seemed propitious for his doing so without having the appearance
+of wilfully shunning the stranger, as all the members of the little
+household were dispersing either to perform such tasks as had been
+interrupted by the arrival of the dignitaries, or to put in order what
+had been deranged by their visit.
+
+Leaving the tower, therefore, and descending, unobserved as he thought,
+the knoll on which it stood, Halbert gained the little piece of level
+ground which extended betwixt the descent of the hill, and the first
+sweep made by the brook after washing the foot of the eminence on which
+the tower was situated, where a few straggling birch and oak-trees
+served to secure him from observation. But scarcely had he reached the
+spot, when he was surprised to feel a smart tap upon the shoulder, and,
+turning around, he perceived he had been closely followed by Sir
+Piercie Shafton. When, whether from our state of animal spirits, want
+of confidence in the justice of our cause, or any other motive, our own
+courage happens to be in a wavering condition, nothing tends so much
+altogether to disconcert us, as a great appearance of promptitude on
+the part of our antagonist. Halbert Glendinning, both morally and
+constitutionally intrepid, was nevertheless somewhat troubled at seeing
+the stranger, whose resentment he had provoked, appear at once before
+him, and with an aspect which boded hostility. But though his heart
+might beat somewhat thicker, he was too high-spirited to exhibit any
+external signs of emotion.--"What is your pleasure, Sir Piercie?" he
+said to the English knight, enduring without apparent discomposure all
+the terrors which his antagonist had summoned into his aspect.
+
+"What is my pleasure!" answered Sir Piercie; "a goodly question
+after the part you have acted towards me!--Young man, I know not
+what infatuation has led thee to place thyself in direct and insolent
+opposition to one who is a guest of thy liege-lord the Abbot, and who,
+even from the courtesy due to thy mother's roof, had a right to remain
+there without meeting insult. Neither do I ask, or care, by what means
+thou hast become possessed of the fatal secret by which thou hast dared
+to offer me open shame. But I must now tell thee, that the possession of
+it has cost thee thy life."
+
+"Not, I trust, if my hand and sword can defend it," replied Halbert,
+boldly.
+
+"True," said the Englishman, "I mean not to deprive thee of thy fair
+chance of self-defence. I am only sorry to think, that, young and
+country-bred as thou art, it can but little avail thee. But thou must be
+well aware, that in this quarrel I shall use no terms of quarter."
+
+"Rely on it, proud man," answered the youth, "that I shall ask none; and
+although thou speakest as if I lay already at thy feet, trust me,
+that as I am determined never to ask thy mercy, so I am not fearful of
+needing it."
+
+"Thou wilt, then," said the knight, "do nothing to avert the certain
+fate which thou hast provoked with such wantonness?"
+
+"And how were that to be purchased?" replied Halbert Glendinning, more
+with the wish of obtaining some farther insight into the terms on which
+he stood with this stranger, than to make him the submission which he
+might require.
+
+"Explain to me instantly," said Sir Piercie, "without equivocation or
+delay, by what means thou wert enabled to wound my honour so deeply--and
+shouldst thou point out to me by so doing an enemy more worthy of my
+resentment, I will permit thine own obscure insignificance to draw a
+veil over thine insolence."
+
+"This is too high a flight," said Glendinning, fiercely, "for thine own
+presumption to soar without being checked. Thou hast come to my father's
+house, as well as I can guess, a fugitive and an exile, and thy first
+greeting to its inhabitants has been that of contempt and injury. By
+what means I have been able to retort that contempt, let thine own
+conscience tell thee. Enough for me that I stand on the privilege of
+a free Scotchman, and will brook no insult unreturned, and no injury
+unrequited."
+
+"It is well, then," said Sir Piercie Shafton; "we will dispute this
+matter to-morrow morning with our swords. Let the time be daybreak, and
+do thou assign the place. We will go forth as if to strike a deer."
+
+"Content," replied Halbert Glendinning: "I will guide thee to a
+spot where an hundred men might fight and fall without any chance of
+interruption."
+
+"It is well," answered Sir Piercie Shafton. "Here then we part.--Many
+will say, that in thus indulging the right of a gentleman to the son of
+a clod-breaking peasant, I derogate from my sphere, even as the blessed
+sun would derogate should he condescend to compare and match his golden
+beams with the twinkle of a pale, blinking, expiring, gross-fed taper.
+But no consideration of rank shall prevent my avenging the insult thou
+hast offered me. We bear a smooth face, observe me, Sir Villagio, before
+the worshipful inmates of yonder cabin, and to-morrow we try conclusions
+with our swords." So saying, he turned away towards the tower.
+
+It may not be unworthy of notice, that in the last speech only, had Sir
+Piercie used some of those flowers of rhetoric which characterized the
+usual style of his conversation. Apparently, a sense of wounded honour,
+and the deep desire of vindicating his injured feelings, had proved too
+strong for the fantastic affectation of his acquired habits. Indeed,
+such is usually the influence of energy of mind, when called forth and
+exerted, that Sir Piercie Shafton had never appeared in the eyes of his
+youthful antagonist half so much deserving of esteem and respect as
+in this brief dialogue, by which they exchanged mutual defiance. As he
+followed him slowly to the tower, he could not help thinking to himself,
+that, had the English knight always displayed this superior tone of
+bearing and feeling, he would not probably have felt so earnestly
+disposed to take offence at his hand. Mortal offence, however, had been
+exchanged, and the matter was to be put to mortal arbitrement.
+
+The family met at the evening meal, when Sir Piercie Shafton extended
+the benignity of his countenance and the graces of his conversation far
+more generally over the party than he had hitherto condescended to do.
+The greater part of his attention was, of course, still engrossed by
+his divine inimitable Discretion, as he chose to term Mary Avenel; but,
+nevertheless there were interjectional flourishes to the Maid of the
+Mill, under the title of Comely Damsel, and to the Dame, under that of
+Worthy Matron. Nay, lest he should fail to excite their admiration by
+the graces of his rhetoric, he generously, and without solicitation,
+added those of his voice; and after regretting bitterly the absence of
+his viol-de-gamba, he regaled them with a song, "which," said he, "the
+inimitable Astrophel, whom mortals call Philip Sidney, composed in the
+nonage of his muse, to show the world what they are to expect from
+his riper years, and which will one day see the light in that
+not-to-be-paralleled perfection of human wit, which he has addressed
+to his sister, the matchless Parthenope, whom men call Countess of
+Pembroke; a work," he continued, "whereof his friendship hath permitted
+me, though unworthy, to be an occasional partaker, and whereof I may
+well say, that the deep afflictive tale which awakeneth our sorrows, is
+so relieved with brilliant similitudes, dulcet descriptions, pleasant
+poems, and engaging interludes, that they seem as the stars of the
+firmament, beautifying the dusky robe of night. And though I wot well
+how much the lovely and quaint language will suffer by my widowed voice,
+widowed in that it is no longer matched by my beloved viol-de-gamba, I
+will essay to give you a taste of the ravishing sweetness of the poesy
+of the un-to-be-imitated Astrophel."
+
+So saying, he sung without mercy or remorse about five hundred verses,
+of which the two first and the four last may suffice for a specimen--
+
+  "What tongue can her perfections tell,
+  On whose each part all pens may dwell.
+
+  Of whose high praise arid praiseful bliss,
+  Goodness the pen. Heaven paper is;
+  The ink immortal fame doth send,
+  As I began so I must end."
+
+As Sir Piercie Shafton always sung with his eyes half shut, it was not
+until, agreeably to the promise of poetry, he had fairly made an end,
+that looking round, he discovered that the greater part of his audience
+had, in the meanwhile, yielded to the charms of repose. Mary Avenel,
+indeed, from a natural sense of politeness, had contrived to keep awake
+through all the perplexities of the divine Astrophel; but Mysie was
+transported in dreams back to the dusty atmosphere of her father's mill.
+Edward himself, who had given his attention for some time, had at length
+fallen fast asleep; and the good dame's nose, could its tones have
+been put in regulation, might have supplied the bass of the lamented
+viol-de-gamba. Halbert, however, who had no temptation to give way
+to the charms of slumber, remained awake with his eyes fixed on the
+songster; not that he was better entertained with the words, or more
+ravished with the execution, than the rest of the company, but rather
+because he admired, or perhaps envied, the composure, which could thus
+spend the evening in interminable madrigals, when the next morning was
+to be devoted to deadly combat. Yet it struck his natural acuteness
+of observation, that the eye of the gallant cavalier did now and
+then, furtively as it were, seek a glance of his countenance, as if to
+discover how he was taking the exhibition of his antagonist's composure
+and serenity of mind.
+
+He shall read nothing in my countenance, thought Halbert, proudly, that
+can make him think my indifference less than his own.
+
+And taking from the shelf a bag full of miscellaneous matters collected
+for the purpose, he began with great industry to dress hooks, and had
+finished half-a-dozen of flies (we are enabled, for the benefit of those
+who admire the antiquities of the gentle art of angling, to state that
+they were brown hackles) by the time that Sir Piercie had arrived at the
+conclusion of his long-winded strophes of the divine Astrophel. So that
+he also testified a magnanimous contempt of that which to-morrow should
+bring forth.
+
+As it now waxed late, the family of Glendearg separated for the evening;
+Sir Piercie first saying to the dame, that "her son Albert--"
+
+"Halbert," said Elspeth, with emphasis, "Halbert, after his goodsire,
+Halbert Brydone."
+
+"Well, then, I have prayed your son, Halbert, that we may strive
+tomorrow, with the sun's earliness, to wake a stag from his lair, that I
+may see whether he be as prompt at that sport as fame bespeaks him."
+
+"Alas! sir," answered Dame Elspeth, "he is but too prompt, an you
+talk of promptitude, at any thing that has steel at one end of it, and
+mischief at the other. But he is at your honourable disposal, and I
+trust you will teach him how obedience is due to our venerable father
+and lord, the Abbot, and prevail with him to take the bow-bearer's place
+in fee; for, as the two worthy monks said, it will be a great help to a
+widow-woman."
+
+"Trust me, good dame," replied Sir Piercie, "it is my purpose so to
+indoctrinate him touching his conduct and bearing towards his betters,
+that he shall not lightly depart from the reverence due to them.--We
+meet, then, beneath the birch-trees in the plain," he said, looking
+to Halbert, "so soon as the eye of day hath opened its lids."--Halbert
+answered with a sign of acquiescence, and the knight proceeded, "And
+now, having wished to my fairest Discretion those pleasant dreams which
+wave their pinions around the couch of sleeping beauty, and to this
+comely damsel the bounties of Morpheus, and to all others the common
+good-night, I will crave you leave to depart to my place of rest, though
+I may say with the poet,
+
+  'Ah rest!--no rest but change of place and posture:
+  Ah sleep!--no sleep but worn-out Nature's swooning;
+  Ah bed!--no bed but cushion fill'd with stones:
+  Rest, sleep, nor bed, await not on an exile.'"
+
+With a delicate obeisance he left the room, evading Dame Glendinning,
+who hastened to assure him he would find his accommodations for repose
+much more agreeable than they had been the night before, there having
+been store of warm coverlets, and a soft feather-bed, sent up from the
+Abbey. But the good knight probably thought that the grace and effect
+of his exit would be diminished, if he were recalled from his heroics to
+discuss such sublunary and domestic topics, and therefore hastened away
+without waiting to hear her out.
+
+"A pleasant gentleman," said Dame Glendinning; "but I will warrant
+him an humorous [Footnote: _Humorous_--full of whims--thus Shakspeare,
+"Humorous as winter."--The vulgar word humorsome comes nearest to
+the meaning.]--And sings a sweet song, though it is somewhat of the
+longest.--Well, I make mine avow he is goodly company--I wonder when he
+will go away."
+
+Having thus expressed her respect for her guest, not without intimation
+that she was heartily tired of his company, the good dame gave the
+signal for the family to disperse, and laid her injunctions on Halbert
+to attend Sir Piercie Shafton at daybreak, as he required.
+
+When stretched on his pallet by his brother's side, Halbert had no small
+cause to envy the sound sleep which instantly settled on the eyes of
+Edward, but refused him any share of its influence. He saw now too well
+what the spirit had darkly indicated, that, in granting the boon which
+he had asked so unadvisedly, she had contributed more to his harm than
+his good. He was now sensible, too late, of the various dangers and
+inconveniences with which his dearest friends were threatened, alike by
+his discomfiture or his success in the approaching duel. If he fell, he
+might say personally, "good-night all." But it was not the less certain
+that he should leave a dreadful legacy of distress and embarrassment
+to his mother and family,--an anticipation which by no means tended to
+render the front of death, in itself a grisly object, more agreeable to
+his imagination. The vengeance of the Abbot, his conscience told him,
+was sure to descend on his mother and brother, or could only be averted
+by the generosity of the victor--And Mary Avenel--he should have shown
+himself, if he succumbed in the present combat, as inefficient in
+protecting her, as he had been unnecessarily active in bringing disaster
+on her, and on the house in which she had been protected from infancy.
+And to this view of the case were to be added all those imbittered and
+anxious feelings with which the bravest men, even in a better or less
+doubtful quarrel, regard the issue of a dubious conflict, the first time
+when it has been their fate to engage in an affair of that nature.
+
+But however disconsolate the prospect seemed in the event of his being
+conquered, Halbert could expect from victory little more than the safety
+of his own life, and the gratification of his wounded pride. To his
+friends--to his mother and brother--especially to Mary Avenel--the
+consequences of his triumph would be more certain destruction than the
+contingency of his defeat and death. If the English knight survived, he
+might in courtesy extend his protection to them; but if he fell, nothing
+was likely to screen them from the vindictive measures which the Abbot
+and convent would surely adopt against the violation of the peace of
+the Halidome, and the slaughter of a protected guest by one of their
+own vassals, within whose house they had lodged him for shelter. These
+thoughts, in which neither view of the case augured aught short of ruin
+to his family, and that ruin entirely brought on by his own rashness,
+were thorns in Halbert Glendinning's pillow, and deprived his soul of
+peace and his eyes of slumber.
+
+There appeared no middle course, saving one which was marked by
+degradation, and which, even if he stooped to it, was by no means free
+of danger. He might indeed confess to the English knight the strange
+circumstances which led to his presenting him with that token which the
+White Lady (in her displeasure as it now seemed) had given him, that
+he might offer it to Sir Piercie Shafton. But to this avowal his pride
+could not stoop, and reason, who is wonderfully ready to be of counsel
+with pride on such occasions, offered many arguments to show it would be
+useless as well as mean so far to degrade himself. "If I tell a tale so
+wonderful," thought he, "shall I not either be stigmatized as a liar,
+or punished as a wizard?--Were Sir Piercie Shafton generous, noble, and
+benevolent, as the champions of whom we hear in romance, I might indeed
+gain his ear, and, without demeaning myself, escape from the
+situation in which I am placed. But as he is, or at least seems to be,
+self-conceited, arrogant, vain, and presumptuous--I should but humble
+myself in vain--and I will not humble myself!" he said, starting out
+of bed, grasping his broadsword, and brandishing it in the light of
+the moon, which streamed through the deep niche that served them as a
+window; when, to his extreme surprise and terror, an airy form stood in
+the moonlight, but intercepted not the reflection on the floor. Dimly as
+it was expressed, the sound of the voice soon made him sensible he saw
+the White Lady.
+
+At no time had her presence seemed so terrific to him; for when he had
+invoked her, it was with the expectation of the apparition, and the
+determination to abide the issue. But now she had come uncalled, and her
+presence impressed him with a sense of approaching misfortune, and with
+the hideous apprehension that he had associated himself with a demon,
+over whose motions he had no control, and of whose powers and quality he
+had no certain knowledge. He remained, therefore, in mere terror, gazing
+on the apparition, which chanted or recited in cadence the following
+lines--
+
+  "He whose heart for vengeance sued,
+  Must not shrink from shedding blood
+  The knot that thou hast tied with word,
+  Thou must loose by edge of sword."
+
+"Avaunt thee, false Spirit!" said Halbert Glendinning; "I have bought
+thy advice too dearly already--Begone in the name of God!"
+
+The Spirit laughed; and the cold unnatural sound of her laughter had
+something in it more fearful than the usually melancholy tones of her
+voice. She then replied,--
+
+  "You have summon'd me once--you have summoned me twice,
+  And without e'er a summons I come to you thrice;
+  Unask'd for, unsued for, you came to my glen;
+  Unsued and unask'd I am with you again."
+
+Halbert Glendinning gave way for a moment to terror, and called on his
+brother, "Edward! waken, waken, for Our Lady's sake!"
+
+Edward awaked accordingly, and asked what he wanted.
+
+"Look out," said Halbert, "look up! seest thou no one in the room?"
+
+"No, upon my good word," said Edward, looking out.
+
+"What! seest thou nothing in the moonshine upon the floor there?"
+
+"No, nothing," answered Edward, "save thyself resting on thy naked
+sword. I tell thee, Halbert, thou shouldst trust more to thy spiritual
+arms, and less to those of steel and iron. For this many a night hast
+thou started and moaned, and cried out of fighting, and of spectres, and
+of goblins--thy sleep hath not refreshed thee--thy waking hath been a
+dream.--Credit me, dear Halbert, say the _Pater_ and _Credo_, resign
+thyself to the protection of God, and thou wilt sleep sound and wake in
+comfort."
+
+"It may be," said Halbert slowly, and having his eye still bent on the
+female form which to him seemed distinctly visible,--"it may be. But
+tell me, dear Edward, seest thou no one on the chamber floor but me?"
+
+"No one," answered Edward, raising himself on his elbow; "dear brother,
+lay aside thy weapon, say thy prayers, and lay thee down to rest."
+
+While he thus spoke, the Spirit smiled at Halbert as if in scorn; her
+wan cheek faded in the wan moonlight even before the smile had passed
+away, and Halbert himself no longer beheld the vision to which he had so
+anxiously solicited his brother's attention. "May God preserve my wits!"
+he said, as, laying aside his weapon, he again threw himself on his bed.
+
+"Amen! my dearest brother," answered Edward; "but we must not provoke
+that Heaven in our wantonness which we invoke in our misery.--Be not
+angry with me, my dear brother--I know not why you have totally of late
+estranged yourself from me--It is true, I am neither so athletic in
+body, nor so alert in courage, as you have been from your infancy; yet,
+till lately, you have not absolutely cast off my society--Believe me, I
+have wept in secret, though I forbore to intrude myself on your privacy.
+The time has been--when you held me not so cheap; and--when, if I could
+not follow the game so closely, or mark it so truly as you, I could
+fill up our intervals of pastime with pleasant tales of the olden times,
+which I had read or heard, and which excited even your attention as
+we sate and ate our provision by some pleasant spring--but now I have,
+though I know not why, lost thy regard and affection.--Nay, toss not
+thy arms about thee thus wildly," said the younger brother; "from thy
+strange dreams, I fear some touch of fever hath affected thy blood--let
+me draw closer around thee thy mantle."
+
+"Forbear," said Halbert--"your care is needless--your complaints are
+without reason--your fears on my account are in vain."
+
+"Nay, but hear me, brother," said Edward. "Your speech in sleep, and now
+even your waking dreams, are of beings which belong not to this world,
+or to our race--Our good Father Eustace says, that howbeit we may not
+do well to receive all idle tales of goblins and spectres, yet there is
+warrant from holy Scripture to believe, that the fiends haunt waste and
+solitary places; and that those who frequent such wildernesses alone,
+are the prey, or the sport, of these wandering demons. And therefore,
+I pray thee, brother, let me go with you when you go next up the glen,
+where, as you well know, there be places of evil reputation--Thou
+carest not for my escort; but, Halbert, such dangers are more safely
+encountered by the wise in judgment, than by the bold in bosom; and
+though I have small cause to boast of my own wisdom, yet I have that
+which ariseth from the written knowledge of elder times."
+
+There was a moment during this discourse, when Halbert had well-nigh
+come to the resolution of disburdening his own breast, by intrusting
+Edward with all that weighed upon it. But when his brother reminded him
+that this was the morning of a high holiday, and that, setting aside all
+other business or pleasure, he ought to go to the Monastery and
+shrive himself before Father Eustace, who would that day occupy the
+confessional, pride stepped in and confirmed his wavering resolution.
+"I will not avow," he thought, "a tale so extraordinary, that I may be
+considered as an impostor or something worse--I will not fly from this
+Englishman, whose arm and sword may be no better than my own. My fathers
+have faced his betters, were he as much distinguished in battle as he is
+by his quaint discourse."
+
+Pride, which has been said to save man, and woman too, from falling,
+has yet a stronger influence on the mind when it embraces the cause of
+passion, and seldom fails to render it victorious over conscience and
+reason. Halbert, once determined, though not to the better course, at
+length slept soundly, and was only awakened by the dawn of day.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-First.
+
+
+  Indifferent, but indifferent--pshaw, he doth it not
+  Like one who is his craft's master--ne'er the less
+  I have seen a clown confer a bloody coxcomb
+  On one who was a master of defence.
+                                      OLD PLAY.
+
+With the first gray peep of dawn, Halbert Glendinning arose and hastened
+to dress himself, girded on his weapon, and took a cross-bow in his
+hand, as if his usual sport had been his sole object. He groped his way
+down the dark and winding staircase, and undid, with as little noise
+as possible, the fastenings of the inner door, and of the exterior iron
+grate. At length he stood free in the court-yard, and looking up to the
+tower, saw a signal made with a handkerchief from the window. Nothing
+doubting that it was his antagonist, he paused, expecting him. But it
+was Mary Avenel, who glided like a spirit from under the low and rugged
+portal.
+
+Halbert was much surprised, and felt, he knew not why, like one caught
+in the act of a meditated trespass. The presence of Mary Avenel had till
+that moment never given him pain. She spoke, too, in a tone where sorrow
+seemed to mingle with reproach, while she asked him with emphasis, "What
+he was about to do?"
+
+He showed his cross-bow, and was about to express the pretext he had
+meditated, when Mary interrupted him.
+
+"Not so, Halbert--that evasion were unworthy of one whose word has
+hitherto been truth. You meditate not the destruction of the deer--your
+hand and your heart are aimed at other game--you seek to do battle with
+this stranger."
+
+"And wherefore should I quarrel with our guest?" answered Halbert,
+blushing deeply.
+
+"There are, indeed, many reasons why you should not," replied
+the maiden, "nor is there one of avail wherefore you should--yet
+nevertheless, such a quarrel you are now searching after."
+
+"Why should you suppose so, Mary?" said Halbert, endeavouring to hide
+his conscious purpose--"he is my mother's guest--he is protected by
+the Abbot and the community, who are our masters--he is of high degree
+also,--and wherefore should you think that I can, or dare, resent a
+hasty word, which he has perchance thrown out against me more from the
+wantonness of his wit, than the purpose of his heart?"
+
+"Alas!" answered the maiden, "the very asking that question puts your
+resolution beyond a doubt. Since your childhood you were ever daring,
+seeking danger rather than avoiding it--delighting in whatever had the
+air of adventure and of courage: and it is not from fear that you will
+now blench from your purpose--Oh, let it then be from pity!--from pity,
+Halbert, to your aged mother, whom your death or victory will alike
+deprive of the comfort and stay of her age."
+
+"She has my brother Edward," said Halbert, turning suddenly from her.
+
+"She has indeed," said Mary Avenel, "the calm, the noble-minded, the
+considerate Edward, who has thy courage, Halbert, without thy fiery
+rashness,--thy generous spirit, with more of reason to guide it. He
+would not have heard his mother, would not have heard his adopted
+sister, beseech him in vain not to ruin himself, and tear up their
+future hopes of happiness and protection."
+
+Halbert's heart swelled as he replied to this reproach. "Well--what
+avails it speaking?--you have him that is better than me--wiser,
+more considerate--braver, for aught I know--you are provided with a
+protector, and need care no more for me."
+
+Again he turned to depart, but Mary Avenel laid her hand on his arm so
+gently that he scarce felt her hold, yet felt that it was impossible
+for him to strike it off. There he stood, one foot advanced to leave the
+court-yard, but so little determined on departure, that he resembled a
+traveller arrested by the spell of a magician, and unable either to quit
+the attitude of motion, or to proceed on his course.
+
+Mary Avenel availed herself of his state of suspense. "Hear me," she
+said, "hear me, Halbert!--I am an orphan, and even Heaven hears the
+orphan--I have been the companion of your infancy, and if _you_ will not
+hear me for an instant, from whom may Mary Avenel claim so poor a boon?"
+
+"I hear you," said Halbert Glendinning, "but be brief, dear Mary--you
+mistake the nature of my business--it is but a morning of summer sport
+which we propose."
+
+"Say not thus," said the maiden, interrupting him, "say not thus to
+me--others thou mayst deceive, but me thou canst not--There has been
+that in me from the earliest youth, which fraud flies from, and which
+imposture cannot deceive. For what fate has given me such a power I know
+not; but bred an ignorant maiden, in this sequestered valley, mine eyes
+can too often see what man would most willingly hide--I can judge of the
+dark purpose, though it is hid under the smiling brow, and a glance of
+the eye says more to me than oaths and protestations do to others."
+
+"Then," said Halbert, "if thou canst so read the human heart,--say,
+dear Mary--what dost thou see in mine?--tell me that--say that what thou
+seest--what thou readest in this bosom, does not offend thee--say but
+_that_, and thou shalt be the guide of my actions, and mould me now and
+henceforward to honour or to dishonour at thy own free will!"
+
+Mary Avenel became first red, and then deadly pale, as Halbert
+Glendinning spoke. But when, turning round at the close of his address,
+he took her hand, she gently withdrew it, and replied, "I cannot read
+the heart, Halbert, and I would not of my will know aught of yours, save
+what beseems us both--I only can judge of signs, words, and actions of
+little outward import, more truly than those around me, as my eyes, thou
+knowest, have seen objects not presented to those of others."
+
+"Let them gaze then on one whom they shall never see more," said
+Halbert, once more turning from her, and rushing out of the court-yard
+without again looking back.
+
+Mary Avenel gave a faint scream, and clasped both her hands firmly on
+her forehead and eyes. She had been a minute in this attitude, when
+she was thus greeted by a voice from behind: "Generously done, my most
+clement Discretion, to hide those brilliant eyes from the far inferior
+beams which even now begin to gild the eastern horizon--Certes,
+peril there were that Phoebus, outshone in splendour, might in very
+shamefacedness turn back his ear, and rather leave the world in
+darkness, than incur the disgrace of such an encounter--Credit me,
+lovely Discretion--"
+
+But as Sir Piercie Shafton (the reader will readily set down these
+flowers of eloquence to the proper owner) attempted to take Mary
+Avenel's hand, in order to proceed in his speech, she shook him abruptly
+off, and regarding him with an eye which evinced terror and agitation,
+rushed past him into the tower.
+
+The knight stood looking after her with a countenance in which contempt
+was strongly mingled with mortification. "By my knighthood!" he
+ejaculated, "I have thrown away upon this rude rustic Phidel? a speech,
+which the proudest beauty at the court of Felicia (so let me call the
+Elysium from which I am banished!) might have termed the very matins of
+Cupid. Hard and inexorable was the fate that sent thee thither, Piercie
+Shafton, to waste thy wit upon country wenches, and thy valour upon
+hob-nailed clowns! But that insult--that affront--had it been offered
+to me by the lowest plebeian, he must have died for it by my hand, in
+respect the enormity of the offence doth countervail the inequality of
+him by whom it is given. I trust I shall find this clownish roisterer
+not less willing to deal in blows than in taunts."
+
+While he held this conversation with himself, Sir Piercie Shafton was
+hastening to the little tuft of birch-trees which had been assigned
+as the place of meeting. He greeted his antagonist with a courtly
+salutation, followed by this commentary: "I pray you to observe, that
+I doff my hat to you, though so much my inferior in rank, without
+derogation on my part, inasmuch as my having so far honoured you in
+receiving and admitting your defiance, doth, in the judgment of the best
+martialists, in some sort and for the time, raise you to a level with
+me--an honour which you may and ought to account cheaply purchased, even
+with the loss of your life, if such should chance to be the issue of
+this duello."
+
+"For which condescension," said Halbert, "I have to thank the token
+which I presented to you."
+
+The knight changed colour, and grinded his teeth with rage--"Draw your
+weapon!" said he to Glendinning.
+
+"Not in this spot," answered the youth; "we should be liable to
+interruption--Follow me, and I will bring you to a place where we shall
+encounter no such risk."
+
+He proceeded to walk up the glen, resolving that their place of combat
+should be in the entrance of the Corri-nan-shian; both because the spot,
+lying under the reputation of being haunted, was very little frequented,
+and also because he regarded it as a place which to him might be termed
+fated, and which he therefore resolved should witness his death
+or victory. They walked up the glen for some time in silence, like
+honourable enemies who did not wish to contend with words, and who had
+nothing friendly to exchange with each other. Silence, however, was
+always an irksome state with Sir Piercie and, moreover, his anger was
+usually a hasty and short-lived passion. As, therefore, he went forth,
+in his own idea, in all love and honour towards his antagonist, he saw
+not any cause for submitting longer to the painful restraint of positive
+silence. He began by complimenting Halbert on the alert activity with
+which he surmounted the obstacles and impediments of the way.
+
+"Trust me," said he, "worthy rustic, we have not a lighter or a firmer
+step in our courtlike revels, and if duly set forth by a silk hose, and
+trained unto that stately exercise, your leg would make an indifferent
+good show in a pavin or a galliard. And I doubt nothing," he added,
+"that you have availed yourself of some opportunity to improve yourself
+in the art of fence, which is more akin than dancing to our present
+purpose?"
+
+"I know nothing more of fencing," said Halbert, "than hath been taught
+me by an old shepherd of ours, called Martin, and at whiles a lesson
+from Christie of the Clinthill--for the rest, I must trust to good
+sword, strong arm, and sound heart."
+
+"Marry and I am glad of it, young Audacity, (I will call you my
+Audacity, and you will call me your Condescension, while we are on these
+terms of unnatural equality,) I am glad of your ignorance with all my
+heart. For we martialists proportion the punishments which we inflict
+upon our opposites, to the length and hazard of the efforts wherewith
+they oppose themselves to us. And I see not why you, being but a tyro,
+may not be held sufficiently punished for your outrecuidance, and
+orgillous presumption, by the loss of an ear, an eye, or even a finger,
+accompanied by some flesh-wound of depth and severity, suited to your
+error--whereas, had you been able to stand more effectually on
+your defence, I see not how less than your life could have atoned
+sufficiently for your presumption."
+
+"Now, by God and Our Lady," said Halbert, unable any longer to restrain
+himself, "thou art thyself over-presumptuous, who speakest thus daringly
+of the issue of a combat which is not yet even begun--Are you a god,
+that you already dispose of my life and limbs? or are you a judge in
+the justice-air, telling at your ease and without risk, how the head and
+quarters of a condemned criminal are to be disposed of?"
+
+"Not so, O thou,--whom I have well permitted to call thyself my
+Audacity. I, thy Condescension, am neither a god to judge the issue of
+the combat before it is fought, nor a judge to dispose at my ease and
+in safety of the limbs and head of a condemned criminal; but I am an
+indifferent good master of fence, being the first pupil of the first
+master of the first school of fence that our royal England affords, the
+said master being no other than the truly noble, and all-unutterably
+skilful Vincentio Saviola, from whom I learned the firm step, quick eye,
+and nimble hand--of which qualities thou, O my most rustical Audacity,
+art full like to reap the fruits so soon as we shall find a piece of
+ground fitting for such experiments."
+
+They had now reached the gorge of the ravine, where Halbert had at
+first intended to stop; but when he observed the narrowness of the level
+ground, he began to consider that it was only by superior agility that
+he could expect to make up his deficiency in the science, as it was
+called, of defence. He found no spot which afforded sufficient room to
+traverse for this purpose, until he gained the well-known fountain, by
+whose margin, and in front of the huge rock from which it sprung, was
+an amphitheatre of level turf, of small space indeed, compared with the
+great height of the cliffs with which it was surrounded on every point
+save that from which the rivulet issued forth, yet large enough for
+their present purpose.
+
+When they had reached this spot of ground, fitted well by its gloom
+and sequestered situation to be a scene of mortal strife, both were
+surprised to observe that a grave was dug close by the foot of the rock
+with great neatness and regularity, the green turf being laid down
+upon the one side, and the earth thrown out in a heap upon the other. A
+mattock and shovel lay by the verge of the grave.
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton bent his eye with unusual seriousness upon Halbert
+Glendinning, as he asked him sternly, "Does this bode treason, young
+man? And have you purpose to set upon me here as in an emboscata or
+place of vantage?"
+
+"Not on my part, by Heaven!" answered the youth: "I told no one of our
+purpose, nor would I for the throne of Scotland take odds against a
+single arm."
+
+"I believe thou wouldst not, mine Audacity," said the knight,
+resuming the affected manner which was become a second nature to him;
+"nevertheless this fosse is curiously well shaped, and might be
+the masterpiece of Nature's last bed-maker, I would say the
+sexton--Wherefore, let us be thankful to chance or some unknown friend,
+who hath thus provided for one of us the decencies of sepulture, and let
+us proceed to determine which shall have the advantage of enjoying this
+place of undisturbed slumber."
+
+So saying, he stripped off his doublet and cloak, which he folded
+up with great care, and deposited upon a large stone, while Halbert
+Glendinning, not without some emotion, followed his example. Their
+vicinity to the favourite haunt of the White Lady led him to form
+conjectures concerning the incident of the grave--"It must have been her
+work!" he thought: "the Spirit foresaw and has provided for the fatal
+event of the combat--I must return from this place a homicide, or I must
+remain here for ever!"
+
+The bridge seemed now broken down behind him, and the chance of coming
+off honourably without killing or being killed, (the hope of which issue
+has cheered the sinking heart of many a duellist,) seemed now altogether
+to be removed. Yet the very desperation of his situation gave him, on
+an instant's reflection, both firmness and courage, and presented to him
+one sole alternative, conquest, namely, or death.
+
+"As we are here," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "unaccompanied by any
+patrons or seconds, it were well you should pass your hands over my
+sides, as I shall over yours; not that I suspect you to use any quaint
+device of privy armour, but in order to comply with the ancient and
+laudable custom practised on all such occasions."
+
+While complying with his antagonist's humour, Halbert Glendinning went
+through this ceremony, Sir Piercie Shafton did not fail to solicit his
+attention to the quality and fineness of his wrought and embroidered
+shirt--"In this very shirt," said he, "O mine Audacity!--I say in
+this very garment, in which I am now to combat a Scottish rustic
+like thyself, it was my envied lot to lead the winning party at that
+wonderous match at ballon, made betwixt the divine Astrophel, (our
+matchless Sidney,) and the right honourable my very good lord of Oxford.
+All the beauties of Felicia (by which name I distinguish our beloved
+England) stood in the gallery, waving their kerchiefs at each turn of
+the game, and cheering the winners by their plaudits. After which noble
+sport we were refreshed by a suitable banquet, whereat it pleased the
+noble Urania (being the unmatched Countess of Pembroke) to accommodate
+me with her fan for the cooling my somewhat too much inflamed visage, to
+requite which courtesy, I said, casting my features into a smiling,
+yet melancholy fashion, O divinest Urania! receive again that too fatal
+gift, which not like the Zephyr cooleth, but like the hot breath of the
+Sirocco, heateth yet more that which is already inflamed. Whereupon,
+looking upon me somewhat scornfully, yet not so but what the experienced
+courtier might perceive a certain cast of approbative affection----"
+
+Here the knight was interrupted by Halbert, who had waited with
+courteous patience for some little time, till he found, that far from
+drawing to a close, Sir Piercie seemed rather inclined to wax prolix in
+his reminiscences.
+
+"Sir Knight," said the youth, "if this matter be not very much to the
+purpose, we will, if you object not, proceed to that which we have in
+hand. You should have abidden in England had you desired to waste time
+in words, for here we spend it in blows."
+
+"I crave your pardon, most rusticated Audacity," answered Sir Piercie;
+"truly I become oblivious of every thing beside, when the recollections
+of the divine court of Felicia press upon my wakened memory, even as
+a saint is dazzled when he bethinks him of the beatific vision. Ah,
+felicitous Feliciana! delicate nurse of the fair, chosen abode of the
+wise, the birth-place and cradle of nobility, the temple of courtesy,
+the fane of sprightly chivalry--Ah, heavenly court, or rather courtly
+heaven! cheered with dances, lulled asleep with harmony, wakened
+with sprightly sports and tourneys, decored with silks and tissues,
+glittering with diamonds and jewels, standing on end with double-piled
+velvets, satins, and satinettas!"
+
+"The token, Sir Knight, the token!" exclaimed Halbert Glendinning, who,
+impatient of Sir Piercie's interminable oratory, reminded him of the
+ground of their quarrel, as the best way to compel him to the purpose of
+their meeting.
+
+And he judged right; for Sir Piercie Shafton no sooner heard him speak,
+than he exclaimed, "Thy death-hour has struck--betake thee to thy
+sword--Via!"
+
+Both swords were unsheathed, and the combatants commenced their
+engagement. Halbert became immediately aware, that, as he had expected,
+he was far inferior to his adversary in the use of his weapon. Sir
+Piercie Shafton had taken no more than his own share of real merit, when
+he termed himself an absolutely good fencer; and Glendinning soon found
+that he should have great difficulty in escaping with life and honour
+from such a master of the sword. The English knight was master of all
+the mystery of the _stoccata, imbrocata, punto-reverso, incartata_, and
+so forth, which the Italian masters of defence had lately introduced
+into general practice. But Glendinning, on his part, was no novice in
+the principles of the art, according to the old Scottish fashion, and
+possessed the first of all qualities, a steady and collected mind. At
+first, being desirous to try the skill, and become acquainted with the
+play of his enemy, he stood on his defence, keeping his foot, hand, eye,
+and body, in perfect unison, and holding his sword short, and with the
+point towards his antagonist's face, so that Sir Piercie, in order
+to assail him, was obliged to make actual passes, and could not avail
+himself of his skill in making feints; while, on the other hand, Halbert
+was prompt to parry these attacks, either by shifting his ground or with
+the sword. The consequence was, that after two or three sharp attempts
+on the part of Sir Piercie, which were evaded or disconcerted by the
+address of his opponent, he began to assume the defensive in his turn,
+fearful of giving some advantage by being repeatedly the assailant. But
+Halbert was too cautious to press on a swordsman whose dexterity had
+already more than once placed him within a hair's breadth of death,
+which he had only escaped by uncommon watchfulness and agility.
+
+When each had made a feint or two, there was a pause in the conflict,
+both as if by one assent dropping their swords' point, and looking on
+each other for a moment without speaking. At length Halbert Glendinning,
+who felt perhaps more uneasy on account of his family than he had done
+before he had displayed his own courage, and proved the strength of his
+antagonist, could not help saying, "Is the subject of our quarrel, Sir
+Knight, so mortal, that one of our two bodies must needs fill up that
+grave? or may we with honour, having proved ourselves against each
+other, sheathe our swords and depart friends?"
+
+"Valiant and most rustical Audacity," said the Southron knight, "to no
+man on earth could you have put a question on the code of honour, who
+was more capable of rendering you a reason. Let us pause for the space
+of one venue, until I give you my opinion on this dependence, [Footnote:
+_Dependence_--A phrase among the brethren of the sword for an existing
+quarrel.] for certain it is, that brave men should not run upon their
+fate like brute and furious wild beasts, but should slay each other
+deliberately, decently, and with reason. Therefore, if we coolly examine
+the state of our dependence, we may the better apprehend whether
+the sisters three have doomed one of us to expiate the same with his
+blood--Dost thou understand me?"
+
+"I have heard Father Eustace," said Halbert, after a moment's
+recollection, "speak of the three furies, with their thread and their
+shears."
+
+"Enough--enough,"--interrupted Sir Piercie Shafton, crimsoning with a
+new fit of rage, "the thread of thy life is spun!"
+
+And with these words he attacked with the utmost ferocity the Scottish
+youth, who had but just time to throw himself into a posture of defence.
+But the rash fury of the assailant, as frequently happens, disappointed
+its own purpose; for, as he made a desperate thrust, Halbert Glendinning
+avoided it, and ere the knight could recover his weapon, requited him
+(to use his own language) with a resolute stoccata, which passed through
+his body, and Sir Piercie Shafton fell to the ground.
+
+        *       *       *      *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Second.
+
+
+  Yes, life hath left him--every busy thought,
+  Each fiery passion, every strong affection,
+  All sense of outward ill and inward sorrow,
+  Are fled at once from the pale trunk before me;
+  And I have given that which spoke and moved,
+  Thought, acted, suffer'd as a living man,
+  To be a ghastly form of bloody clay,
+  Soon the foul food for reptiles.
+                                        OLD PLAY.
+
+I believe few successful duellists (if the word successful can be
+applied to a superiority so fatal) have beheld their dead antagonist
+stretched on the earth at their feet, without wishing they could redeem
+with their own blood that which it has been their fate to spill. Least
+of all could such indifference be the lot of so young a man as Halbert
+Glendinning, who, unused to the sight of human blood, was not only
+struck with sorrow, but with terror, when he beheld Sir Piercie Shafton
+lie stretched on the green-sward before him, vomiting gore as if
+impelled by the strokes of a pump. He threw his bloody sword on the
+ground, and hastened to kneel and support him, vainly striving, at the
+same time, to stanch his wound, which seemed rather to bleed inwardly
+than externally.
+
+The unfortunate knight spoke at intervals, when the syncope would permit
+him, and his words, so far as intelligible, partook of his affected and
+conceited, yet not ungenerous character.
+
+"Most rustical youth," he said, "thy fortune hath prevailed over
+knightly skill--and Audacity hath overcome Condescension, even as the
+kite hath sometimes hawked at and struck down the falcon-gentle.--Fly
+and save thyself!--Take my purse--it is in the nether pocket of my
+carnation-coloured hose--and is worth a clown's acceptance. See that
+my mails, with my vestments, be sent to the Monastery of Saint
+Mary's"--(here his voice grew weak, and his mind and recollection
+seemed to waver)--"I bestow the cut velvet jerkin, with close breeches
+conforming--for--oh!--the good of my soul."
+
+"Be of good comfort, sir," said Halbert, half distracted with his agony
+of pity and remorse. "I trust you shall yet do well--Oh for a leech!"
+
+"Were there twenty physicians, O most generous Audacity, and that were
+a grave spectacle--I might not survive, my life is ebbing
+fast.--Commend me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion--O
+Claridiana!--true empress of this bleeding heart--which now bleedeth in
+sad earnest!--Place me on the ground at my length, most rustical victor,
+born to quench the pride of the burning light of the most felicitous
+court of Feliciana--O saints and angels---knights and ladies--masques
+and theatres--quaint devices--chain-work and broidery--love, honour, and
+beauty!----"
+
+While muttering these last words, which slid from him, as it were
+unawares, while doubtless he was calling to mind the glories of the
+English court, the gallant Sir Piercie Shafton stretched out his
+limbs--groaned deeply, shut his eyes, and became motionless.
+
+The victor tore his hair for very sorrow, as he looked on the pale
+countenance of his victim. Life, he thought, had not utterly fled, but
+without better aid than his own, he saw not how it could be preserved.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed in vain penitence, "why did I provoke him to an
+issue so fatal! Would to God I had submitted to the worst insult man
+could receive from man, rather than be the bloody instrument of this
+bloody deed--and doubly cursed be this evil-boding spot, which, haunted
+as I knew it to be by a witch or a devil, I yet chose for the place of
+combat! In any other place, save this, there had been help to be gotten
+by speed of foot, or by uplifting of voice--but here there is no one to
+be found by search, no one to hear my shouts, save the evil spirit who
+has counselled this mischief. It is not her hour--I will essay the spell
+howsoever; and if she can give me aid, she _shall_ do it, or know of
+what a madman is capable even against those of another world!"
+
+He spurned his bloody shoe from his foot, and repeated the spell with
+which the reader is well acquainted; but there was neither voice,
+apparition, nor signal of answer. The youth, in the impatience of his
+despair, and with the rash hardihood which formed the basis of his
+character, shouted aloud, "Witch--Sorceress--Fiend!--art thou deaf to
+my cries of help, and so ready to appear and answer those of vengeance?
+Arise and speak to me, or I will choke up thy fountain, tear down thy
+hollybush, and leave thy haunt as waste and bare as thy fatal assistance
+has made me waste of comfort and bare of counsel!"--This furious
+and raving invocation was suddenly interrupted by a distant sound,
+resembling a hollo, from the gorge of the ravine. "Now may Saint Mary
+be praised," said the youth, hastily fastening his sandal, "I hear
+the voice of some living man, who may give me counsel and help in this
+fearful extremity."
+
+Having donned his sandal, Halbert Glendinning, hallooing at intervals,
+in answer to the sound which he had heard, ran with the speed of a
+hunted buck down the rugged defile, as if paradise had been before him,
+hell and all her furies behind, and his eternal happiness or misery had
+depended upon the speed which he exerted. In a space incredibly short
+for any one but a Scottish mountaineer having his nerves strung by the
+deepest and most passionate interest, the youth reached the entrance
+of the ravine, through which the rill that flows down Corri-nan-shian
+discharges itself, and unites with the brook that waters the little
+valley of Glendearg.
+
+Here he paused, and looked around him upwards and downwards through the
+glen, without perceiving a human form. His heart sank within him. But
+the windings of the glen intercepted his prospect, and the person, whose
+voice he had heard, might therefore, be at no great distance, though not
+obvious to his sight. The branches of an oak-tree, which shot straight
+out from the face of a tall cliff, proffered to his bold spirit,
+steady head, and active limbs, the means of ascending it as a place of
+out-look, although the enterprise was what most men would have shrunk
+from. But by one bound from the earth, the active youth caught hold of
+the lower branch, and swung himself up into the tree, and in a minute
+more gained the top of the cliff, from which he could easily descry a
+human figure descending the valley. It was not that of a shepherd, or
+of a hunter, and scarcely any others used to traverse this deserted
+solitude, especially coming from the north, since the reader may
+remember that the brook took its rise from an extensive and dangerous
+morass which lay in that direction.
+
+But Halbert Glendinning did not pause to consider who the traveller
+might be, or what might be the purpose of his journey. To know that he
+saw a human being, and might receive, in the extremity of his distress,
+the countenance and advice of a fellow-creature, was enough for him at
+the moment. He threw himself from the pinnacle of the cliff once more
+into the arms of the projecting oak-tree, whose boughs waved in middle
+air, anchored by the roots in a huge rift or chasm of the rock. Catching
+at the branch which was nearest to him, he dropped himself from that
+height upon the ground; and such was the athletic springiness of his
+youthful sinews, that he pitched there as lightly, and with as little
+injury, as the falcon stooping from her wheel.
+
+To resume his race at full speed up the glen, was the work of an
+instant; and as he turned angle after angle of the indented banks of the
+valley, without meeting that which he sought, he became half afraid that
+the form which he had seen at such a distance had already melted into
+thin air, and was either a deception of his own imagination, or of the
+elementary spirits by which the valley was supposed to be haunted.
+
+But to his inexpressible joy, as he turned round the base of a huge
+and distinguished crag, he saw, straight before and very near to him,
+a person, whose dress, as he viewed it hastily, resembled that of a
+pilgrim.
+
+He was a man of advanced life, and wearing a long beard, having on his
+head a large slouched hat, without either band or brooch. His dress was
+a tunic of black serge, which, like those commonly called hussar-cloaks,
+had an upper part, which covered the arms and fell down on the lower;
+a small scrip and bottle, which hung at his back, with a stout staff in
+his hand, completed his equipage. His step was feeble, like that of one
+exhausted by a toilsome journey.
+
+"Save ye, good father!" said the youth. "God and Our Lady have sent you
+to my assistance."
+
+"And in what, my son, can so frail a creature as I am, be of service to
+you?" said the old man, not a little surprised at being thus accosted
+by so handsome a youth, his features discomposed by anxiety, his face
+flushed with exertion, his hands and much of his dress stained with
+blood. "A man bleeds to death in the valley here, hard by. Come with
+me--come with me! You are aged--you have experience--you have at least
+your senses--and mine have well nigh left me."
+
+"A man--and bleeding to death--and here in this desolate spot!" said the
+stranger.
+
+"Stay not to question it, father," said the youth, "but come instantly
+to his rescue. Follow me,--follow me, without an instant's delay."
+
+"Nay, but, my son," said the old man, "we do not lightly follow the
+guides who present themselves thus suddenly in the bosom of a howling
+wilderness. Ere I follow thee, thou must expound to me thy name, thy
+purpose, and thy cause."
+
+"There is no time to expound any thing," said Halbert; "I tell thee a
+man's life is at stake, and thou must come to aid him, or I will carry
+thee thither by force!"
+
+"Nay, thou shalt not need," said the traveller; "if it indeed be as thou
+sayest, I will follow thee of free-will--the rather that I am not wholly
+unskilled in leech-craft, and have in my scrip that which may do thy
+friend a service--Yet walk more slowly, I pray thee, for I am already
+well-nigh forespent with travel."
+
+With the indignant impatience of the fiery steed when compelled by
+his rider to keep pace with some slow drudge upon the highway, Halbert
+accompanied the wayfarer, burning with anxiety which he endeavoured to
+subdue, that he might not alarm his companion, who was obviously afraid
+to trust him. When they reached the place where they were to turn off
+the wider glen into the Corri, the traveller made a doubtful pause, as
+if unwilling to leave the broader path--"Young man," he said, "if thou
+meanest aught but good to these gray hairs, thou wilt gain little by thy
+cruelty--I have no earthly treasure to tempt either robber or murderer."
+
+"And I," said the youth, "am neither--and yet--God of Heaven!--I _may_
+be a murderer, unless your aid comes in time to this wounded wretch!"
+
+"Is it even so," said the traveller; "and do human passions disturb the
+breast of nature, even in her deepest solitude?--Yet why should I marvel
+that where darkness abides the works of darkness should abound?--By its
+fruits is the tree known--Lead on, unhappy youth--I follow thee!"
+
+And with better will to the journey than he had evinced hitherto, the
+stranger exerted himself to the uttermost, and seemed to forget his own
+fatigue in his efforts to keep pace with his impatient guide.
+
+What was the surprise of Halbert Glendinning, when, upon arriving at the
+fatal spot, he saw no appearance of the body of Sir Piercie Shafton!
+The traces of the fray were otherwise sufficiently visible. The knight's
+cloak had indeed vanished as well as his body, but his doublet remained
+where he had laid it down, and the turf on which he had been stretched
+was stained with blood in many a dark crimson spot.
+
+As he gazed round him in terror and astonishment, Halbert's eyes fell
+upon the place of sepulture which had so lately appeared to gape for a
+victim. It was no longer open, and it seemed that earth had received the
+expected tenant; for the usual narrow hillock was piled over what had
+lately been an open grave, and the green sod was adjusted over all with
+the accuracy of an experienced sexton. Halbert stood aghast. The idea
+rushed on his mind irresistibly, that the earth-heap before him enclosed
+what had lately been a living, moving, and sentient fellow-creature,
+whom, on little provocation, his fell act had reduced to a clod of the
+valley, as senseless and as cold as the turf under which he rested. The
+hand that scooped the grave had completed its word; and whose hand could
+it be save that of the mysterious being of doubtful quality, whom his
+rashness had invoked, and whom he had suffered to intermingle in his
+destinies?
+
+As he stood with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, bitterly ruing his
+rashness, he was roused by the voice of the stranger, whose suspicions
+of his guide had again been awakened by finding the scene so different
+from what Halbert had led him to expect.--"Young man," he said, "hast
+thou baited thy tongue with falsehood to cut perhaps only a few days
+from the life of one whom Nature will soon call home, without guilt on
+thy part to hasten his journey?"
+
+"By the blessed Heaven!--by our dear Lady!" ejaculated Halbert--
+
+"Swear not at all!" said the stranger, interrupting him, "neither
+by Heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his
+footstool--nor by the creatures whom he hath made, for they are but
+earth and clay as we are. Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay. Tell me
+in a word, why and for what purpose thou hast feigned a tale, to lead a
+bewildered traveller yet farther astray?"
+
+"As I am a Christian man," said Glendinning, "I left him here bleeding
+to death--and now I nowhere spy him, and much I doubt that the tomb that
+thou seest has closed on his mortal remains."
+
+"And who is he for whose fate thou art so anxious?" said the stranger;
+"or how is it possible that this wounded man could have been either
+removed from, or interred in, a place so solitary?"
+
+"His name," said Halbert, after a moment's pause, "is Piercie
+Shafton--there, on that very spot I left him bleeding; and what power
+has conveyed him hence, I know no more than thou dost."
+
+"Piercie Shafton?" said the stranger; "Sir Piercie Shafton of Wilverton,
+a kinsman, as it is said, of the great Piercie of Northumberland? If
+thou hast slain him, to return to the territories of the proud Abbot is
+to give thy neck to the gallows. He is well known, that Piercie Shafton;
+the meddling tool of wiser plotters--a harebrained trafficker in
+treason--a champion of the Pope, employed as a forlorn hope by those
+more politic heads, who have more will to work mischief, than valour to
+encounter danger.--Come with me, youth, and save thyself from the evil
+consequences of this deed--Guide me to the Castle of Avenel, and thy
+reward shall be protection and safety."
+
+Again Halbert paused, and summoned his mind to a hasty council. The
+vengeance with which the Abbot was likely to visit the slaughter of
+Shafton, his friend, and in some measure his guest, was likely to
+be severe; yet, in the various contingencies which he had considered
+previous to their duel, he had unaccountably omitted to reflect what was
+to be his line of conduct in case of Sir Piercie falling by his hand.
+If he returned to Glendearg, he was sure to draw on his whole family,
+including Mary Avenel, the resentment of the Abbot and community,
+whereas it was possible that flight might make him be regarded as the
+sole author of the deed, and might avert the indignation of the
+monks from the rest of the inhabitants of his paternal tower. Halbert
+recollected also the favour expressed for the household, and especially
+for Edward, by the Sub-Prior; and he conceived that he could, by
+communicating his own guilt to that worthy ecclesiastic, when at a
+distance from Glendearg, secure his powerful interposition in favour
+of his family. These thoughts rapidly passed through his mind, and he
+determined on flight. The stranger's company and his promised protection
+came in aid of that resolution; but he was unable to reconcile the
+invitation which the old man gave him to accompany him for safety to the
+Castle of Avenel, with the connexions of Julian, the present usurper of
+that inheritance.
+
+"Good father," he said, "I fear that you mistake the man with whom you
+wish me to harbour. Avenel guided Piercie Shafton into Scotland, and his
+henchman, Christie of the Clinthill, brought the Southron hither."
+
+"Of that," said the old man, "I am well aware. Yet if thou wilt trust
+to me, as I have shown no reluctance to confide in thee, thou shalt find
+with Julian Avenel welcome, or at least safety."
+
+"Father," replied Halbert, "though I can ill reconcile what thou sayest
+with what Julian Avenel hath done, yet caring little about the safety of
+a creature so lost as myself, and as thy words seem those of truth and
+honesty, and finally, as thou didst render thyself frankly up to my
+conduct, I will return the confidence thou hast shown, and accompany
+thee to the Castle of Avenel by a road which thou thyself couldst never
+have discovered." He led the way, and the old man followed for some time
+in silence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Third.
+
+
+  'Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold.
+  The warrior first feels pain--'tis when the heat
+  And fiery fever of his soul is pass'd,
+  The sinner feels remorse.
+                               OLD PLAY.
+
+The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited
+upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and
+country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short
+certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by better
+religious precepts, and more strictly trained under social laws; but
+still they were deep and severely felt, and divided in Halbert's heart
+even the regret with which he parted from Mary Avenel and the tower of
+his fathers.
+
+The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then
+addressed him.--"My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or
+die--Why art thou so much cast down?--Tell me thy unhappy tale, and
+it may be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young
+life."
+
+"Alas!" said Halbert Glendinning, "can you wonder why I am cast
+down?--I am at this instant a fugitive from my father's house, from my
+mother, and from my friends, and I bear on my head the blood of a man
+who injured me but in idle words, which I have thus bloodily requited.
+My heart now tells me I have done evil--it were harder than these rocks
+if it could bear unmoved the thought, that I have sent this man to a
+long account, unhousled and unshrieved."
+
+"Pause there, my son," said the traveller. "That thou hast defaced God's
+image in thy neighbour's person--that thou hast sent dust to dust in
+idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest dye--that
+thou hast cut short the space which Heaven might have allowed him for
+repentance, makes it yet more deadly--but for all this there is balm in
+Gilead."
+
+"I understand you not, father," said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone
+which was assumed by his companion.
+
+The old man proceeded. "Thou hast slain thine enemy--it was a cruel
+deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins--it is a fearful
+aggravation. Do yet by my counsel, and in lieu of him whom thou hast
+perchance consigned to the kingdom of Satan, let thine efforts wrest
+another subject from the reign of the Evil One."
+
+"I understand you, father," said Halbert; "thou wouldst have me atone
+for my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary--But how
+may this be? I have no money to purchase masses, and gladly would I
+go barefoot to the Holy Land to free his spirit from purgatory, only
+that--"
+
+"My son," said the old man, interrupting him, "the sinner for whose
+redemption I entreat you to labour, is not the dead but the living. It
+is not for the soul of thine enemy I would exhort thee to pray--that has
+already had its final doom from a Judge as merciful as he is just; nor,
+wert thou to coin that rock into ducats, and obtain a mass for each one,
+would it avail the departed spirit. Where the tree hath fallen, it must
+lie. But the sapling, which hath in it yet the vigour and juice of life,
+may be bended to the point to which it ought to incline."
+
+"Art thou a priest, father?" said the young man, "or by what commission
+dost thou talk of such high matters?"
+
+"By that of my Almighty Master," said the traveller, "under whose banner
+I am an enlisted soldier."
+
+Halbert's acquaintance with religious matters was no deeper than could
+be derived from the Archbishop of Saint Andrew's Catechism, and the
+pamphlet called the Twapennie Faith, both which were industriously
+circulated and recommended by the monks of Saint Mary's. Yet, however
+indifferent and superficial a theologian, he began to suspect that he
+was now in company with one of the gospellers, or heretics, before
+whose influence the ancient system of religion now tottered to the very
+foundation. Bred up, as may well be presumed, in a holy horror against
+these formidable sectaries, the youth's first feelings were those of a
+loyal and devoted church vassal. "Old man," he said, "wert thou able to
+make good with thy hand the words that thy tongue hath spoken against
+our Holy Mother Church, we should have tried upon this moor which of our
+creeds hath the better champion."
+
+"Nay," said the stranger, "if thou art a true soldier of Rome, thou wilt
+not pause from thy purpose because thou hast the odds of years and of
+strength on thy side. Hearken to me, my son. I have showed thee how to
+make thy peace with Heaven, and thou hast rejected my proffer. I will
+now show thee how thou shalt make thy reconciliation with the powers of
+this world. Take this gray head from the frail body which supports it,
+and carry it to the chair of proud Abbot Boniface; and when thou tellest
+him thou hast slain Piercie Shafton, and his ire rises at the deed, lay
+the head of Henry Warden at his foot, and thou shalt have praise instead
+of censure."
+
+Halbert Glendinning stepped back in surprise. "What! are you that Henry
+Warden so famous among the heretics, that even Knox's name is scarce
+more frequently in their mouths? Art thou he, and darest thou to
+approach the Halidome of Saint Mary's?"
+
+"I am Henry Warden, of a surety," said the old man, "far unworthy to
+be named in the same breath with Knox, but yet willing to venture on
+whatever dangers my master's service may call me to."
+
+"Hearken to me, then," said Halbert; "to slay thee, I have no heart--to
+make thee prisoner, were equally to bring thy blood on my head--to leave
+thee in this wild without a guide, were little better. I will conduct
+thee, as I promised, in safety to the Castle of Avenel; but breathe not,
+while we are on the journey, a word against the doctrines of the holy
+church of which I am an unworthy--but though an ignorant, a zealous
+member.--When thou art there arrived, beware of thyself--there is a
+high price upon thy head, and Julian Avenel loves the glance of gold
+bonnet-pieces." [Footnote: A gold coin of James V., the most beautiful
+of the Scottish series; so called because the effigy of the sovereignty
+is represented wearing a bonnet.]
+
+"Yet thou sayest not," answered the Protestant preacher, for such he
+was, "that for lucre he would sell the blood of his guest?"
+
+"Not if thou comest an invited stranger, relying on his faith," said
+the youth; "evil as Julian may be, he dare not break the rites of
+hospitality; for, loose as we on these marches may be in all other
+ties, these are respected amongst us even to idolatry, and his
+nearest relations would think it incumbent on them to spill his blood
+themselves, to efface the disgrace such treason would bring upon their
+name and lineage. But if thou goest self-invited, and without assurance
+of safety, I promise thee thy risk is great."
+
+"I am in God's hand," answered the preacher; "it is on His errand that I
+traverse these wilds amidst dangers of every kind; while I am useful for
+my master's service, they shall not prevail against me, and when, like
+the barren fig-tree, I can no longer produce fruit, what imports it when
+or by whom the axe is laid to the root?"
+
+"Your courage and devotion," said Glendinning, "are worthy of a better
+cause."
+
+"That," said Warden, "cannot be--mine is the very best."
+
+They continued their journey in silence, Halbert Glendinning tracing
+with the utmost accuracy the mazes of the dangerous and intricate
+morasses and hills which divided the Halidome from the barony of
+Avenel. From time to time he was obliged to stop, in order to assist
+his companion to cross the black intervals of quaking bog, called in the
+Scottish dialect _hags_, by which the firmer parts of the morass were
+intersected.
+
+"Courage, old man," said Halbert, as he saw his companion almost
+exhausted with fatigue, "we shall soon be upon hard ground. And yet soft
+as this moss is, I have seen the merry falconers go through it as light
+as deer when the quarry was upon the flight."
+
+"True, my son," answered Warden, "for so I will still call you, though
+you term me no longer father; and even so doth headlong youth pursue its
+pleasures, without regard to the mire and the peril of the paths through
+which they are hurried."
+
+"I have already told thee," answered Halbert Glendinning, sternly, "that
+I will hear nothing from thee that savours of doctrine."
+
+"Nay, but, my son," answered Warden, "thy spiritual father himself
+would surely not dispute the truth of what I have now spoken for your
+edification!"
+
+Glendinning stoutly replied, "I know not how that may be--but I wot
+well it is the fashion of your brotherhood to bait your hook with fair
+discourse, and to hold yourselves up as angels of light, that you may
+the better extend the kingdom of darkness."
+
+"May God," replied the preacher, "pardon those who have thus reported
+of his servants! I will not offend thee, my son, by being instant out of
+season--thou speakest but as thou art taught--yet sure I trust that so
+goodly a youth will be still rescued, like a brand from the burning."
+
+While he thus spoke, the verge of the morass was attained, and their
+path lay on the declivity. Green-sward it was, and, viewed from a
+distance, chequered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown
+heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so easily
+traced when they were walking on it. [Footnote: This sort of path,
+visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you
+are upon it, is called on the Border by the significant name of a
+Blind-road.] The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease; and,
+unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion
+for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his
+conversation was still grave, moral, and instructive. He had travelled
+much, and knew both the language and manners of other countries,
+concerning which Halbert Glendinning, already anticipating the
+possibility of being obliged to leave Scotland for the deed he had done,
+was naturally and anxiously desirous of information. By degrees he
+was more attracted by the charms of the stranger's conversation than
+repelled by the dread of his dangerous character as a heretic, and
+Halbert had called him father more than once, ere the turrets of Avenel
+Castle came in view.
+
+The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a
+small rocky islet in a mountain lake, or _tarn,_ as such a piece of
+water is called in Westmoreland. The lake might be about a mile in
+circumference, surrounded by hills of considerable height, which, except
+where old trees and brushwood occupied the ravines that divided them
+from each other, were bare and heathy. The surprise of the spectator was
+chiefly excited by finding a piece of water situated in that high and
+mountainous region, and the landscape around had features which might
+rather be termed wild, than either romantic or sublime; yet the scene
+was not without its charms. Under the burning sun of summer, the clear
+azure of the deep unruffled lake refreshed the eye, and impressed the
+mind with a pleasing feeling of deep solitude. In winter, when the snow
+lay on the mountains around, these dazzling masses appeared to ascend
+far beyond their wonted and natural height, while the lake, which
+stretched beneath, and filled their bosom with all its frozen waves, lay
+like the surface of a darkened and broken mirror around the black and
+rocky islet, and the walls of the gray castle with which it was crowned.
+
+As the castle occupied, either with its principal buildings, or with its
+flanking and outward walls, every projecting point of rock, which served
+as its site, it seemed as completely surrounded by water as the nest of
+a wild swan, save where a narrow causeway extended betwixt the islet and
+the shore. But the fortress was larger in appearance than in reality;
+and of the buildings which it actually contained, many had become
+ruinous and uninhabitable. In the times of the grandeur of the Avenel
+family, these had been occupied by a considerable garrison of followers
+and retainers, but they were now in a great measure deserted; and Julian
+Avenel would probably have fixed his habitation in a residence better
+suited to his diminished fortunes, had it not been for the great
+security which the situation of the old castle afforded to a man of his
+precarious and perilous mode of life. Indeed, in this respect, the spot
+could scarce have been more happily chosen, for it could be rendered
+almost completely inaccessible at the pleasure of the inhabitant. The
+distance betwixt the nearest shore and the islet was not indeed above an
+hundred yards; but then the causeway which connected them was extremely
+narrow, and completely divided by two cuts, one in the mid-way between
+the islet and shore, and another close under the outward gate of
+the castle. These formed a formidable, and almost insurmountable
+interruption to any hostile approach. Each was defended by a drawbridge,
+one of which, being that nearest to the castle, was regularly raised at
+all times during the day, and both were lifted at night. [Footnote:
+It is in vain to search near Melrose for any such castle as is here
+described. The lakes at the head of the Yarrow, and those at the rise of
+the water of Ale, present no object of the kind. But in Vetholm Loch, (a
+romantic sheet of water, in the dry march, as it is called,) there
+are the remains of a fortress called Lochside Tower, which, like the
+supposed Castle of Avenel, is built upon an island, and connected with
+the land by a causeway. It is much smaller than the Castle of Avenel is
+described, consisting only of a single tower.]
+
+The situation of Julian Avenel, engaged in a variety of feuds, and a
+party to almost every dark and mysterious transaction which was on foot
+in that wild and military frontier, required all these precautions
+for his security. His own ambiguous and doubtful course of policy had
+increased these dangers; for as he made professions to both parties in
+the state, and occasionally united more actively with either the one or
+the other, as chanced best to serve his immediate purpose, he could
+not be said to have either firm allies and protectors, or determined
+enemies. His life was a life of expedients and of peril; and while,
+in pursuit of his interest, he made all the doubles which he thought
+necessary to attain his object, he often overran his prey, and missed
+that which he might have gained by observing a straighter course.
+
+       *      *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Fourth.
+
+
+  I'll walk on tiptoe; arm my eye with caution,
+  My heart with courage, and my hand with weapon,
+  Like him who ventures on a lion's den.
+                             OLD PLAY.
+
+When, issuing from the gorge of a pass which terminated upon the lake,
+the travellers came in sight of the ancient castle of Avenel, the old
+man looked with earnest attention upon the scene before him. The castle
+was, as we have said, in many places ruinous, as was evident, even at
+this distance, by the broken, rugged, and irregular outline of the walls
+and of the towers. In others it seemed more entire, and a pillar of dark
+smoke, which ascended from the chimneys of the donjon, and spread
+its long dusky pennon through the clear ether, indicated that it was
+inhabited. But no corn-fields or enclosed pasture-grounds on the side
+of the lake showed that provident attention to comfort and subsistence
+which usually appeared near the houses of the greater, and even of the
+lesser barons. There were no cottages with their patches of infield, and
+their crofts and gardens, surrounded by rows of massive sycamores; no
+church with its simple tower in the valley; no herds of sheep among
+the hills; no cattle on the lower ground; nothing which intimated the
+occasional prosecution of the arts of peace and of industry. It was
+plain that the inhabitants, whether few or numerous, must be considered
+as the garrison of the castle, living within its defended precincts, and
+subsisting by means which were other than peaceful.
+
+Probably it was with this conviction that the old man, gazing on the
+castle, muttered to himself, "_Lapis offensionis et petra scandali!_"
+and then, turning to Halbert Glendinning, he added, "We may say of
+yonder fort as King James did of another fastness in this province,
+that he who built it was a thief in his heart." [Footnote: It was of
+Lochwood, the hereditary fortress of the Johnstones of Aunandale, a
+strong castle situated in the centre of a quaking bog, that James VI.
+made this remark.]
+
+"But it was not so," answered Glendinning; "yonder castle was built
+by the old lords of Avenel, men as much beloved in peace as they
+were respected in war. They were the bulwark of the frontiers against
+foreigners, and the protectors of the natives from domestic oppression.
+The present usurper of their inheritance no more resembles them, than
+the night-prowling owl resembles a falcon, because she builds on the
+same rock."
+
+"This Julian Avenel, then, holds no high place in the love and regard of
+his neighbours?" said Warden.
+
+"So little," answered Halbert, "that besides the jack-men and riders
+with whom he has associated himself, and of whom he has many at his
+disposal, I know of few who voluntarily associate with him. He has been
+more than once outlawed both by England and Scotland, his lands declared
+forfeited, and his head set at a price. But in these unquiet times, a
+man so daring as Julian Avenel has ever found some friends willing to
+protect him against the penalties of the law, on condition of his secret
+services."
+
+"You describe a dangerous man," replied Warden.
+
+"You may have experience of that," replied the youth, "if you deal
+not the more warily;--though it may be that he also has forsaken the
+community of the church, and gone astray in the path of heresy."
+
+"What your blindness terms the path of heresy," answered the reformer,
+"is indeed the straight and narrow way, wherein he who walks turns not
+aside, whether for worldly wealth or for worldly passions. Would to
+God this man were moved by no other and no worse spirit than that which
+prompts my poor endeavours to extend the kingdom of Heaven! This Baron
+of Avenel is personally unknown to me, is not of our congregation or of
+our counsel; yet I bear to him charges touching my safety, from those
+whom he must fear if he does not respect them, and upon that assurance I
+will venture upon his hold--I am now sufficiently refreshed by these few
+minutes of repose."
+
+"Take then this advice for your safety," said Halbert, "and believe that
+it is founded upon the usage of this country and its inhabitants. If you
+can better shift for yourself, go not to the Castle of Avenel--if you do
+risk going thither, obtain from him, if possible, his safe conduct, and
+beware that he swears it by the Black Rood--And lastly, observe whether
+he eats with you at the board, or pledges you in the cup; for if he
+gives you not these signs of welcome, his thoughts are evil towards
+you."
+
+"Alas!" said the preacher, "I have no better earthly refuge for the
+present than these frowning towers, but I go thither trusting to aid
+which is not of this earth--But thou, good youth, needest thou trust
+thyself in this dangerous den?"
+
+"I," answered Halbert, "am in no danger. I am well known to Christie of
+the Clinthill, the henchman of this Julian Avenel; and, what is a yet
+better protection, I have nothing either to provoke malice or to tempt
+plunder."
+
+The tramp of a steed, which clattered along the shingly banks of the
+loch, was now heard behind them; and, when they looked back, a rider was
+visible, his steel cap and the point of his long lance glancing in the
+setting sun, as he rode rapidly towards them.
+
+Halbert Glendinning soon recognized Christie of the Clinthill, and made
+his companion aware that the henchman of Julian Avenel was approaching.
+
+"Ha, youngling!" said Christie to Halbert, as he came up to them, "thou
+hast made good my word at last, and come to take service with my noble
+master, hast thou not? Thou shalt find a good friend and a true; and
+ere Saint Barnaby come round again, thou shalt know every pass betwixt
+Millburn Plain and Netherby, as if thou hadst been born with a jack
+on thy back, and a lance in thy hand.--What old carle hast thou with
+thee?--He is not of the brotherhood of Saint Mary's--at least he has
+not the buist [Footnote: _Buist_--The brand, or mark, set upon sheep or
+cattle, by their owners.] of these black cattle."
+
+"He is a wayfaring man," said Halbert, "who has concerns with Julian of
+Avenel. For myself, I intend to go to Edinburgh to see the court and the
+Queen, and when I return hither we will talk of your proffer. Meantime,
+as thou hast often invited me to the castle, I crave hospitality there
+to-night for myself and my companion."
+
+"For thyself and welcome, young comrade," replied Christie; "but we
+harbour no pilgrims, nor aught that looks like a pilgrim."
+
+"So please you," said Warden, "I have letters of commendation to thy
+master from a sure friend, whom he will right willingly oblige in higher
+matters than in affording me a brief protection.--And I am no pilgrim,
+but renounce the same, with all its superstitious observances." He
+offered his letters to the horseman, who shook his head.
+
+"These," he said, "are matters for my master, and it will be well if he
+can read them himself; for me, sword and lance are my book and psalter,
+and have been since I was twelve years old. But I will guide you to the
+castle, and the Baron of Avenel will himself judge of your errand."
+
+By this time the party had reached the causeway, along which Christie
+advanced at a trot, intimating his presence to the warders within the
+castle by a shrill and peculiar whistle. At this signal the farther
+drawbridge was lowered. The horseman passed it, and disappeared under
+the gloomy portal which was beyond it.
+
+Glendinning and his companion advancing more leisurely along the rugged
+causeway, stood at length under the same gateway, over which frowned,
+in dark red freestone, the ancient armorial bearings of the house of
+Avenel, which represented a female figure shrouded and muffled, which
+occupied the whole field. The cause of their assuming so singular a
+device was uncertain, but the figure was generally supposed to represent
+the mysterious being called the White Lady of Avenel. [Footnote: There
+is an ancient English family, I believe, which bears, or did bear, a
+ghost or spirit passant sable in a field argent. This seems to have been
+a device of a punning or _canting_ herald.] The sight of this mouldering
+shield awakened in the mind of Halbert the strange circumstances which
+had connected his fate with that of Mary Avenel, and with the doings of
+the spiritual being who was attached to her house, and whom he saw
+here, represented in stone, as he had before seen her effigy upon
+the seal-ring of Walter Avenel, which, with other trinkets formerly
+mentioned, had been saved from pillage, and brought to Glendearg, when
+Mary's mother was driven from her habitation.
+
+"You sigh, my son," said the old man, observing the impression made on
+his youthful companion's countenance, but mistaking the cause; "if you
+fear to enter, we may yet return."
+
+"That can ye not," said Christie of the Clinthill, who emerged at that
+instant from the side-door under the archway. "Look yonder, and choose
+whether you will return skimming the water like a wild-duck, or winging
+the air like a plover."
+
+They looked, and saw that the drawbridge which they had just crossed was
+again raised, and now interposed its planks betwixt the setting sun and
+the portal of the castle, deepening the gloom of the arch under which
+they stood. Christie laughed and bid them follow him, saying, by way of
+encouragement, in Halbert's ear, "Answer boldly and readily to whatever
+the Baron asks you. Never stop to pick your words, and above all show no
+fear of him--the devil is not so black as he is painted."
+
+As he spoke thus, he introduced them into the large stone hall, at the
+upper end of which blazed a huge fire of wood. The long oaken table,
+which, as usual, occupied the midst of the apartment, was covered
+with rude preparations for the evening meal of the Baron and his chief
+domestics, five or six of whom, strong, athletic, savage-looking men,
+paced up and down the lower end of the hall, which rang to the jarring
+clang of their long swords that clashed as they moved, and to the heavy
+tramp of their high-heeled jack-boots. Iron jacks, or coats of buff,
+formed the principal part of their dress, and steel-bonnets, or large
+slouched hats with Spanish plumes drooping backwards, were their head
+attire.
+
+The Baron of Avenel was one of those tall, muscular, martial figures,
+which are the favourite subjects of Salvator Rosa. He wore a cloak
+which had been once gaily trimmed, but which, by long wear and
+frequent exposure to the weather, was now faded in its colours. Thrown
+negligently about his tall person, it partly hid, and partly showed, a
+short doublet of buff, under which was in some places visible that light
+shirt of mail which was called a _secret_, because worn instead of more
+ostensible armour to protect against private assassination. A leathern
+belt sustained a large and heavy sword on one side, and on the other
+that gay poniard which had once called Sir Piercie Shafton master, of
+which the hatchments and gildings were already much defaced, either by
+rough usage or neglect.
+
+Notwithstanding the rudeness of his apparel, Julian Avenel's manner
+and countenance had far more elevation than those of the attendants
+who surrounded him. He might be fifty or upwards, for his dark hair was
+mingled with gray, but age had neither tamed the fire of his eye nor the
+enterprise of his disposition. His countenance had been handsome, for
+beauty was an attribute of the family; but the lines were roughened by
+fatigue and exposure to the weather, and rendered coarse by the habitual
+indulgence of violent passions.
+
+He seemed in deep and moody reflection, and was pacing at a distance
+from his dependents along the upper end of the hall, sometimes stopping
+from time to time to caress and feed a gos-hawk, which sat upon his
+wrist, with its jesses (_i. e._ the leathern straps fixed to its legs)
+wrapt around his hand. The bird, which seemed not insensible to its
+master's attention, answered his caresses by ruffling forward its
+feathers, and pecking playfully at his finger. At such intervals
+the Baron smiled, but instantly resumed the darksome air of sullen
+meditation. He did not even deign to look upon an object, which few
+could have passed and repassed so often without bestowing on it a
+transient glance.
+
+This was a woman of exceeding beauty, rather gaily than richly attired,
+who sat on a low seat close by the huge hall chimney. The gold chains
+round her neck and arms,--the gay gown of green which swept the
+floor,--the silver embroidered girdle, with its bunch of keys, depending
+in house-wifely pride by a silver chain,--the yellow silken _couvrechef_
+(Scottice, _curch_) which was disposed around her head, and partly
+concealed her dark profusion of hair,--above all, the circumstance so
+delicately touched in the old ballad, that "the girdle was too short,"
+the "gown of green all too strait," for the wearer's present shape,
+would have intimated the Baron's lady. But then the lowly seat,--the
+expression of deep melancholy, which was changed into a timid smile
+whenever she saw the least chance of catching the eye of Julian
+Avenel,--the subdued look of grief, and the starting tear for which
+that constrained smile was again exchanged when she saw herself entirely
+disregarded,--these were not the attributes of a wife, or they were
+those of a dejected and afflicted female, who had yielded her love on
+less than legitimate terms.
+
+Julian Avenel, as we have said, continued to pace the hall without
+paying any of that mute attention which is rendered to almost every
+female either by affection or courtesy. He seemed totally unconscious of
+her presence, or of that of his attendants, and was only roused from
+his own dark reflections by the notice he paid to the falcon, to which,
+however, the lady seemed to attend, as if studying to find either
+an opportunity of speaking to the Baron, or of finding something
+enigmatical in the expressions which he used to the bird. All this the
+strangers had time enough to remark; for no sooner had they entered the
+apartment than their usher, Christie of the Clinthill, after exchanging
+a significant glance with the menials or troopers at the lower end of
+the apartment, signed to Halbert Glendinning and to his companion to
+stand still near the door, while he himself, advancing nearer the table,
+placed himself in such a situation as to catch the Baron's observation
+when he should be disposed to look around, but without presuming to
+intrude himself on his master's notice. Indeed, the look of this man,
+naturally bold, hardy, and audacious, seemed totally changed when he
+was in presence of his master, and resembled the dejected and cowering
+manner of a quarrelsome dog when rebuked by his owner, or when he finds
+himself obliged to deprecate the violence of a superior adversary of his
+own species.
+
+In spite of the novelty of his own situation, and every painful feeling
+connected with it, Halbert felt his curiosity interested in the female,
+who sate by the chimney unnoticed and unregarded. He marked with what
+keen and trembling solicitude she watched the broken words of Julian,
+and how her glance stole towards him, ready to be averted upon the
+slightest chance of his perceiving himself to be watched.
+
+Meantime he went on with his dalliance with his feathered favourite, now
+giving, now withholding, the morsel with which he was about to feed the
+bird, and so exciting its appetite and gratifying it by turns. "What!
+more yet?--thou foul kite, thou wouldst never have done--give thee part
+thou wilt have all--Ay, prune thy feathers, and prink thyself gay--much
+thou wilt make of it now--dost think I know thee not?--dost think I see
+not that all that ruffling and pluming of wing and feathers is not
+for thy master, but to try what thou canst make of him, thou greedy
+gled?--well--there--take it then, and rejoice thyself--little boon goes
+far with thee, and with all thy sex--and so it should."
+
+He ceased to look on the bird, and again traversed the apartment. Then
+taking another small piece of raw meat from the trencher, on which it
+was placed ready cut for his use, he began once again to tempt and tease
+the bird, by offering and withdrawing it, until he awakened its wild and
+bold disposition. "What! struggling, fluttering, aiming at me with beak
+and single? [Footnote: In the _kindly_ language of hawking, as Lady
+Juliana Berners terms it, hawks' talons are called their _singles_]
+So la! So la! wouldst mount? wouldst fly? the jesses are round thy
+clutches, fool--thou canst neither stir nor soar but by my will--Beware
+thou come to reclaim, wench, else I will wring thy head off one of these
+days--Well, have it then, and well fare thou with it.--So ho, Jenkin!"
+One of the attendants stepped forward--"Take the foul gled hence to
+the mew--or, stay; leave her, but look well to her casting and to her
+bathing--we will see her fly to-morrow.--How now, Christie, so soon
+returned?"
+
+Christie advanced to his master, and gave an account of himself and his
+journey, in the way in which a police-officer holds communication with
+his magistrate, that is, as much by signs as by words.
+
+"Noble sir," said that worthy satellite, "the Laird of--," he named no
+place, but pointed with his finger in a south-western direction,--
+"may not ride with you the day he purposed, because the Lord Warden has
+threatened that he will--"
+
+Here another blank, intelligibly enough made up by the speaker touching
+his own neck with his left fore-finger, and leaning his head a little to
+one side.
+
+"Cowardly caitiff!" said Julian; "by Heaven! the whole world turns sheer
+naught--it is not worth a brave man's living in--ye may ride a day and
+night, and never see a feather wave or hear a horse prance--the spirit
+of our fathers is dead amongst us--the very brutes are degenerated--the
+cattle we bring at our life's risk are mere carrion--our hawks are
+riflers [Footnote: So called when they only caught their prey by the
+feathers.]--our hounds are turnspits and trindle-tails--our men are
+women--and our women are--"
+
+He looked at the female for the first time, and stopped short in
+the midst of what he was about to say, though there was something so
+contemptuous in the glance, that the blank might have been thus filled
+up--"Our women are such as she is."
+
+He said it not, however, and as if desirous of attracting his attention
+at all risks, and in whatever manner, she rose and came forward to him,
+but with a timorousness ill-disguised by affected gaiety.--"Our women,
+Julian--what would you say of the women?"
+
+"Nothing," answered Julian Avenel, "at least nothing but that they are
+kind-hearted wenches like thyself, Kate." The female coloured deeply,
+and returned to her seat.--"And what strangers hast thou brought with
+thee, Christie, that stand yonder like two stone statues?" said the
+Baron.
+
+"The taller," answered Christie, "is, so please you, a young fellow
+called Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son of the old widow at
+Glendearg."
+
+"What brings him here?" said the Baron; "hath he any message from Mary
+Avenel?"
+
+"Not as I think," said Christie; "the youth is roving the country--he
+was always a wild slip, for I have known him since he was the height of
+my sword."
+
+"What qualities hath he?" said the Baron.
+
+"All manner of qualities," answered his follower--"he can strike a buck,
+track a deer, fly a hawk, halloo to a hound--he shoots in the long
+and crossbow to a hair's breadth--wields a lance or sword like myself
+nearly--backs a horse manfully and fairly--I wot not what more a man
+need to do to make him a gallant companion."
+
+"And who," said the Baron, "is the old miser [Footnote: Miser, used in
+the sense in which it often occurs in Spenser, and which is indeed its
+literal import--"wretched old man."] who stands beside him?"
+
+"Some cast of a priest as I fancy--he says he is charged with letters to
+you."
+
+"Bid them come forward," said the Baron; and no sooner had they
+approached him more nearly, than, struck by the fine form and strength
+displayed by Halbert Glendinning, he addressed him thus: "I am told,
+young Swankie, that you are roaming the world to seek your fortune,--if
+you will serve Julian Avenel, you may find it without going farther."
+
+"So please you," answered Glendinning, "something has chanced to me that
+makes it better I should leave this land, and I am bound for Edinburgh."
+
+"What!--thou hast stricken some of the king's deer, I warrant,--or
+lightened the meadows of Saint Mary's of some of their beeves--or thou
+hast taken a moonlight leap over the border?"
+
+"No, sir," said Halbert, "my case is entirely different."
+
+"Then I warrant thee," said the Baron, "thou hast stabbed some brother
+churl in a fray about a wench--thou art a likely lad to wrangle in such
+a cause."
+
+Ineffably disgusted at his tone and manner, Halbert Glendinning remained
+silent, while the thought darted across his mind, what would Julian
+Avenel have said, had he known the quarrel of which he spoke so lightly,
+had arisen on account of his own brother's daughter! "But be thy cause
+of flight what it will," said Julian, in continuation, "dost thou think
+the law or its emissaries can follow thee into this island, or arrest
+thee under the standard of Avenel?--Look at the depth of the lake, the
+strength of the walls, the length of the causeway--look at my men,
+and think if they are likely to see a comrade injured, or if I, their
+master, am a man to desert a faithful follower, in good or evil. I tell
+thee it shall be an eternal day of truce betwixt thee and justice,
+as they call it, from the instant thou hast put my colours into thy
+cap--thou shalt ride by the Warden's nose as thou wouldst pass an old
+market-woman, and ne'er a cur which follows him shall dare to bay at
+thee!"
+
+"I thank you for your offers, noble sir," replied Halbert, "but I must
+answer in brief, that I cannot profit by them--my fortunes lead me
+elsewhere."
+
+"Thou art a self-willed fool for thy pains," said Julian, turning from
+him; and signing Christie to approach, he whispered in his ear, "there
+is promise in that young fellow's looks, Christie, and we want men of
+limbs and sinews so compacted--those thou hast brought to me of late are
+the mere refuse of mankind, wretches scarce worth the arrow that ends
+them: this youngster is limbed like Saint George. Ply him with wine and
+wassail--let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders--thou
+understandest?" Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell
+back to a respectful distance from his master.--"And thou, old man,"
+said the Baron, turning to the elder traveller, "hast thou been roaming
+the world after fortune too?--it seems not she has fallen into thy way."
+
+"So please you," replied Warden, "I were perhaps more to be pitied than
+I am now, had I indeed met with that fortune, which, like others, I have
+sought in my greener days."
+
+"Nay, understand me, friend," said the Baron; "if thou art satisfied
+with thy buckram gown and long staff, I also am well content thou
+shouldst be as poor and contemptible as is good for the health of thy
+body and soul--All I care to know of thee is, the cause which hath
+brought thee to my castle, where few crows of thy kind care to settle.
+Thou art, I warrant thee, some ejected monk of a suppressed convent,
+paying in his old days the price of the luxurious idleness in which he
+spent his youth.--Ay, or it may be some pilgrim with a budget of lies
+from Saint James of Compostella, or Our Lady of Loretto; or thou mayest
+be some pardoner with his budget of relics from Rome, forgiving sins at
+a penny a-dozen, and one to the tale.--Ay, I guess why I find thee in
+this boy's company, and doubtless thou wouldst have such a strapping lad
+as he to carry thy wallet, and relieve thy lazy shoulders; but by the
+mass I will cross thy cunning. I make my vow to sun and moon, I will
+not see a proper lad so misleard as to run the country with an old knave
+like Simmie and his brother. [Footnote: Two _quaestionarii_, or begging
+friars, whose accoutrements and roguery make the subject of an old
+Scottish satirical poem] Away with thee!" he added, rising in wrath,
+and speaking so fast as to give no opportunity of answer, being probably
+determined to terrify the elder guest into an abrupt flight--"Away with
+thee, with thy clouted coat, scrip, and scallop-shell, or, by the name
+of Avenel, I will have them loose the hounds on thee."
+
+Warden waited with the greatest patience until Julian Avenel, astonished
+that the threats and violence of his language made no impression on him,
+paused in a sort of wonder, and said in a less imperious tone, "Why the
+fiend dost thou not answer me?"
+
+"When you have done speaking," said Warden, in the same composed manner,
+"it will be full time to reply."
+
+"Say on man, in the devil's name--but take heed--beg not here--were it
+but for the rinds of cheese, the refuse of the rats, or a morsel that my
+dogs would turn from--neither a grain of meal, nor the nineteenth part
+of a gray groat, will I give to any feigned limmer of thy coat."
+
+"It may be," answered Warden, "that you would have less quarrel with my
+coat if you knew what it covers, I am neither a friar nor mendicant, and
+would be right glad to hear thy testimony against these foul deceivers
+of God's church, and usurpers of his rights over the Christian flock,
+were it given in Christian charity."
+
+"And who or what art thou, then," said Avenel, "that thou comest to this
+Border land, and art neither monk, nor soldier, nor broken man?"
+
+"I am an humble teacher of the holy word," answered Warden. "This letter
+from a most noble person will speak why I am here at this present time."
+
+He delivered the letter to the Baron, who regarded the seal with some
+surprise, and then looked on the letter itself, which seemed to excite
+still more. He then fixed his eyes on the stranger, and said, in a
+menacing tone, "I think thou darest not betray me or deceive me?"
+
+"I am not the man to attempt either," was the concise reply.
+
+Julian Avenel carried the letter to the window, where he perused, or
+at least attempted to peruse it more than once, often looking from the
+paper and gazing on the stranger who had delivered it, as if he meant to
+read the purport of the missive in the face of the messenger. Julian
+at length called to the female,--"Catherine, bestir thee, and fetch
+me presently that letter which I bade thee keep ready at hand in thy
+casket, having no sure lockfast place of my own."
+
+Catherine went with the readiness of one willing to be employed; and
+as she walked, the situation which requires a wider gown and a longer
+girdle, and in which woman claims from man a double portion of the most
+anxious care, was still more visible than before. She soon returned with
+the paper, and was rewarded with a cold--"I thank thee, wench; thou art
+a careful secretary."
+
+This second paper he also perused and reperused more than once, and
+still, as he read it, bent from time to time a wary and observant eye
+upon Henry Warden. This examination and re-examination, though both the
+man and the place were dangerous, the preacher endured with the most
+composed and steady countenance, seeming, under the eagle, or rather the
+vulture eye of the baron, as unmoved as under the gaze of an ordinary
+and peaceful peasant. At length Julian Avenel folded both papers, and
+having put them into the pocket of his cloak, cleared his brow, and,
+coming forward, addressed his female companion. "Catherine," said he,
+"I have done this good man injustice, when I mistook him for one of the
+drones of Rome. He is a preacher, Catherine--a preacher of the--the new
+doctrine of the Lords of the Congregation."
+
+"The doctrine of the blessed Scriptures," said the preacher, "purified
+from the devices of men."
+
+"Sayest thou?" said Julian Avenel--"Well, thou mayest call it what thou
+lists; but to me it is recommended, because it flings off all those
+sottish dreams about saints and angels and devils, and unhorses lazy
+monks that have ridden us so long, and spur-galled us so hard. No
+more masses and corpse-gifts--no more tithes and offerings to make men
+poor--no more prayers or psalms to make men cowards-no more christenings
+and penances, and confessions and marriages."
+
+"So please you," said Henry Warden, "it is against the corruptions, not
+against the fundamental doctrines, of the church, which we desire to
+renovate, and not to abolish."
+
+"Prithee, peace, man," said the Baron; "we of the laity care not what
+you set up, so you pull merrily down what stands in our way. Specially
+it suits well with us of the Southland fells; for it is our profession
+to turn the world upside down, and we live ever the blithest life when
+the downer side is uppermost."
+
+Warden would have replied; but the Baron allowed him not time, striking
+the table with the hilt of his dagger, and crying out,--"Ha! you
+loitering knaves, bring our supper-meal quickly. See you not this holy
+man is exhausted for lack of food? heard ye ever of priest or preacher
+that devoured not his five meals a-day?"
+
+The attendants bustled to and fro, and speedily brought in several large
+smoking platters filled with huge pieces of beef, boiled and roasted,
+but without any variety whatsoever; without vegetables, and almost
+without bread, though there was at the upper end a few oat-cakes in a
+basket. Julian Avenel made a sort of apology to Warden.
+
+"You have been commended to our care, Sir Preacher, since that is your
+style, by a person whom we highly honour."
+
+"I am assured," said Warden, "that the most noble Lord--"
+
+"Prithee, peace, man," said Avenel; "what need of naming names, so we
+understand each other? I meant but to speak in reference to your safety
+and comfort, of which he desires us to be chary. Now, for your safety,
+look at my walls and water. But touching your comfort, we have no
+corn of our own, and the meal-girnels of the south are less easily
+transported than their beeves, seeing they have no legs to walk upon.
+But what though? a stoup of wine thou shalt have, and of the best--thou
+shalt sit betwixt Catherine and me at the board-end.--And, Christie, do
+thou look to the young springald, and call to the cellarer for a flagon
+of the best."
+
+The Baron took his wonted place at the upper end of the board; his
+Catherine sate down, and courteously pointed to a seat betwixt them for
+their reverend guest. But notwithstanding the influence both of hunger
+and fatigue, Henry Warden retained his standing posture.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Fifth.
+
+
+  When lovely woman stoops to folly,
+  And finds too late that men betray--
+
+Julian Avenel saw with surprise the demeanour of the reverend stranger.
+"Beshrew me," he said, "these new-fashioned religioners have fast-days,
+I warrant me--the old ones used to confer these blessings chiefly on the
+laity."
+
+"We acknowledge no such rule," said the preacher--"We hold that our
+faith consists not in using or abstaining from special meats on special
+days; and in fasting we rend our hearts, and not our garments."
+
+"The better--the better for yourselves, and the worse for Tom Tailor,"
+said the Baron; "but come, sit down, or, if thou needs must e'en give us
+a cast of thy office, mutter thy charm."
+
+"Sir Baron," said the preacher, "I am in a strange land, where neither
+mine office nor my doctrine are known, and where, it would seem, both
+are greatly misunderstood. It is my duty so to bear me, that in my
+person, however unworthy, my Master's dignity may be respected, and that
+sin may take not confidence from relaxation of the bonds of discipline."
+
+"Ho la! halt there," said the Baron; "thou wert sent hither for thy
+safety, but not, I think, to preach to me, or control me. What is it
+thou wouldst have, Sir Preacher? Remember thou speakest to one somewhat
+short of patience, who loves a short health and a long draught."
+
+"In a word, then," said Henry Warden, "that lady--"
+
+"How?" said the Baron, starting--"what of her?--what hast thou to say of
+that dame?"
+
+"Is she thy house-dame?" said the preacher, after a moment's pause, in
+which, he seemed to seek for the best mode of expressing what he had to
+say--"Is she, in brief, thy wife?"
+
+The unfortunate young woman pressed both her hands on her face, as if
+to hide it, but the deep blush which crimsoned her brow and neck, showed
+that her cheeks were also glowing; and the bursting tears, which found
+their way betwixt her slender fingers, bore witness to her sorrow, as
+well as to her shame.
+
+"Now, by my father's ashes!" said the Baron, rising and spurning from
+him his footstool with such violence, that it hit the wall on the
+opposite side of the apartment--then instantly constraining himself,
+he muttered, "What need to run myself into trouble for a fool's
+word?"--then resuming his seat, he answered coldly and scornfully--"No,
+Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife--Cease thy
+whimpering, thou foolish wench--she is not my wife, but she is
+handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman."
+
+"Handfasted?"--repeated Warden.
+
+"Knowest thou not that rite, holy man?" said Avenel, in the same tone of
+derision; "then I will tell thee. We Border-men are more wary than
+your inland clowns of Fife and Lothian--no jump in the dark for us--no
+clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know how they will wear
+with us--we take our wives, like our horses, upon trial. When we are
+handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and day--that
+space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may
+call the priest to marry them for life--and this we call handfasting."
+[Footnote: This custom of handfasting actually prevailed in the upland
+days. It arose partly from the want of priests. While the convents
+subsisted, monks were detached on regular circuits through the wilder
+districts, to marry those who had lived in this species of connexion. A
+practice of the same kind existed in the Isle of Portland.]
+
+"Then," said the preacher, "I tell thee, noble Baron, in brotherly love
+to thy soul, it is a custom licentious, gross, and corrupted, and, if
+persisted in, dangerous, yea, damnable. It binds thee to the frailer
+being while she is the object of desire--it relieves thee when she is
+most the subject of pity--it gives all to brutal sense, and nothing to
+generous and gentle affection. I say to thee, that he who can meditate
+the breach of such an engagement, abandoning the deluded woman and the
+helpless offspring, is worse than the birds of prey; for of them the
+males remain with their mates until the nestlings can take wing. Above
+all, I say it is contrary to the pure Christian doctrine, which assigns
+woman to man as the partner of his labour, the soother of his evil,
+his helpmate in peril, his friend in affliction; not as the toy of his
+looser hours, or as a flower, which, once cropped, he may throw aside at
+pleasure."
+
+"Now, by the Saints, a most virtuous homily!" said the Baron; "quaintly
+conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation.
+Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand? Know I not that
+your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to
+change _his_ Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian
+liberty with _mine?_ Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with
+what concerns thee not--thou hast no gull in Julian Avenel."
+
+"He hath gulled and cheated himself," said the preacher, "should he
+even incline to do that poor sharer of his domestic cares the imperfect
+justice that remains to him. Can he now raise her to the rank of a pure
+and uncontaminated matron?--Can he deprive his child of the misery of
+owing birth to a mother who has erred? He can indeed give them both
+the rank, the state of married wife and of lawful son; but, in public
+opinion, their names will be smirched and sullied with a stain which his
+tardy efforts cannot entirely efface. Yet render it to them, Baron of
+Avenel, render to them this late and imperfect justice. Bid me bind
+you together for ever, and celebrate the day of your bridal, not with
+feasting or wassail, but with sorrow for past sin, and the resolution
+to commence a better life. Happy then will have the chance been that has
+drawn me to this castle, though I come driven by calamity, and unknowing
+where my course is bound, like a leaf travelling on the north wind."
+
+The plain, and even coarse features, of the zealous speaker, were warmed
+at once and ennobled by the dignity of his enthusiasm; and the wild
+Baron, lawless as he was, and accustomed to spurn at the control whether
+of religious or moral law, felt, for the first time perhaps in his life,
+that he was under subjection to a mind superior to his own. He sat mute
+and suspended in his deliberations, hesitating betwixt anger and shame,
+yet borne down by the weight of the just rebuke thus boldly fulminated
+against him.
+
+The unfortunate young woman, conceiving hopes from her tyrant's silence
+and apparent indecision, forgot both her fear and shame in her timid
+expectation that Avenel would relent; and fixing upon him her anxious
+and beseeching eyes, gradually drew near and nearer to his seat, till at
+length, laying a trembling hand on his cloak, she ventured to utter, "O
+noble Julian, listen to the good man!"
+
+The speech and the motion were ill-timed, and wrought on that proud and
+wayward spirit the reverse of her wishes.
+
+The fierce Baron started up in a fury, exclaiming, "What! thou foolish
+callet, art thou confederate with this strolling vagabond, whom thou
+hast seen beard me in my own hall! Hence with thee, and think that I ana
+proof both to male and female hypocrisy!"
+
+The poor girl started back, astounded at his voice of thunder and looks
+of fury, and, turning pale as death, endeavoured to obey his orders, and
+tottered towards the door. Her limbs failed in the attempt, and she fell
+on the stone floor in a manner which her situation might have rendered
+fatal--The blood gushed from her face.--Halbert Glendinning brooked not
+a sight so brutal, but, uttering a deep imprecation, started from
+his seat, and laid his hand on his sword, under the strong impulse of
+passing it through the body of the cruel and hard-hearted ruffian. But
+Christie of the Clinthill, guessing his intention, threw his arms around
+him, and prevented him from stirring to execute his purpose.
+
+The impulse to such an act of violence was indeed but momentary, as it
+instantly appeared that Avenel himself, shocked at the effects of his
+violence, was lifting up and endeavouring to soothe in his own way the
+terrified Catherine.
+
+"Peace," he said, "prithee, peace, thou silly minion--why, Kate, though
+I listen not to this tramping preacher, I said not what might happen
+an thou dost bear me a stout boy. There--there--dry thy tears--Call thy
+women.--So ho!--where be these queans?--Christie--Rowley--Hutcheon--drag
+them hither by the hair of the head!"
+
+A half dozen of startled wild-looking females rushed into the room,
+and bore out her who might be either termed their mistress or their
+companion. She showed little sign of life, except by groaning faintly
+and keeping her hand on her side.
+
+No sooner had this luckless female been conveyed from the apartment,
+than the Baron, advancing to the table, filled and drank a deep goblet
+of wine; then, putting an obvious restraint on his passions, turned to
+the preacher, who stood horror-struck at the scene he had witnessed, and
+said, "You have borne too hard on us, Sir Preacher--but coming with the
+commendations which you have brought me, I doubt not but your meaning
+was good. But we are a wilder folk than you inland men of Fife and
+Lothian. Be advised, therefore, by me--Spur not an unbroken horse--put
+not your ploughshare too deep into new land--Preach to us spiritual
+liberty, and we will hearken to you.--But we will give no way to
+spiritual bondage.--Sit, therefore, down, and pledge me in old sack, and
+we will talk over these matters."
+
+"It is _from_ spiritual bondage," said the preacher, in the same tone
+of admonitory reproof, "that I came to deliver you--it is from a bondage
+more fearful than than that of the heaviest earthly gyves--it is from
+your own evil passions."
+
+"Sit down," said Avenel, fiercely; "sit down while the play is
+good--else by my father's crest and my mother's honour!----"
+
+"Now," whispered Christie of the Clinthill to Halbert, "if he refuse to
+sit down, I would not give a gray groat for his head."
+
+"Lord Baron," said Warden, "thou hast placed me in extremity. But if the
+question be, whether I am to hide the light which I am commanded to show
+forth, or to lose the light of this world, my choice is made. I say to
+thee, like the Holy Baptist to Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have
+this woman; and I say it though bonds and death be the consequence,
+counting my life as nothing in comparison of the ministry to which I am
+called."
+
+Julian Avenel, enraged at the firmness of this reply, flung from his
+right hand the cup in which he was about to drink to his guest, and from
+the other cast off the hawk, which flew wildly through the apartment.
+His first motion was to lay hand upon his dagger. But, changing
+his resolution, he exclaimed, "To the dungeon with this insolent
+stroller!--I will hear no man speak a word for him----Look to the
+falcon, Christie, thou fool--an she escape, I will despatch you after
+her every man--Away with that hypocritical dreamer--drag him hence if he
+resist!"
+
+He was obeyed in both points. Christie of the Clinthill arrested the
+hawk's flight, by putting his foot on her jesses, and so holding her
+fast, while Henry Warden was led off, without having shown the slightest
+symptoms of terror, by two of the Baron's satellites. Julian Avenel
+walked the apartment for a short time in sullen silence, and despatching
+one of his attendants with a whispered message, which probably related
+to the health of the unfortunate Catherine, he said aloud, "These rash
+and meddling priests--By Heaven! they make us worse than we would be
+without them."
+
+[Footnote: If it were necessary to name a prototype for this brutal,
+licentious and cruel Border chief, in an age which showed but too many
+such, the Laird of Black Ormiston might be selected for that purpose. He
+was a friend and confidant of Bothwell, and an agent in Henry Darnley's
+murder. At his last stage, he was, like other great offenders, a seeming
+penitent; and, as his confession bears, divers gentlemen and servants
+being in the chamber, he said, "For God's sake, sit down and pray for
+me, for I have been a great sinner otherwise," (that is, besides his
+share in Darnley's death,) "for the which God is this day punishing me;
+for of all men on the earth, I have been one of the proudest, and most
+high-minded, and most unclean of my body. But specially I have shed the
+innocent blood of one Michael Hunter with my own hands. Alas, therefore!
+because the said Michael, having me lying on my back, having a fork in
+his hand, might have slain me if he had pleased, and did it not, which
+of all things grieves me most in conscience. Also, in a rage, I hanged a
+poor man for a horse;--with many other wicked deeds, for whilk I ask my
+God mercy. It is not marvel I have been wicked, considering the wicked
+company that ever I have been in, but specially within the seven years
+by-past, in which I never saw two good men or one good deed, but all
+kind of wickedness, and yet God would not suffer me to be lost."--See
+the whole confession in the State Trials.
+
+Another worthy of the Borders, called Geordy Bourne, of somewhat
+subordinate rank, was a similar picture of profligacy. He had fallen
+into the hands of Sir Robert Carey, then Warden of the English East
+Marches, who gives the following account of his prisoner's confession:--
+
+"When all things were quiet, and the watch set at night, after supper,
+about ten of the clock, I took one of my men's liveries, and put it
+about me, and took two other of my servants with me in their liveries;
+and we three, as the Warden's men, came to the Provost Marshal's where
+Bourne was, and were let into his chamber. We sate down by him, and told
+him that we were desirous to see him, because we heard he was stout and
+valiant, and true to his friend, and that we were sorry our master could
+not be moved to save his life. He voluntarily of himself said, that he
+had lived long enough to do so many villanies as he had done; and withal
+told us, that he had lain with above forty men's wives, what in England
+what in Scotland; and that he had killed seven Englishmen with his own
+hands, cruelly murdering them; and that he had spent his whole time
+in whoring, drinking, stealing, and taking deep revenge for slight
+offences. He seemed to be very penitent, and much desired a minister
+for the comfort of his soul. We promised him to let our master know his
+desire, who, we knew would promptly grant it. We took leave of him; and
+presently I took order that Mr Selby, a very honest preacher, should go
+to him, and not stir from him till his execution the next morning;
+for after I had heard his own confession, I was resolved no conditions
+should save his life, and so took order, that at the gates opening the
+next morning, he should be carried to execution, which accordingly was
+performed."--_Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth._]
+
+The answer which he presently received seemed somewhat to pacify his
+angry mood, and he took his place at the board, commanding his retinue
+to the like. All sat down in silence, and began the repast.
+
+During the meal Christie in vain attempted to engage his youthful
+companion in carousal, or, at least, in conversation. Halbert
+Glendinning pleaded fatigue, and expressed himself unwilling to take any
+liquor stronger than the heather ale, which was at that time frequently
+used at meals. Thus every effort at jovialty died away, until the
+Baron, striking his hand against the table, as if impatient of the
+long unbroken silence, cried out aloud, "What, ho! my masters--are ye
+Border-riders, and sit as mute over your meal as a mess of monks and
+friars?--Some one sing, if no one list to speak. Much eaten without
+either mirth or music is ill of digestion.--Louis," he added, speaking
+to one of the youngest of his followers, "thou art ready enough to sing
+when no one bids thee."
+
+The young man looked first at his master, then up to the arched roof of
+the hall, then drank off the horn of ale, or wine, which stood beside
+him, and with a rough, yet not unmelodious voice, sung the following
+ditty to the ancient air of "Blue bonnets over the Border."
+
+                 I.
+
+  March, march, Ettrick and Teviotdale,
+    Why the deil dinna ye march forward in order?
+  March, march, Eskdale and Liddesdale,
+    All the Blue Bonnets are bound for the Border
+        Many a banner spread,
+        Flutters above your head,
+    Many a crest that is famous in story;
+        Mount and make ready then,
+        Sons of the mountain glen,
+    Fight for the Queen and the old Scottish glory!
+
+                 II.
+
+  Come from the hills where the hirsels are grazing,
+    Come from the glen of the buck and the roe;
+  Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
+    Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow.
+        Trumpets are sounding,
+        War-steeds are bounding,
+    Stand to your arms then, and march in good order;
+        England shall many a day
+        Tell of the bloody fray,
+    When the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!
+
+The song, rude as it was, had in it that warlike character which at any
+other time would have roused Halbert's spirit; but at present the charm
+of minstrelsy had no effect upon him. He made it his request to Christie
+to suffer him to retire to rest, a request with which that worthy
+person, seeing no chance of making a favourable impression on his
+intended proselyte in his present humour, was at length pleased to
+comply. But no Sergeant Kite, who ever practised the profession of
+recruiting, was more attentive that his object should not escape
+him, than was Christie of the Clinthill. He indeed conducted Halbert
+Glendinning to a small apartment overlooking the lake, which was
+accommodated with a truckle bed. But before quitting him, Christie took
+special care to give a look to the bars which crossed the outside of the
+window, and when he left the apartment, he failed not to give the key a
+double turn; circumstances which convinced young Glendinning that there
+was no intention of suffering him to depart from the Castle of Avenel
+at his own time and pleasure. He judged it, however, most prudent to let
+these alarming symptoms pass without observation.
+
+No sooner did he find himself in undisturbed solitude, than he ran
+rapidly over the events of the day in his recollection, and to his
+surprise found that his own precarious fate, and even the death of
+Piercie Shafton, made less impression on him than the singularly bold
+and determined conduct of his companion, Henry Warden. Providence, which
+suits its instruments to the end they are to achieve, had awakened in
+the cause of Reformation in Scotland, a body of preachers of more energy
+than refinement, bold in spirit, and strong in faith, contemners of
+whatever stood betwixt them and their principal object, and seeking the
+advancement of the great cause in which they laboured by the roughest
+road, provided it were the shortest. The soft breeze may wave the
+willow, but it requires the voice of the tempest to agitate the boughs
+of the oak; and, accordingly, to milder hearers, and in a less rude
+age, their manners would have been ill-adapted, but they were singularly
+successful in their mission to the rude people to whom it was addressed.
+
+Owing to these reasons, Halbert Glendinning, who had resisted and
+repelled the arguments of the preacher, was forcibly struck by the
+firmness of his demeanour in the dispute with Julian Avenel. It might
+be discourteous, and most certainly it was incautious, to choose such
+a place and such an audience, for upbraiding with his transgressions
+a baron, whom both manners and situation placed in full possession of
+independent power. But the conduct of the preacher was uncompromising,
+firm, manly, and obviously grounded upon the deepest conviction which
+duty and principle could afford; and Glendinning, who had viewed the
+conduct of Avenel with the deepest abhorrence, was proportionally
+interested in the brave old man, who had ventured life rather than
+withhold the censure due to guilt. This pitch of virtue seemed to him to
+be in religion what was demanded by chivalry of her votaries in war; an
+absolute surrender of all selfish feelings, and a combination of every
+energy proper to the human mind, to discharge the task which duty
+demanded.
+
+Halbert was at the period when youth was most open to generous emotions,
+and knows best how to appreciate them in others, and he felt, although
+he hardly knew why, that, whether catholic or heretic, the safety of
+this man deeply interested him. Curiosity mingled with the feeling, and
+led him to wonder what the nature of those doctrines could be, which
+stole their votary so completely from himself, and devoted him to chains
+or to death as their sworn champion. He had indeed been told of saints
+and martyrs of former days, who had braved for their religious faith
+the extremity of death and torture. But their spirit of enthusiastic
+devotion had long slept in the ease and indolent habits of their
+successors, and their adventures, like those of knights-errant, were
+rather read for amusement than for edification. A new impulse had been
+necessary to rekindle the energies of religious zeal, and that impulse
+was now operating in favour of a purer religion, with one of whose
+steadiest votaries the youth had now met for the first time.
+
+The sense that he himself was a prisoner, under the power of this savage
+chieftain, by no means diminished Halbert's interest in the fate of his
+fellow sufferer, while he determined at the same time so far to emulate
+his fortitude, that neither threats nor suffering should compel him to
+enter into the service of such a master. The possibility of escape next
+occurred to him, and though with little hope of effecting it in that
+way, Glendinning proceeded to examine more particularly the window of
+the apartment. The apartment was situated in the first story of the
+castle; and was not so far from the rock, on which it was founded, but
+that an active and bold man might with little assistance descend to a
+shelf of rock which was immediately below the window, and from thence
+either leap or drop himself down into the lake which lay before his eye,
+clear and blue in the placid light of a full summer's moon.--"Were I
+once placed on that ledge," thought Glendinning, "Julian Avenel and
+Christie had seen the last of me." The size of the window favoured
+such an attempt, but the stanchions or iron bars seemed to form an
+insurmountable obstacle.
+
+While Halbert Glendinning gazed from the window with that eagerness
+of hope which was prompted by the energy of his character and his
+determination not to yield to circumstances, his ear caught some sounds
+from below, and listening with more attention, he could distinguish
+the voice of the preacher engaged in his solitary devotions. To open a
+correspondence with him became immediately his object, and failing to
+do so by less marked sounds, he at length ventured to speak, and was
+answered from beneath--"Is it thou, my son?" The voice of the prisoner
+now sounded more distinctly than when it was first heard, for Warden had
+approached the small aperture, which, serving his prison for a window,
+opened just betwixt the wall and the rock, and admitted a scanty portion
+of light through a wall of immense thickness. This _soupirait_ being
+placed exactly under Halbert's window, the contiguity permitted the
+prisoners to converse in a low tone, when Halbert declared his intention
+to escape, and the possibility he saw of achieving his purpose, but for
+the iron stanchions of the window--"Prove thy strength, my son, in the
+name of God" said the preacher. Halbert obeyed him more in despair than
+hope, but to his great astonishment, and somewhat to his terror, the bar
+parted asunder near the bottom, and the longer part being easily bent
+outwards, and not secured with lead in the upper socket, dropt out into
+Halbert's hand. He immediately whispered, but as energetically as a
+whisper could be expressed--"By Heaven, the bar has given way in my
+hand!"
+
+"Thank Heaven, my son, instead of swearing by it," answered Warden from
+his dungeon.
+
+With little effort Halbert Glendinning forced himself through the
+opening thus wonderfully effected, and using his leathern sword-belt as
+a rope to assist him, let himself safely drop on the shelf of rock upon
+which the preacher's window opened. But through this no passage could
+be effected, being scarce larger than a loop-hole for musketry, and
+apparently constructed for that purpose.
+
+"Are there no means by which I can assist your escape, my father?" said
+Halbert.
+
+"There are none, my son," answered the preacher; "but if thou wilt
+ensure my safety, that may be in thy power."
+
+"I will labour earnestly for it," said the youth.
+
+"Take then a letter which I will presently write, for I have the means
+of light and writing materials in my scrip--Hasten towards Edinburgh,
+and on the way thou wilt meet a body of horse marching southwards--Give
+this to their leader, and acquaint him of the state in which thou hast
+left me. It may hap that thy doing so will advantage thyself."
+
+In a minute or two the light of a taper gleamed through the shot-hole,
+and very shortly after, the preacher, with the assistance of his staff,
+pushed a billet to Glendinning through the window.
+
+"God bless thee, my son," said the old man, "and complete the marvellous
+work which he has begun."
+
+"Amen!" answered Halbert, with solemnity, and proceeded on his
+enterprise.
+
+He hesitated a moment whether he should attempt to descend to the edge
+of the water; but the steepness of the rock, and darkness of the night,
+rendered the enterprise too dangerous. He clasped his hands above his
+head and boldly sprung from the precipice, shooting himself forward into
+the air as far as he could for fear of sunken rocks, and alighted on the
+lake, head foremost, with such force as sunk him for a minute below the
+surface. But strong, long-breathed, and accustomed to such exercise,
+Halbert, even though encumbered with his sword, dived and rose like a
+seafowl, and swam across the lake in the northern direction. When he
+landed and looked back on the castle, he could observe that the alarm
+had been given, for lights glanced from window to window, and he heard
+the drawbridge lowered, and the tread of horses' feet upon the causeway.
+But, little alarmed for the consequence of a pursuit during the
+darkness, he wrung the water from his dress, and, plunging into the
+moors, directed his course to the north-east by the assistance of the
+polar star.
+
+       *       *        *       *        *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Sixth.
+
+
+  Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
+  I think you all have drank of Circe's cup.
+  If here you housed him, here he would have been;
+  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.
+                                  COMEDY OF ERRORS.
+
+The course of our story, leaving for the present Halbert Glendinning
+to the guidance of his courage and his fortune, returns to the Tower
+of Glendearg, where matters in the meanwhile fell out, with which it is
+most fitting that the reader should be acquainted.
+
+The meal was prepared at noontide with all the care which Elspeth and
+Tibb, assisted by the various accommodations which had been supplied
+from the Monastery, could bestow on it. Their dialogue ran on as
+usual in the intervals of their labour, partly as between mistress and
+servant, partly as maintained by gossips of nearly equal quality.
+
+"Look to the minced meat, Tibb," said Elspeth; "and turn the broach
+even, thou good-for-nothing Simmie,--thy wits are harrying birds' nests,
+child.--Weel, Tibb, this is a fasheous job, this Sir Piercie lying
+leaguer with us up here, and wha kens for how lang?"
+
+"A fasheous job indeed," answered her faithful attendant, "and little
+good did the name ever bring to fair Scotland. Ye may have your hands
+fuller of them than they are yet. Mony a sair heart have the Piercies
+given to Scots wife and bairns with their pricking on the Borders.
+There was Hotspur and many more of that bloody kindred, have sate in our
+skirts since Malcolm's time, as Martin says!"
+
+"Martin should keep a well-scrapit tongue in his head," said Elspeth,
+"and not slander the kin of any body that quarters at Glendearg; forby,
+that Sir Piercie Shafton is much respected with the holy fathers of the
+community, and they will make up to us ony fasherie that we may have
+with him, either by good word or good deed, I'se warrant them. He is a
+considerate lord the Lord Abbot."
+
+"And weel he likes a saft seat to his hinder end," said Tibb; "I have
+seen a belted baron sit on a bare bench, and find nae fault. But an ye
+are pleased, mistress, I am pleased."
+
+"Now, in good time, here comes Mysie of the Mill.--And where hae ye
+been, lass for a's gane wrang without you?" said Elspeth.
+
+"I just gaed a blink up the burn," said Mysie, "for the young lady has
+been down on her bed, and is no just that weel--So I gaed a gliff up the
+burn."
+
+"To see the young lads come hame frae the sport, I will warrant you,"
+said Elspeth. "Ay, ay, Tibb, that's the way the young folk guide us,
+Tibbie--leave us to do the wark, and out to the play themsells."
+
+"Ne'er a bit of that, mistress," said the Maid of the Mill, stripping
+her round pretty arms, and looking actively and good-humouredly round
+for some duty that she could discharge, "but just--I thought ye might
+like to ken if they were coming back, just to get the dinner forward."
+
+"And saw ye ought of them then?" demanded Elspeth.
+
+"Not the least tokening," said Mysie, "though I got to the head of a
+knowe, and though the English knight's beautiful white feather could
+have been seen over all the bushes in the Shaw."
+
+"The knight's white feather!" said Dame Glendinning; "ye are a silly
+hempie--my Halbert's high head will be seen farther than his feather,
+let it be as white as it like, I trow."
+
+Mysie made no answer, but began to knead dough for wastel-cake with all
+despatch, observing that Sir Piercie had partaken of that dainty, and
+commended it upon the preceding day. And presently, in order to place
+on the fire the _girdle_, or iron plate on which these cates were to be
+baked, she displaced a stew-pan in which one of Tibb's delicacies were
+submitted to the action of the kitchen fire. Tibb muttered betwixt her
+teeth--"And it is the broth for my sick bairn, that maun make room
+for the dainty Southron's wastel-bread. It was a blithe time in Wight
+Wallace's day, or good King Robert's, when the pock-puddings gat
+naething here but hard straiks and bloody crowns. But we will see how it
+will a' end."
+
+Elspeth did not think it proper to notice these discontented expressions
+of Tibbie, but they sunk into her mind; for she was apt to consider
+her as a sort of authority in matters of war and policy, with which
+her former experience as bower-woman at Avenel Castle made her better
+acquainted than were the peaceful inhabitants of Halidome. She only
+spoke, however, to express her surprise that the hunters did not return.
+
+"An they come not back the sooner," said Tibb, "they will fare the waur,
+for the meat will be roasted to a cinder--and there is poor Simmie that
+can turn the spit nae langer: the bairn is melting like an icicle in
+warm water--Gang awa, bairn, and take a mouthful of the caller air, and
+I will turn the broach till ye come back."
+
+"Rin up to the bartizan at the tower-head, callant," said Dame
+Glendinning, "the air will be callerer there than ony gate else, and
+bring us word if our Halbert and the gentleman are coming down the
+glen."
+
+The boy lingered long enough to allow his substitute, Tibb Tacket,
+heartily to tire of her own generosity, and of his cricket-stool by the
+side of a huge fire. He at length returned with the news that he
+had seen nobody. The matter was not so remarkable as far as Halbert
+Glendinning was concerned, for, patient alike of want and of fatigue, it
+was no uncommon circumstance for him to remain in the wilds till curfew
+time. But nobody had given Sir Piercie Shafton credit for being so keen
+a sportsman, and the idea of an Englishman preferring the chase to his
+dinner was altogether inconsistent with their preconceptions of the
+national character. Amidst wondering and conjecturing, the usual
+dinner-hour passed long away; and the inmates of the tower, taking a
+hasty meal themselves, adjourned their more solemn preparations until
+the hunters' return at night, since it seemed now certain that their
+sport had either carried them to a greater distance, or engaged them for
+a longer time than had been expected.
+
+About four hours after noon, arrived, not the expected sportsmen, but
+an unlooked for visitant, the Sub-Prior from the Monastery. The scene
+of the preceding day had dwelt on the mind of Father Eustace, who was
+of that keen and penetrating cast of mind which loves not to leave
+unascertained whatever of mysterious is subjected to its inquiry. His
+kindness was interested in the family of Glendearg, which he had now
+known for a long time; and besides, the community was interested in the
+preservation of the peace betwixt Sir Piercie Shafton and his youthful
+host, since whatever might draw public attention on the former,
+could not fail to be prejudicial to the Monastery, which was already
+threatened by the hand of power. He found the family assembled, all but
+Mary Avenel, and was informed that Halbert Glendinning had accompanied
+the stranger on a day's sport. So far was well. They had not returned;
+but when did youth and sport conceive themselves bound by set hours? and
+the circumstance excited no alarm in his mind.
+
+While he was conversing with Edward Glendinning touching his progress
+in the studies he had pointed out to him, they were startled by a shriek
+from Mary Avenel's apartment, which drew the whole family thither in
+headlong haste. They found her in a swoon in the arms of old Martin, who
+was bitterly accusing himself of having killed her; so indeed it seemed,
+for her pale features and closed eyes argued rather a dead corpse than a
+living person. The whole family were instantly in tumult. Snatching her
+from Martin's arms with the eagerness of affectionate terror, Edward
+bore her to the casement, that she might receive the influence of the
+open air; the Sub-Prior, who, like many of his profession, had some
+knowledge of medicine, hastened to prescribe the readiest remedies which
+occurred to him, and the terrified females contended with, and impeded
+each other, in their rival efforts to be useful.
+
+"It has been ane of her weary ghaists," said Dame Glendinning.
+
+"It's just a trembling on her spirits, as her blessed mother used to
+have," said Tibb.
+
+"It's some ill news has come ower her," said the miller's maiden;
+while burnt feathers, cold water, and all the usual means of restoring
+suspended animation, were employed alternately, and with little effect.
+
+At length a new assistant, who had joined the group unobserved, tendered
+his aid in the following terms:--"How is this, my most fair Discretion?
+What cause hath moved the ruby current of life to rush back to the
+citadel of the heart, leaving pale those features in which it
+should have delighted to meander for ever?--Let me approach her," he
+said,"--with this sovereign essence, distilled by the fair hands of the
+divine Urania, and powerful to recall fugitive life, even if it were
+trembling on the verge of departure."
+
+Thus speaking, Sir Piercie Shafton knelt down, and most gracefully
+presented to the nostrils of Mary Avenel a silver pouncet-box,
+exquisitely chased, containing a sponge dipt in the essence which he
+recommmended so highly. Yes, gentle reader, it was Sir Piercie Shafton
+himself who thus unexpectedly proffered his good offices! his cheeks,
+indeed, very pale, and some part of his dress stained with blood, but
+not otherwise appearing different from what he was on the preceding
+evening. But no sooner had Mary Avenel opened her eyes, and fixed them
+on the figure of the officious courtier, than she screamed faintly, and
+exclaimed,--"Secure the murderer!"
+
+Those present stood aghast with astonishment, and none more so than the
+Euphuist, who found himself so suddenly and so strangely accused by
+the patient whom he was endeavouring to succour, and who repelled his
+attempts to yield her assistance with all the energy of abhorrence.
+"Take him away!" she exclaimed--"take away the murderer!"
+
+"Now, by my knighthood," answered Sir Piercie, "your lovely faculties
+either of mind or body are, O my most fair Discretion, obnubilated by
+some strange hallucination. For either your eyes do not discern that it
+is Piercie Shafton, your most devoted Affability, who now stands
+before you, or else, your eyes discerning truly, your mind hath most
+erroneously concluded that he hath been guilty of some delict or
+violence to which his hand is a stranger. No murder, O most scornful
+Discretion, hath been this day done, saving but that which your angry
+glances are now performing on your most devoted captive."
+
+He was here interrupted by the Sub-Prior, who had, in the meantime, been
+speaking with Martin apart, and had received from him an account of the
+circumstances, which, suddenly communicated to Mary Avenel, had thrown
+her into this state. "Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, in a very solemn
+tone, yet with some hesitation, "circumstances have been communicated
+to us of a nature so extraordinary, that, reluctant as I am to exercise
+such authority over a guest of our venerable community, I am constrained
+to request from you an explanation of them. You left this tower early in
+the morning, accompanied by a youth, Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son
+of this good dame, and you return hither without him. Where, and at what
+hour, did you part company from him?"
+
+The English knight paused for a moment, and then replied,--"I marvel
+that your reverence employs so grave a tone to enforce so light a
+question. I parted with the villagio whom you call Halbert Glendinning
+some hour or twain after sunrise."
+
+"And at what place, I pray you?" said the monk.
+
+"In a deep ravine, where a fountain rises at the base of a huge rock; an
+earth-born Titan, which heaveth up its gray head, even as--"
+
+"Spare us farther description," said the Sub-Prior; "we know the spot.
+But that youth hath not since been heard of, and it will fall on you to
+account for him."
+
+"My bairn! my bairn!" exclaimed Dame Glendinning. "Yes, holy father,
+make the villain account for my bairn!"
+
+"I swear, good woman, by bread and by water,--which are the props of our
+life--"
+
+"Swear by wine and wastel-bread, for these are the props of _thy_ life,
+thou greedy Southron!" said Dame Glendinning;--"a base belly-god, to
+come here to eat the best, and practise on our lives that give it to
+him!"
+
+"I tell thee, woman," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "I did but go with thy
+son to the hunting."
+
+"A black hunting it has been to him, poor bairn," replied Tibb; "and sae
+I said it wad prove since I first saw the false Southron snout of thee.
+Little good comes of a Piercie's hunting, from Chevy Chase till now."
+
+"Be silent, woman," said the Sub-Prior, "and rail not upon the English
+knight; we do not yet know of any thing beyond suspicion."
+
+"We will have his heart's blood!" said Dame Glendinning; and, seconded
+by the faithful Tibbie, she made such a sudden onslaught on the unlucky
+Euphuist, as must have terminated in something serious, had not the
+monk, aided by Mysie Happer, interposed to protect him from their fury.
+Edward had left the apartment the instant the disturbance broke out,
+and now entered, sword in hand, followed by Martin and Jasper, the one
+having a hunting spear in his hand, the other a cross-bow.
+
+"Keep the door," he said to his two attendants; "shoot him or stab him
+without mercy, should he attempt to break forth; if he offers an escape,
+by Heaven he shall die!"
+
+"How now, Edward," said the Sub-Prior; "how is this that you so far
+forget yourself? meditating violence to a guest, and in my presence, who
+represent your liege lord?"
+
+Edward stepped forward with his drawn sword in his hand. "Pardon me,
+reverend father," he said, "but in this matter the voice of nature
+speaks louder and stronger than yours. I turn my sword's point against
+this proud man, and I demand of him the blood of my brother--the blood
+of my father's son--of the heir of our name! If he denies to give me a
+true account of him, he shall not deny me vengeance."
+
+Embarrassed as he was, Sir Piercie Shafton showed no personal fear. "Put
+up thy sword," he said, "young man; not in the same day does Piercie
+Shafton contend with two peasants."
+
+"Hear him! he confesses the deed, holy father," said Edward.
+
+"Be patient, my son," said the Sub-Prior, endeavouring to soothe the
+feelings which he could not otherwise control, "be patient--thou wilt
+attain the ends of justice better through my means than thine own
+violence--And you, women, be silent--Tibb, remove your mistress and Mary
+Avenel."
+
+While Tibb, with the assistance of the other females of the household,
+bore the poor mother and Mary Avenel into separate apartments, and while
+Edward, still keeping his sword in his hand, hastily traversed the room,
+as if to prevent the possibility of Sir Piercie Shafton's escape,
+the Sub-Prior insisted upon knowing from the perplexed knight the
+particulars which he knew respecting Halbert Glendinning. His situation
+became extremely embarrassing, for what he might with safety have told
+of the issue of their combat was so revolting to his pride, that he
+could not bring himself to enter into the detail; and of Halbert's
+actual fate he knew, as the reader is well aware, absolutely nothing.
+
+The father in the meanwhile pressed him with remonstrances, and prayed
+him to observe, he would greatly prejudice himself by declining to give
+a full account of the transactions of the day. "You cannot deny," he
+said, "that yesterday you seemed to take the most violent offence at
+this unfortunate youth; and that you suppressed your resentment so
+suddenly as to impress us all with surprise. Last night you proposed to
+him this day's hunting party, and you set out together by break of day.
+You parted, you said, at the fountain near the rock, about an hour or
+twain after sunrise, and it appears that before you parted you had been
+at strife together."
+
+"I said not so," replied the knight. "Here is a coil indeed about the
+absence of a rustical bondsman, who, I dare say, hath gone off (if he be
+gone) to join the next rascally band of freebooters! Ye ask me, a knight
+of the Piercie's lineage, to account for such an insignificant fugitive,
+and I answer,--let me know the price of his head, and I will pay it to
+your convent treasurer."
+
+"You admit, then, that you have slain my brother?" said Edward,
+interfering once more; "I will presently show you at what price we Scots
+rate the lives of our friends."
+
+"Peace, Edward, peace--I entreat--I command thee," said the Sub-Prior.
+"And you, Sir Knight, think better of us than to suppose you may spend
+Scottish blood, and reckon for it as for wine spilt in a drunken revel.
+This youth was no bondsman--thou well knowest, that in thine own land
+thou hadst not dared to lift thy sword against the meanest subject of
+England, but her laws would have called thee to answer for the deed. Do
+not hope it will be otherwise here, for you will but deceive yourself."
+
+"You drive me beyond my patience," said the Euphuist, "even as the
+over-driven ox is urged into madness!--What can I tell you of a young
+fellow whom I have not seen since the second hour after sunrise?"
+
+"But can you explain in what circumstances you parted with him?" said
+the monk.
+
+"What _are_ the circumstances, in the devil's name, which you desire
+should be explained?--for although I protest against this constraint as
+alike unworthy and inhospitable, yet would I willingly end this fray,
+provided that by words it may be ended," said the knight.
+
+"If these end it not," said Edward, "blows shall, and that full
+speedily."
+
+"Peace, impatient boy!" said the Sub-Prior; "and do you, Sir Piercie
+Shafton, acquaint me why the ground is bloody by the verge of the
+fountain in Corri-nan-shian, where, as you say yourself, you parted from
+Halbert Glendinning?"
+
+Resolute not to avow his defeat if possibly he could avoid it, the
+knight answered in a haughty tone, that he supposed it was no unusual
+thing to find the turf bloody where hunters had slain a deer.
+
+"And did you bury your game as well as kill it?" said the monk. "We must
+know from you who is the tenant of that grave, that newly-made grave,
+beside the very fountain whose margin is so deeply crimsoned with
+blood?--thou seest thou canst not evade me; therefore be ingenuous, and
+tell us the fate of this unhappy youth, whose body is doubtless lying
+under that bloody turf."
+
+"If it be," said Sir Piercie, "they must have buried him alive; for I
+swear to thee, reverend father, that this rustic juvenal parted from me
+in perfect health. Let the grave be searched, and if his body be found,
+then deal with me as ye list."
+
+"It is not my sphere to determine thy fate, Sir Knight, but that of the
+Lord Abbot, and the right reverend Chapter. It is but my duty to collect
+such information as may best possess their wisdom with the matters which
+have chanced."
+
+"Might I presume so far, reverend father," said the knight, "I should
+wish to know the author and evidence of all these suspicions, so
+unfoundedly urged against me?"
+
+"It is soon told," said the Sub-Prior; "nor do I wish to disguise it, if
+it can avail you in your defence. This maiden, Mary Avenel, apprehending
+that you nourished malice against her foster-brother under a friendly
+brow, did advisedly send up the old man, Martin Tacket, to follow your
+footsteps and to prevent mischief. But it seems that your evil passions
+had outrun precaution: for when he came to the spot, guided by your
+footsteps upon the dew, he found but the bloody turf and the new covered
+grave; and after long and vain search through the wilds after Halbert
+and yourself, he brought back the sorrowful news to her who had sent
+him."
+
+"Saw he not my doublet, I pray you?" said Sir Piercie; "for when I came
+to myself, I found that I was wrapped in my cloak, but without my under
+garment as your reverence may observe."
+
+So saying, he opened his cloak, forgetting, with his characteristical
+inconsistency, that he showed his shirt stained with blood.
+
+"How! cruel man," said the monk, when he observed this confirmation of
+his suspicions; "wilt thou deny the guilt, even while thou bearest on
+thy person the blood thou hast shed?--Wilt thou longer deny that thy
+rash hand has robbed a mother of a son, our community of a vassal, the
+Queen of Scotland of a liege subject? and what canst thou expect, but
+that, at the least, we deliver thee up to England, as undeserving our
+farther protection?"
+
+"By the Saints!" said the knight, now driven to extremity, "if this
+blood be the witness against me, it is but rebel blood, since this
+morning at sunrise it flowed within my own veins."
+
+"How were that possible, Sir Piercie Shafton," said the monk, "since I
+see no wound from whence it can have flowed?"
+
+"That," said the knight, "is the most mysterious part of the
+transaction--See here!"
+
+So saying, he undid his shirt collar, and, opening his bosom, showed the
+spot through--which Halbert's sword had passed, but already cicatrized,
+and bearing the appearance of a wound lately healed.
+
+"This exhausts my patience, Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "and is
+adding insult to violence and injury. Do you hold me for a child or an
+idiot, that you pretend to make me believe that the fresh blood with
+which your shirt is stained, flowed from a wound which has been healed
+for weeks or months? Unhappy mocker, thinkest thou thus to blind us? Too
+well do we know that it is the blood of your victim, wrestling with you
+in the desperate and mortal struggle, which has thus dyed your apparel."
+
+The knight, after a moment's recollection, said in reply, "I will be
+open with you, my father--bid these men stand out of ear-shot, and I
+will tell you all I know of this mysterious business; and muse not, good
+father, though it may pass thy wit to expound it, for I avouch to you it
+is too dark for mine own."
+
+The monk commanded Edward and the two men to withdraw, assuring the
+former that his conference with the prisoner should be brief, and giving
+him permission to keep watch at the door of the apartment; without which
+allowance he might, perhaps, have had some difficulty in procuring
+his absence. Edward had no sooner left the chamber, than he despatched
+messengers to one or two families of the Halidome, with whose sons
+his brother and he sometimes associated, to tell them that Halbert
+Glendinning had been murdered by an Englishman, and to require them to
+repair to the Tower of Glendearg without delay. The duty of revenge in
+such cases was held so sacred, that he had no reason to doubt they would
+instantly come with such assistance as would ensure the detention of the
+prisoner. He then locked the doors of the tower, both inner and outer,
+and also the gate of the court-yard. Having taken these precautions, he
+made a hasty visit to the females of the family, exhausting himself
+in efforts to console them, and in protestations that he would have
+vengeance for his murdered brother.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Seventh.
+
+
+  Now, by Our Lady, Sheriff,'tis hard reckoning,
+  That I, with every odds of birth and barony
+  Should be detain'd here for the casual death
+  Of a wild forester, whose utmost having
+  Is but the brazen buckle of the belt
+  In which he sticks his hedge-knife.
+                                        OLD PLAY.
+
+While Edward was making preparations for securing and punishing the
+supposed murderer of his brother, with an intense thirst for vengeance,
+which had not hitherto shown itself as part of his character, Sir
+Piercie Shafton made such communications as it pleased him to the
+Sub-Prior, who listened with great attention, though the knight's
+narrative was none of the clearest, especially as his self-conceit led
+him to conceal or abridge the details which were necessary to render it
+intelligible.
+
+"You are to know," he said, "reverend father, that this rustical juvenal
+having chosen to offer me, in the presence of your venerable Superior,
+yourself, and other excellent and worthy persons, besides the damsel,
+Mary Avenel, whom I term my Discretion in all honour and kindness, a
+gross insult, rendered yet more intolerable by the time and place,
+my just resentment did so gain the mastery over my discretion, that I
+resolved to allow him the privileges of an equal, and to indulge him
+with the combat."
+
+"But, Sir Knight," said the Sub-Prior, "you still leave two matters
+very obscure. First, why the token he presented to you gave you so much
+offence, as I with others witnessed; and then again, how the youth, whom
+you then met for the first, or, at least, the second time, knew so much
+of your history as enabled him so greatly to move you."
+
+The knight coloured very deeply.
+
+"For your first query," he said, "most reverend father, we will, if you
+please, pretermit it as nothing essential to the matter in hand; and
+for the second--I protest to you that I know as little of his means of
+knowledge as you do, and that I am well-nigh persuaded he deals with
+Sathanas, of which more anon.--Well, sir--In the evening, I failed not
+to veil my purpose with a pleasant brow, as is the custom amongst us
+martialists, who never display the bloody colours of defiance in our
+countenance until our hand is armed to fight under them. I amused the
+fair Discretion with some canzonettes, and other toys, which could not
+but be ravishing to her inexperienced ears. I arose in the morning, and
+met my antagonist, who, to say truth, for an inexperienced villagio,
+comported himself as stoutly as I could have desired.--So, coming to the
+encounter, reverend sir, I did try his mettle with some half-a-dozen of
+downright passes, with any one of which I could have been through his
+body, only that I was loth to take so fatal an advantage, but rather,
+mixing mercy with my just indignation, studied to inflict upon him
+some flesh-wound of no very fatal quality. But, sir, in the midst of my
+clemency, he, being instigated, I think, by the devil, did follow up
+his first offence with some insult of the same nature. Whereupon, being
+eager to punish him, I made an estramazone, and my foot slipping at the
+same time,--not from any fault of fence on my part, or any advantage of
+skill on his, but the devil having, as I said, taken up the matter
+in hand, and the grass being slippery,--ere I recovered my position I
+encountered his sword, which he had advanced, with my undefended
+person, so that, as I think, I was in some sort run through the body.
+My juvenal, being beyond measure appalled at his own unexpected and
+unmerited success in this strange encounter, takes the flight and leaves
+me there, and I fall into a dead swoon for the lack of the blood I
+had lost so foolishly--and when I awake, as from a sound sleep, I find
+myself lying, an it like you, wrapt up in my cloak at the foot of one
+of the birch-trees which stand together in a clump near to this place.
+I feel my limbs, and experience little pain, but much weakness--I put
+my hand to the wound--it was whole and skinned over as you now see it--I
+rise and come hither; and in these words you have my whole day's story."
+
+"I can only reply to so strange a tale," answered the monk, "that it
+is scarce possible that Sir Piercie Shafton can expect me to credit it.
+Here is a quarrel, the cause of which you conceal--a wound received in
+the morning, of which there is no recent appearance at sunset,--a grave
+filled up, in which no body is deposited--the vanquished found alive
+and well--the victor departed no man knows whither. These things,
+Sir Knight, hang not so well together, that I should receive them as
+gospel."
+
+"Reverend father," answered Sir Piercie Shafton, "I pray you in the
+first place to observe, that if I offer peaceful and civil justification
+of that which I have already averred to be true, I do so only in devout
+deference to your dress and to your order, protesting, that to any other
+opposite, saving a man of religion, a lady or my liege prince, I would
+not deign to support that which I had once attested, otherwise than with
+the point of my good sword. And so much being premised, I have to add,
+that I can but gage my honour as a gentleman, and my faith as a Catholic
+Christian, that the things which I have described to you have happened
+to me as I have described them, and not otherwise."
+
+"It is a deep assertion, Sir Knight," answered the Sub-Prior; "yet,
+bethink you, it is only an assertion, and that no reason can be alleged
+why things should be believed which are so contrary to reason. Let me
+pray you to say whether the grave, which has been seen at your place of
+combat, was open or closed when your encounter took place?"
+
+"Reverend father," said the knight, "I will veil from you nothing, but
+show you each secret of my bosom; even as the pure fountain revealeth
+the smallest pebble which graces the sand at the bottom of its crystal
+mirror, and as--"
+
+"Speak in plain terms, for the love of heaven!" said the monk; "these
+holiday phrases belong not to solemn affairs--Was the grave open when
+the conflict began?"
+
+"It was," answered the knight, "I acknowledge it; even as he that
+acknowledgeth--"
+
+"Nay, I pray you, fair son, forbear these similitudes, and observe me.
+On yesterday at even no grave was found in that place, for old Martin
+chanced, contrary to his wont, to go thither in quest of a strayed
+sheep. At break of day, by your own confession, a grave was opened in
+that spot, and there a combat was fought--only one of the combatants
+appears, and he is covered with blood, and to all appearance
+woundless."--Here the knight made a gesture of impatience.--"Nay, fair
+son, hear me but one moment--the grave is closed and covered by the
+sod--what can we believe, but that it conceals the bloody corpse of the
+fallen duellist?"
+
+"By Heaven, it cannot!" said the knight, "unless the juvenal hath slain
+himself and buried himself, in order to place me in the predicament of
+his murderer."
+
+"The grave shall doubtless be explored, and that by to-morrow's dawn,"
+said the monk, "I will see it done with mine own eyes."
+
+"But," said the prisoner, "I protest against all evidence which may
+arise from its contents, and do insist beforehand, that whatever may be
+found in that grave shall not prejudice me in my defence. I have been so
+haunted by diabolical deceptions in this matter, that what do I know but
+that the devil may assume the form of this rustical juvenal, in order
+to procure me farther vexation?--I protest to you, holy father, it is
+my very thought that there is witchcraft in all that hath befallen me.
+Since I entered into this northern land, in which men say that sorceries
+do abound, I, who am held in awe and regard even by the prime gallants
+in the court of Feliciana, have been here bearded and taunted by a
+clod-treading clown. I, whom Vincentio Saviola termed his nimblest and
+most agile disciple, was, to speak briefly, foiled by a cow-boy, who
+knew no more of fence than is used at every country wake. I am run, as
+it seemed to me, through the body, with a very sufficient stoccata, and
+faint on the spot; and yet, when I recover, I find myself without
+either wem or wound, and, lacking nothing of my apparel, saving my
+murrey-coloured doublet, slashed with satin, which I will pray may be
+inquired after, lest the devil, who transported me, should have dropped
+it in his passage among some of the trees or bushes--it being a choice
+and most fanciful piece of raiment, which I wore for the first time at
+the Queen's pageant in Southwark."
+
+"Sir Knight," said the monk, "you do again go astray from this matter.
+I inquire of you respecting that which concerns the life of another man,
+and it may be, touches your own also, and you answer me with the tale of
+an old doublet!"
+
+"Old!" exclaimed the knight; "now, by the gods and saints, if there be
+a gallant at the British Court more fancifully considerate, and more
+considerately fanciful, but quaintly curious, and more curiously quaint,
+in frequent changes of all rich articles of vesture, becoming one who
+may be accounted point-de-vice a courtier, I will give you leave to term
+me a slave and a liar."
+
+The monk thought, but did not say, that he had already acquired right
+to doubt the veracity of the Euphuist, considering the marvellous tale
+which he had told. Yet his own strange adventure, and that of Father
+Philip, rushed on his mind, and forbade his coming to any conclusion. He
+contented himself, therefore, with observing, that these were certainly
+strange incidents, and requested to know if Sir Piercie Shafton had any
+other reason for suspecting himself to be in a manner so particularly
+selected for the sport of sorcery and witchcraft.
+
+"Sir Sub-Prior," said the Euphuist, "the most extraordinary circumstance
+remains behind, which alone, had I neither been bearded in dispute, nor
+foiled in combat, nor wounded and cured in the space of a few hours,
+would nevertheless of itself, and without any other corroborative,
+have compelled me to believe myself the subject of some malevolent
+fascination. Reverend sir, it is not to your ears that men should tell
+tales of love and gallantry, nor is Sir Piercie Shafton one who, to any
+ears whatsoever, is wont to boast of his fair acceptance with the choice
+and prime beauties of the court; insomuch that a lady, none of the least
+resplendent constellations which revolve in that hemisphere of honour,
+pleasure, and beauty, but whose name I here pretermit, was wont to call
+me her Taciturnity. Nevertheless truth must be spoken; and I cannot but
+allow, as the general report of the court, allowed in camps, and echoed
+back by city and country, that in the alacrity of the accost, the tender
+delicacy of the regard, the facetiousness of the address, the adopting
+and pursuing of the fancy, the solemn close and the graceful fall-off,
+Piercie Shafton was accounted the only gallant of the time, and so
+well accepted among the choicer beauties of the age, that no silk-hosed
+reveller of the presence-chamber, or plumed jouster of the tilt-yard,
+approached him by a bow's length in the ladies' regard, being the
+mark at which every well-born and generous juvenal aimeth his shaft.
+Nevertheless, reverend sir, having found in this rude place something
+which by blood and birth might be termed a lady, and being desirous to
+keep my gallant humour in exercise, as well as to show my sworn devotion
+to the sex in general, I did shoot off some arrows of compliment at
+this Mary Avenel, terming her my Discretion, with other quaint and
+well-imagined courtesies, rather bestowed out of my bounty than
+warranted by her merit, or perchance like unto the boyish fowler, who,
+rather than not exercise his bird-piece, will shoot at crows or magpies
+for lack of better game----"
+
+"Mary Avenel is much obliged by your notice," answered the monk; "but to
+what does all this detail of past and present gallantry conduct us?"
+
+"Marry, to this conclusion," answered the knight; "that either this my
+Discretion, or I myself, am little less than bewitched; for, instead of
+receiving my accost with a gratifying bow, answering my regard with a
+suppressed smile, accompanying my falling off or departure with a
+slight sigh--honours with which I protest to you the noblest dancers and
+proudest beauties in Feliciana have graced my poor services--she hath
+paid me as little and as cold regard as if I had been some hob-nailed
+clown of these bleak mountains! Nay, this very day, while I was in the
+act of kneeling at her feet to render her the succours of this pungent
+quintessence, of purest spirit distilled by the fairest hands of the
+court of Feliciana, she pushed me from her with looks which savoured of
+repugnance, and, as I think, thrust at me with her foot as if to spurn
+me from her presence. These things, reverend father, are strange,
+portentous, unnatural, and befall not in the current of mortal affairs,
+but are symptomatic of sorcery and fascination. So that, having given to
+your reverence a perfect, simple, and plain account of all that I know
+concerning this matter, I leave it to your wisdom to solve what may be
+found soluble in the same, it being my purpose to-morrow, with the peep
+of dawn, to set forward towards Edinburgh."
+
+"I grieve to be an interruption to your designs, Sir Knight," said the
+monk, "but that purpose of thine may hardly be fulfilled."
+
+"How, reverend father!" said the knight, with an air of the utmost
+surprise; "if what you say respects my departure, understand that it
+_must_ be, for I have so resolved it."
+
+"Sir Knight," reiterated the Sub-Prior, "I must once more repeat, this
+_cannot_ be, until the Abbot's pleasure be known in the matter."
+
+"Reverend sir," said the knight, drawing himself up with great dignity,
+"I desire my hearty and thankful commendations to the Abbot; but in this
+matter I have nothing to do with his reverend pleasure, designing only
+to consult my own."
+
+"Pardon me," said the Sub-Prior; "the Lord Abbot hath in this matter a
+voice potential."
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton's colour began to rise--"I marvel," he said, "to
+hear your reverence talk thus--What! will you, for the imagined death
+of a rude, low-born frampler and wrangler, venture to impinge upon the
+liberty of the kinsman of the house of Piercie?"
+
+"Sir Knight," returned the Sub-Prior, civilly, "your high lineage and
+your kindling anger will avail you nothing in this matter--You shall
+not come here to seek a shelter, and then spill our blood as if it were
+water."
+
+"I tell you," said the knight, "once more, as I have told you already,
+that there was no blood spilled but mine own!"
+
+"That remains to be proved," replied the Sub-Prior; "we of the community
+of Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair, use not to take fairy tales in exchange
+for the lives of our liege vassals."
+
+"We of the house of Piercie," answered Shafton, "brook neither threats
+nor restraint--I say I will travel to-morrow, happen what may!"
+
+"And I," answered the Sub-Prior, in the same tone of determination, "say
+that I will break your journey, come what may!"
+
+"Who shall gainsay me," said the knight, "if I make my way by force?"
+
+"You will judge wisely to think ere you make such an attempt," answered
+the monk, with composure; "there are men enough in the Halidome to
+vindicate its rights over those who dare infringe them."
+
+"My cousin of Northumberland will know how to revenge this usage to a
+beloved kinsman so near to his blood," said the Englishman.
+
+"The Lord Abbot will know how to protect the rights of his territory,
+both with, the temporal and spiritual sword," said the monk. "Besides,
+consider, were we to send you to your kinsman at Alnwick or Warkworth
+to-morrow, he dare do nothing but transmit you in fetters to the Queen
+of England. Bethink, Sir Knight, that you stand on slippery ground, and
+will act most wisely in reconciling yourself to be a prisoner in this
+place until the Abbot shall decide the matter. There are armed men enow
+to countervail all your efforts at escape. Let patience and resignation,
+therefore, arm you to a necessary submission."
+
+So saying, he clapped his hands, and called aloud. Edward entered,
+accompanied by two young men who had already joined him, and were well
+armed.
+
+"Edward," said the Sub-Prior, "you will supply the English Knight here
+in this spence with suitable food and accommodation for the night,
+treating him with as much kindness as if nothing had happened between
+you. But you will place a sufficient guard, and look carefully that he
+make not his escape. Should he attempt to break forth, resist him to
+the death; but in no other case harm a hair of his head, as you shall be
+answerable."
+
+Edward Glendinning replied,--"That I may obey your commands, reverend
+sir, I will not again offer myself to this person's presence; for shame
+it were to me to break the peace of the Halidome, but not less shame to
+leave my brother's death unavenged."
+
+As he spoke, his lips grew livid, the blood forsook his cheek, and he
+was about to leave the apartment, when the Sub-Prior recalled him and
+said in a solemn tone,--"Edward, I have known you from infancy--I have
+done what lay within my reach to be of use to you--I say nothing of what
+you owe to me as the representative of your spiritual Superior--I say
+nothing of the duty from the vassal to the Sub-Prior--But Father Eustace
+expects from the pupil whom he has nurtured--he expects from Edward
+Glendinning, that he will not by any deed of sudden violence, however
+justified in his own mind by the provocation, break through the respect
+due to public justice, or that which he has an especial right to claim
+from him."
+
+"Fear nothing, my reverend father, for so in an hundred senses may I
+well term you," said the young man; "fear not, I would say, that I will
+in any thing diminish the respect I owe to the venerable community by
+whom we have so long been protected, far less that I will do aught
+which can be personally less than respectful to you. But the blood of
+my brother must not cry for vengeance in vain--your reverence knows our
+Border creed."
+
+"'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will requite it,'" answered
+the monk. "The heathenish custom of deadly feud which prevails in this
+land, through which each man seeks vengeance at his own hand when the
+death of a friend or kinsman has chanced, hath already deluged our vales
+with the blood of Scottish men, spilled by the hands of countrymen and
+kindred. It were endless to count up the fatal results. On the Eastern
+Border, the Homes are at feud with the Swintons and Cockburns; in our
+Middle Marches, the Scotts and Kerrs have spilled as much brave blood
+in domestic feud as might have fought a pitched field in England, could
+they have but forgiven and forgotten a casual rencounter that placed
+their names in opposition to each other. On the west frontier, the
+Johnstones are at war with the Maxwells, the Jardines with the Bells,
+drawing with them the flower of the country, which should place their
+breasts as a bulwark against England, into private and bloody warfare,
+of which it is the only end to waste and impair the forces of the
+country, already divided in itself. Do not, my dear son Edward, permit
+this bloody prejudice to master your mind. I cannot ask you to think
+of the crime supposed as if the blood spilled had been less dear
+to you--Alas! I know that is impossible. But I do require you, in
+proportion to your interest in the supposed sufferer, (for as yet the
+whole is matter of supposition,) to bear on your mind the evidence on
+which the guilt of the accused person must be tried. He hath spoken
+with me, and I confess his tale is so extraordinary, that I should have,
+without a moment's hesitation, rejected it as incredible, but that an
+affair which chanced to myself in this very glen--More of that another
+time--Suffice it for the present to say, that from what I have myself
+experienced, I deem it possible, that, extraordinary as Sir Piercie
+Shafton's story may seem, I hold it not utterly impossible."
+
+"Father," said Edward Glendinning, when he saw that his preceptor
+paused, unwilling farther to explain upon what grounds he was inclined
+to give a certain degree of credit to Sir Piercie Shafton's story,
+while he admitted it as improbable--"Father to me you have been in every
+sense. You know that my hand grasped more readily to the book than to
+the sword; and that I lacked utterly the ready and bold spirit which
+distinguished----" Here his voice faltered, and he paused for a moment,
+and then went on with resolution and rapidity--"I would say, that I was
+unequal to Halbert in promptitude of heart and of hand; but Halbert
+is gone, and I stand his representative, and that of my father--his
+successor in all his rights," (while he said this his eyes shot fire,)
+"and bound to assert and maintain them as he would have done--therefore
+I am a changed man, increased in courage as in my rights and
+pretensions. And, reverend father, respectfully, but plainly and
+firmly do I say, his blood, if it has been shed by this man, shall be
+atoned--Halbert shall not sleep neglected in his lonely grave, as if
+with him the spirit of my father had ceased forever. His blood flows
+in my veins, and while his has been poured forth unrequited, mine will
+permit me no rest. My poverty and meanness of rank shall not avail the
+lordly murderer. My calm nature and peaceful studies shall not be his
+protection. Even the obligations, holy father, which I acknowledge to
+you, shall not be his protection. I wait with patience the judgment of
+the Abbot and Chapter, for the slaughter of one of their most anciently
+descended vassals. If they do right to my brother's memory, it is well.
+But mark me, father, if they shall fail in rendering me that justice, I
+bear a heart and a hand which, though I love not such extremities,
+are capable of remedying such an error. He who takes up my brother's
+succession must avenge his death."
+
+The monk perceived with surprise, that Edward, with his extreme
+diffidence, humility, and obedient assiduity, for such were his general
+characteristics, had still boiling in his veins the wild principles of
+those from whom he was descended, and by whom he was surrounded. His
+eyes sparkled, his frame was agitated, and the extremity of his desire
+for vengeance seemed to give a vehemence to his manner resembling the
+restlessness of joy.
+
+"May God help us," said Father Eustace, "for, frail wretches as we are,
+we cannot help ourselves under sudden and strong temptation.--Edward, I
+will rely on your word that you do nothing rashly."
+
+"That will I not," said Edward,--"that, my better than father, I
+surely will not. But the blood of my brother,--the tears of my
+mother--and--and--and of Mary Avenel, shall not be shed in vain. I will
+not deceive you, father--if this Piercie Shafton hath slain my brother,
+he dies, if the whole blood of the whole house of Piercie were in his
+veins."
+
+There was a deep and solemn determination in the utterance of Edward
+Glendinning expressive of a rooted resolution. The Sub-Prior sighed
+deeply, and for the moment yielded to circumstances, and urged the
+acquiescence of his pupil no farther. He commanded lights to be placed
+in the lower chamber, which for a time he paced in silence.
+
+A thousand ideas, and even differing principles, debated with each other
+in his bosom. He greatly doubted the English knight's account of
+the duel, and of what had followed it. Yet the extraordinary and
+supernatural circumstances which had befallen the Sacristan and himself
+in that very glen, prevented him from being absolutely incredulous on
+the score of the wonderful wound and recovery of Sir Piercie Shafton,
+and prevented him from at once condemning as impossible that which
+was altogether improbable. Then he was at a loss how to control the
+fraternal affections of Edward, with respect to whom he felt something
+like the keeper of a wild animal, a lion's whelp or tiger's cub, which
+he has held under his command from infancy, but which, when grown to
+maturity, on some sudden provocation displays his fangs and talons,
+erects his crest, resumes his savage nature, and bids defiance at once
+to his keeper and to all mankind.
+
+How to restrain and mitigate an ire which the universal example of the
+times rendered deadly and inveterate, was sufficient cause of anxiety
+to Father Eustace. But he had also to consider the situation of
+his community, dishonoured and degraded by submitting to suffer the
+slaughter of a vassal to pass unavenged; a circumstance which of itself
+might in those times have afforded pretext for a revolt among their
+wavering adherents, or, on the other hand, exposed the community to
+imminent danger, should they proceed against a subject of England of
+high degree, connected with the house of Northumberland, and other
+northern families of high rank, who, as they possessed the means, could
+not be supposed to lack inclination, to wreak upon the patrimony of
+Saint Mary of Kennaquhair, any violence which might be offered to their
+kinsman.
+
+In either case, the Sub-Prior well knew that the ostensible cause of
+feud, insurrection, or incursion, being once afforded, the case would
+not be ruled either by reason or by evidence, and he groaned in spirit
+when, upon counting up the chances which arose in this ambiguous
+dilemma, he found he had only a choice of difficulties. He was a monk,
+but he felt also as a man, indignant at the supposed slaughter of young
+Glendinning by one skilful in all the practice of arms, in which the
+vassal of the Monastery was most likely to be deficient; and to aid the
+resentment which he felt for the loss of a youth whom he had known
+from infancy, came in full force the sense of dishonour arising to his
+community from passing over so gross an insult unavenged. Then the light
+in which it might be viewed by those who at present presided in the
+stormy Court of Scotland, attached as they were to the Reformation, and
+allied by common faith and common interest with Queen Elizabeth, was
+a formidable subject of apprehension. The Sub-Prior well knew how they
+lusted after the revenues of the Church, (to express it in the ordinary
+phrase of the religious of the time,) and how readily they would grasp
+at such a pretext for encroaching on those of Saint Mary's, as would
+be afforded by the suffering to pass unpunished the death of a native
+Scottishman by a Catholic Englishman, a rebel to Queen Elizabeth.
+
+On the other hand, to deliver up to England, or, which was nearly the
+same thing, the Scottish administration, an English knight leagued with
+the Piercie by kindred and political intrigue, a faithful follower of
+the Catholic Church, who had fled to the Halidome for protection, was,
+in the estimation of the Sub-Prior, an act most unworthy in itself, and
+meriting the malediction of Heaven, besides being, moreover, fraught
+with great temporal risk. If the government of Scotland was now almost
+entirely in the hands of the Protestant party, the Queen was still a
+Catholic, and there was no knowing when, amid the sudden changes which
+agitated that tumultuous country, she might find herself at the head of
+her own affairs, and able to protect those of her own faith. Then,
+if the Court of England and its Queen were zealously Protestant, the
+northern counties, whose friendship or enmity were of most consequence
+in the first instance to the community of Saint Mary's, contained many
+Catholics, the heads of whom were able, and must be supposed willing, to
+avenge any injury suffered by Sir Piercie Shafton.
+
+On either side, the Sub-Prior, thinking, according to his sense of duty,
+most anxiously for the safety and welfare of his Monastery, saw the
+greatest risk of damage, blame, inroad, and confiscation. The only
+course on which he could determine, was to stand by the helm like a
+resolute pilot, watch every contingence, do his best to weather each
+reef and shoal, and commit the rest to heaven and his patroness.
+
+As he left the apartment, the knight called after him, beseeching he
+would order his trunk-mails to be sent into his apartment, understanding
+he was to be guarded there for the night, as he wished to make some
+alteration in his apparel.
+
+[Footnote: Sir Piercie Shafton's extreme love of dress was an attribute
+of the coxcombs of this period. The display made by their forefathers
+was in the numbers of their retinue; but as the actual influence of
+the nobility began to be restrained both in France and England by the
+increasing power of the crown, the indulgence of vanity in personal
+display became more inordinate. There are many allusions to this change
+of custom in Shakspeare and other dramatic writers, where the reader may
+find mention made of
+
+  "Bonds enter'd into
+  For gay apparel against the triumph day."
+
+Jonson informs us, that for the first entrance of a gallant, "'twere
+good you turned four or five hundred acres of your best land into two or
+three trunks of apparel."--_Every Man out of his Humour._
+
+In the Memorie of the Somerville family, a curious instance occurs of
+this fashionable species of extravagance. In the year 1537, when James
+V. brought over his shortlived bride from France, the Lord Somerville
+of the day was so profuse in the expense of his apparel, that the money
+which he borrowed on the occasion was compensated by a perpetual annuity
+of threescore pounds Scottish, payable out of the barony of Carnwarth
+till doomsday, which was assigned by the creditor to Saint Magdalen's
+Chapel. By this deep expense the Lord Somerville had rendered himself so
+glorious in apparel, that the King, who saw so brave a gallant enter the
+gate of Holyrood, followed, by only two pages, called upon several of
+the courtiers to ascertain who it could be who was so richly dressed
+and so slightly attended, and he was not recognised until he entered the
+presence-chamber. "You are very brave, my lord," said the King, as he
+received his homage; "but where are all your men and attendants?" The
+Lord Somerville readily answered, "If it please your Majesty, here they
+are," pointing to the lace that was on his own and his pages' clothes:
+whereat the King laughed heartily, and having surveyed the finery more
+nearly, bade him have away with it all, and let him have his stout band
+of spears again.
+
+There is a scene in Jonson's "Every Man out of his Humour," (Act IV.
+Scene 6.) in which a Euphuist of the time gives an account of the
+effects of a duel on the clothes of himself and his opponent, and never
+departs a syllable from the catalogue of his wardrobe. We shall insert
+it in evidence that the foppery of our ancestors was not inferior to
+that of our own time.
+
+"_Fastidius_. Good faith, Signior, now you speak of a quarrel, I'll
+acquaint you with a difference that happened between a gallant and
+myself, Sir Puntarvolo. You know him if I should name him--Signor
+Luculento.
+
+"_Punt_. Luculento! What inauspicious chance interposed itself to your
+two lives?
+
+"_Fast_. Faith, sir, the same that sundered Agamemnon, and great Thetis'
+son; but let the cause escape, sir. He sent me a challenge, mixt with
+some few braves, which I restored; and, in fine, we met. Now indeed,
+sir, I must tell you, he did offer at first very desperately, but
+without judgment; for look you, sir, I cast myself into this figure;
+now he came violently on, and withal advancing his rapier to strike, I
+thought to have took his arm, for he had left his body to my election,
+and I was sure he could not recover his guard. Sir, I mist my purpose in
+his arm, rashed his doublet sleeves, ran him close by the left cheek
+and through his hair. He, again, light me here--I had on a gold cable
+hat-band, then new come up, about a murrey French hat I had; cuts my
+hat-band, and yet it was massy goldsmith's work, cuts my brim, which,
+by good fortune, being thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles,
+disappointed the force of the blow; nevertheless it grazed on my
+shoulder, takes me away six purls of an Italian cut-work band I wore,
+cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three days before.
+
+"_Punt_. This was a strange encounter.
+
+"_Fast_. Nay, you shall hear, sir. With this, we both fell out and
+breathed. Now, upon the second sign of his assault, I betook me to my
+former manner of defence; he, on the other side, abandoned his body to
+the same danger as before, and follows me still with blows; but I, being
+loath to take the deadly advantage that lay before me of his left side,
+made a kind of stramazoun, ran him up to the hilt through the doublet,
+through the shirt, and yet missed the skin. He, making a reverse blow,
+falls upon my embossed girdle,--I had thrown off the hangers a little
+before,--strikes off a skirt of a thick-laced satin doublet I had, lined
+with four taffetas, cuts off two panes embroidered with pearl, rends
+through the drawings-out of tissue, enters the linings, and spiks the
+flesh.
+
+"_Car_. I wonder he speaks not of his wrought shirt.
+
+"_Fast_. Here, in the opinion of mutual damage, we paused. But, ere
+I proceed, I must tell you, signior, that in the last encounter, not
+having leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catched
+hold of the ruffles of my boot, and, being Spanish leather and subject
+to tear, overthrows me, rends me two pair of silk stockings that I put
+on, being somewhat of a raw morning, a peach colour and another, and
+strikes me some half-inch deep into the side of the calf: He, seeing the
+blood come, presently takes horse and away; I having bound up my wound
+with a piece of my wrought shirt--
+
+"_Car_. O, comes it in there.
+
+"_Fast_. Ride after him, and, lighting at the court gate both together,
+embraced, and marched hand in hand up into the presence. Was not this
+business well carried?
+
+"_Maci_. Well! yes; and by this we can guess what apparel the gentleman
+wore.
+
+"_Punt_. 'Fore valour! it was a designment begun with much resolution,
+maintained with as much prowess, and ended with more humanity."]
+
+"Ay, ay," said the monk, muttering as he went up the winding stair,
+"carry him his trumpery with all despatch. Alas! that man, with so many
+noble objects of pursuit, will amuse himself like a jackanape, with a
+laced jerkin and a cap and bells!--I must now to the melancholy work of
+consoling that which is well-nigh inconsolable, a mother weeping for her
+first-born."
+
+Advancing, after a gentle knock, into the apartment of the women, he
+found that Mary Avenel had retired to bed, extremely indisposed, and
+that Dame Glendinning and Tibb were indulging their sorrows by the side
+of a decaying fire, and by the light of a small iron lamp, or cruize,
+as it was termed. Poor Elspeth's apron was thrown over her head, and
+bitterly did she sob and weep for "her beautiful, her brave,--the very
+image of her dear Simon Glendinning, the stay of her widowhood and the
+support of her old age."
+
+The faithful Tibb echoed her complaints, and, more violently clamorous,
+made deep promises of revenge on Sir Piercie Shafton, "if there were a
+man left in the south who could draw a whinger, or a woman that could
+thraw a rape." The presence of the Sub-Prior imposed silence on these
+clamours. He sate down by the unfortunate mother, and essayed, by such
+topics as his religion and reason suggested, to interrupt the current of
+Dame Glendinning's feelings; but the attempt was in vain. She listened,
+indeed, with some little interest, while he pledged his word and
+his influence with the Abbot, that the family which had lost their
+eldest-born by means of a guest received at his command, should
+experience particular protection at the hands of the community; and
+that the fief which belonged to Simon Glendinning should, with extended
+bounds and added privileges, be conferred on Edward.
+
+But it was only for a very brief space that the mother's sobs were
+apparently softer, and her grief more mild. She soon blamed herself
+for casting a moment's thought upon world's gear while poor Halbert
+was lying stretched in his bloody shirt. The Sub-Prior was not more
+fortunate, when he promised that Halbert's body "should be removed to
+hallowed ground, and his soul secured by the prayers of the Church in
+his behalf." Grief would have its natural course, and the voice of the
+comforter was wasted in vain.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Eighth.
+
+
+  He is at liberty, I have ventured for him!
+  -----------------------------if the law
+  Find and condemn me for't, some living wenches,
+  Some honest-hearted maids will sing my dirge,
+  And tell to memory my death was noble,
+  Dying almost a martyr.
+                            THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.
+
+The Sub-Prior of Saint Mary's, in taking his departure from the spence
+which Sir Piercie Shafton was confined, and in which some preparations
+were made for his passing the night as the room which might be most
+conveniently guarded, left more than one perplexed person behind him.
+There was connected with this chamber, and opening into it, a small
+_outshot_, or projecting part of the building, occupied by a sleeping
+apartment, which upon ordinary occasions, was that of Mary Avenel, and
+which, in the unusual number of guests who had come to the tower on
+the former evening, had also accommodated Mysie Happer, the Miller's
+daughter; for anciently, as well as in the present day, a Scottish house
+was always rather too narrow and limited for the extent of the owner's
+hospitality, and some shift and contrivance was necessary, upon any
+unusual occasion, to ensure the accommodation of all the guests.
+
+The fatal news of Halbert Glendinning's death had thrown all former
+arrangements into confusion. Mary Avenel, whose case required immediate
+attention, had been transported into the apartment hitherto occupied by
+Halbert and his brother, as the latter proposed to watch all night,
+in order to prevent the escape of the prisoner. Poor Mysie had been
+altogether overlooked, and had naturally enough betaken herself to the
+little apartment which she had hitherto occupied, ignorant that the
+spence, through which lay the only access to it, was to be the sleeping
+chamber of Sir Piercie Shafton. The measures taken for securing him
+there had been so sudden, that she was not aware of it, until she
+found that the other females had been removed from the spence by
+the Sub-Prior's direction, and having once missed the opportunity of
+retreating along with them, bashfulness, and the high respect which she
+was taught to bear to the monks, prevented her venturing forth alone,
+and intruding herself on the presence of Father Eustace, while in secret
+conference with the Southron. There appeared no remedy but to wait till
+their interview was over; and, as the door was thin, and did not shut
+very closely, she could hear every word that passed betwixt them.
+
+It thus happened, that without any intended intrusion on her part, she
+became privy to the whole conversation of the Sub-Prior and the English
+knight, and could also observe from the window of her little retreat,
+that more than one of the young men summoned by Edward arrived
+successively at the tower. These circumstances led her to entertain most
+serious apprehension that the life of Sir Piercie Shafton was in great
+and instant peril.
+
+Woman is naturally compassionate, and not less willingly so when youth
+and fair features are on the side of him who claims her sympathy. The
+handsome presence, elaborate dress and address, of Sir Piercie Shafton,
+which had failed to make any favorable impression on the grave and lofty
+character of Mary Avenel, had completely dazzled and bewildered the poor
+Maid of the Mill. The knight had perceived this result, and, flattered
+by seeing that his merit was not universally underrated, he had bestowed
+on Mysie a good deal more of his courtesy than in his opinion her rank
+warranted. It was not cast away, but received with a devout sense of his
+condescension, and with gratitude for his personal notice, which,
+joined to her fears for his safety, and the natural tenderness of her
+disposition, began to make wild work in her heart.
+
+"To be sure it was very wrong in him to slay Halbert Glendinning," (it
+was thus she argued the case with herself,) "but then he was a gentleman
+born, and a soldier, and so gentle and courteous withal, that she was
+sure the quarrel had been all of young Glendinning's own seeking; for
+it was well known that both these lads were so taken up with that Mary
+Avenel, that they never looked at another lass in the Halidome, more
+than if they were of a different degree. And then Halbert's dress was
+as clownish as his manners were haughty; and this poor young gentleman,
+(who was habited like any prince,) banished from his own land, was first
+drawn into a quarrel by a rude brangler, and then persecuted and like to
+be put to death by his kin and allies."
+
+Mysie wept bitterly at the thought, and then her heart rising against
+such cruelty and oppression to a defenceless stranger, who dressed
+with so much skill, and spoke with so much grace, she began to consider
+whether she could not render him some assistance in this extremity.
+
+Her mind was now entirely altered from its original purpose. At first
+her only anxiety had been to find the means of escaping from the
+interior apartment, without being noticed by any one; but now she began
+to think that Heaven had placed her there for the safety and protection
+of the persecuted stranger. She was of a simple and affectionate, but at
+the same time an alert and enterprising character, possessing more
+than female strength of body, and more than female courage, though with
+feelings as capable of being bewildered with gallantry of dress and
+language, as a fine gentleman of any generation would have desired to
+exercise his talents upon. "I will save him," she thought, "that is the
+first thing to be resolved--and then I wonder what he will say to the
+poor Miller's maiden, that has done for him what all the dainty dames in
+London or Holyrood would have been afraid to venture upon."
+
+Prudence began to pull her sleeve as she indulged speculations so
+hazardous, and hinted to her that the warmer Sir Piercie Shafton's
+gratitude might prove, it was the more likely to be fraught with danger
+to his benefactress. Alas! poor Prudence, thou mayest say with our moral
+teacher,
+
+  "I preach for ever, but I preach in vain."
+
+The Miller's maiden, while you pour your warning into her unwilling
+bosom, has glanced her eye on the small mirror by which she has placed
+her little lamp, and it returns to her a countenance and eyes, pretty
+and sparkling at all times, but ennobled at present with the energy of
+expression proper to those who have dared to form, and stand prepared
+to execute, deeds of generous audacity. "Will these features--will
+these eyes, joined to the benefit I am about to confer upon Sir Piercie
+Shafton, do nothing towards removing the distance of rank between us?"
+
+Such was the question which female vanity asked of fancy; and though
+even fancy dared not answer in a ready affirmative, a middle conclusion
+was adopted--"Let me first succour the gallant youth, and trust to
+fortune for the rest."
+
+Banishing, therefore, from her mind every thing that was personal to
+herself, the rash but generous girl turned her whole thoughts to the
+means of executing this enterprise.
+
+The difficulties which interposed were of no ordinary nature. The
+vengeance of the men of that country, in cases of deadly feud, that
+is, in cases of a quarrel excited by the slaughter of any of their
+relations, was one of their most marked characteristics; and Edward,
+however gentle in other respects, was so fond of his brother, that
+there could be no doubt that he would be as signal in his revenge as
+the customs of the country authorized. There were to be passed the inner
+door of the apartment, the two gates of the tower itself, and the gate
+of the court-yard, ere the prisoner was at liberty; and then a guide
+and means of flight were to be provided, otherwise ultimate escape
+was impossible. But where the will of woman is strongly bent on
+the accomplishment of such a purpose, her wit is seldom baffled by
+difficulties, however embarrassing.
+
+The Sub-Prior had not long left the apartment, ere Mysie had devised a
+scheme for Sir Piercie Shafton's freedom, daring, indeed, but likely to
+be successful, if dexterously conducted. It was necessary, however, that
+she should remain where she was till so late an hour, that all in the
+tower should have betaken themselves to repose, excepting those whose
+duty made them watchers. The interval she employed in observing
+the movements of the person in whose service she was thus boldly a
+volunteer.
+
+She could hear Sir Piercie Shafton pace the floor to and fro, in
+reflection doubtless on his own untoward fate and precarious situation.
+By and by she heard him making a rustling among his trunks, which,
+agreeable to the order of the Sub-Prior, had been placed in the
+apartment to which he was confined, and which he was probably amusing
+more melancholy thoughts by examining and arranging. Then she could hear
+him resume his walk through the room, and, as if his spirits had been
+somewhat relieved and elevated by the survey of his wardrobe, she could
+distinguish that at one turn he half recited a sonnet, at another half
+whistled a galliard, and at the third hummed a saraband. At length she
+could understand that he extended himself on the temporary couch which
+had been allotted to him, after muttering his prayers hastily, and in a
+short time she concluded he must be fast asleep.
+
+She employed the moment which intervened in considering her enterprise
+under every different aspect; and dangerous as it was, the steady review
+which she took of the various perils accompanying her purpose, furnished
+her with plausible devices for obviating them. Love and generous
+compassion, which give singly such powerful impulse to the female heart,
+were in this case united, and championed her to the last extremity of
+hazard.
+
+It was an hour past midnight. All in the tower slept sound but those who
+had undertaken to guard the English prisoner; or if sorrow and suffering
+drove sleep from the bed of Dame Glendinning and her foster-daughter,
+they were too much wrapt in their own griefs to attend to external
+sounds. The means of striking light were at hand in the small apartment,
+and thus the Miller's maiden was enabled to light and trim a small lamp.
+With a trembling step and throbbing heart, she undid the door which
+separated her from the apartment in which the Southron knight was
+confined, and almost flinched from her fixed purpose, when she found
+herself in the same room with the sleeping prisoner. She scarcely
+trusted herself to look upon him, as he lay wrapped in his cloak, and
+fast asleep upon the pallet bed, but turned her eyes away while she
+gently pulled his mantle with no more force than was just equal to
+awaken him. He moved not until she had twitched his cloak a second and
+a third time, and then at length looking up, was about to make an
+exclamation in the suddenness of his surprise.
+
+Mysie's bashfulness was conquered by her fear. She placed her fingers
+on her lips, in token that he must observe the most strict silence, and
+then pointed to the door to intimate that it was watched.
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton now collected himself and sat upright on his couch.
+He gazed with surprise on the graceful figure of the young woman who
+stood before him; her well-formed person, her flowing hair, and the
+outline of her features, showed dimly, and yet to advantage, by the
+partial and feeble light which she held in her hand. The romantic
+imagination of the gallant would soon have coined some compliment proper
+for the occasion, but Mysie left him not time.
+
+"I come," she said, "to save your life, which is else in great peril--if
+you answer me, speak as low as you can, for they have sentinelled your
+door with armed men."
+
+"Comeliest of miller's daughters," answered Sir Piercie, who by this
+time was sitting upright on his couch, "dread nothing for my safety.
+Credit me, that, as in very truth, I have not spilled the red puddle
+(which these villagios call the blood) of their most uncivil relation,
+so I am under no apprehension whatever for the issue of this restraint,
+seeing that it cannot but be harmless to me. Natheless, to thee, O most
+Molendinar beauty, I return the thanks which thy courtesy may justly
+claim."
+
+"Nay, but, Sir Knight," answered the maiden, in a whisper as low as it
+was tremulous, "I deserve no thanks unless you will act by my counsel.
+Edward Glendinning hath sent for Dan of the Howlet-hirst, and young Adie
+of Aikenshaw, and they are come with three men more, and with bow, and
+jack, and spear, and I heard them say to each other, and to Edward, as
+they alighted in the court, that they would have amends for the death of
+their kinsman, if the monk's cowl should smoke for it--And the vassals
+are so wilful now, that the Abbot himself dare not control them, for
+fear they turn heretics, and refuse to pay their feu-duties."
+
+"In faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "it may be a shrewd temptation,
+and perchance the monks may rid themselves of trouble and cumber,
+by handing me over the march to Sir John Foster or Lord Hundson, the
+English wardens, and so make peace with their vassals and with England
+at once. Fairest Molinara, I will for once walk by thy rede, and if thou
+dost contrive to extricate me from this vile kennel, I will so celebrate
+thy wit and beauty, that the Baker's nymph of Raphael d'Urbino shall
+seem but a gipsey in comparison of my Molinara."
+
+"I pray you, then, be silent," said the Miller's daughter; "for if your
+speech betrays that you are awake, my scheme fails utterly, and it is
+Heaven's mercy and Our Lady's that we are not already overheard and
+discovered."
+
+"I am silent," replied the Southron, "even as the starless night--but
+yet--if this contrivance of thine should endanger thy safety, fair and
+no less kind than fair damsel, it were utterly unworthy of me to accept
+it at thy hand."
+
+"Do not think of me," said Mysie, hastily; "I am safe--I will take
+thought for myself, if I once saw you out of this dangerous dwelling--if
+you would provide yourself with any part of your apparel or goods, lose
+no time."
+
+The knight _did_, however, lose some time, ere he could settle in his
+own mind what to take and what to abandon of his wardrobe, each article
+of which seemed endeared to him by recollection of the feasts and revels
+at which it had been exhibited. For some little while Mysie left him
+to make his selections at leisure, for she herself had also some
+preparations to make for flight. But when, returning from the chamber
+into which she had retired, with a small bundle in her hand, she found
+him still indecisive, she insisted in plain terms, that he should either
+make up his baggage for the enterprise, or give it up entirely. Thus
+urged, the disconsolate knight hastily made up a few clothes into a
+bundle, regarded his trunk-mails with a mute expression of parting
+sorrow, and intimated his readiness to wait upon his kind guide.
+
+She led the way to the door of the apartment, having first carefully
+extinguished her lamp, and motioning to the knight to stand close behind
+her, tapped once or twice at the door. She was at length answered by
+Edward Glendinning, who demanded to know who knocked within, and what
+was desired.
+
+"Speak low," said Mysie Happer, "or you will awaken the English knight.
+It is I, Mysie Happer, who knock--I wish to get out--you have locked me
+up--and I was obliged to wait till the Southron slept."
+
+"Locked you up!" replied Edward, in surprise.
+
+"Yes," answered the Miller's daughter, "you have locked me up into this
+room--I was in Mary Avenel's sleeping apartment."
+
+"And can you not remain there till morning," replied Edward, "since it
+has so chanced?"
+
+"What!" said the Miller's daughter, in a tone of offended delicacy, "I
+remain here a moment longer than I can get out without discovery!--I
+would not, for all the Halidome of St. Mary's, remain a minute longer in
+the neighbourhood of a man's apartment than I can help it--For whom,
+or for what do you hold me? I promise you my father's daughter has been
+better brought up than to put in peril her good name."
+
+"Come forth then, and get to thy chamber in silence," said Edward. So
+saying, he undid the bolt. The staircase without was in utter darkness,
+as Mysie had before ascertained. So soon as she stept out, she took hold
+of Edward as if to support herself, thus interposing her person betwixt
+him and Sir Piercie Shaffcon, by whom she was closely followed. Thus
+screened from observation, the Englishman slipped past on tiptoe, unshod
+and in silence, while the damsel complained to Edward that she wanted a
+light.
+
+"I cannot get you a light," said he, "for I cannot leave this post; but
+there is a fire below."
+
+"I will sit below till morning," said the Maid of the Mill; and,
+tripping down stairs, heard Edward bolt and bar the door of the now
+tenantless apartment with vain caution.
+
+At the foot of the stair which she descended, she found the object of
+her care waiting her farther directions. She recommended to him the most
+absolute silence, which, for once in his life, he seemed not unwilling
+to observe, conducted him, with as much caution as if he were walking on
+cracked ice, to a dark recess, used for depositing wood, and instructed
+him to ensconce himself behind the fagots. She herself lighted her lamp
+once more at the kitchen fire, and took her distaff and spindle, that
+she might not seem to be unemployed, in case any one came into the
+apartment.
+
+From time to time, however, she stole towards the window on tiptoe, to
+catch the first glance of the dawn, for the farther prosecution of her
+adventurous project. At length she saw, to her great joy, the first peep
+of the morning brighten upon the gray clouds of the east, and, clasping
+her hands together, thanked Our Lady for the sight, and implored
+protection during the remainder of her enterprise. Ere she had finished
+her prayer, she started at feeling a man's arm across her shoulder,
+while a rough voice spoke in her ear--"What! menseful Mysie of the Mill
+so soon at her prayers?--now, benison on the bonny eyes that open so
+early!--I'll have a kiss for good morrow's sake."
+
+Dan of the Howlet-hirst, for he was the gallant who paid Mysie this
+compliment, suited the action with the word, and the action, as is usual
+in such cases of rustic gallantry, was rewarded with a cuff, which
+Dan received as a fine gentleman receives a tap with a fan, but which,
+delivered by the energetic arm of the Miller's maiden, would have
+certainly astonished a less robust gallant.
+
+"How now, Sir Coxcomb!" said she, "and must you be away from your guard
+over the English knight, to plague quiet folks with your horse-tricks!"
+
+"Truly you are mistaken, pretty Mysie," said the clown, "for I have not
+yet relieved Edward at his post; and were it not a shame to let him stay
+any longer, by my faith, I could find it in my heart not to quit you
+these two hours."
+
+"Oh, you have hours and hours enough to see any one," said Mysie; "but
+you must think of the distress of the household even now, and get Edward
+to sleep for a while, for he has kept watch this whole night."
+
+"I will have another kiss first," answered Dan of the Howlet-hirst.
+
+But Mysie was now on her guard, and, conscious of the vicinity of the
+wood-hole, offered such strenuous resistance, that the swain cursed the
+nymph's bad humour with very unpastoral phrase and emphasis, and ran up
+stairs to relieve the guard of his comrade. Stealing to the door, she
+heard the new sentinel hold a brief conversation with Edward, after
+which the latter withdrew, and the former entered upon the duties of his
+watch.
+
+Mysie suffered him to walk there a little while undisturbed, until the
+dawning became more general, by which time she supposed he might have
+digested her coyness, and then presenting herself before the watchful
+sentinel, demanded of him "the keys of the outer tower, and of the
+courtyard gate."
+
+"And for what purpose?" answered the warder.
+
+"To milk the cows, and drive them out to their pasture," said Mysie;
+"you would not have the poor beasts kept in the byre a' morning, and the
+family in such distress, that there is na ane fit to do a turn but the
+byre-woman and myself?"
+
+"And where is the byre-woman?" said Dan.
+
+"Sitting with me in the kitchen, in case these distressed folks want any
+thing."
+
+"There are the keys, then, Mysie Dorts," said the sentinel.
+
+"Many thanks, Dan Ne'er-do-weel," answered the Maid of the Mill, and
+escaped down stairs in a moment.
+
+To hasten to the wood-hole, and there to robe the English knight in a
+short gown and petticoat, which she had provided for the purpose, was
+the work of another moment. She then undid the gates of the tower, and
+made towards the byre, or cow-house, which stood in one corner of the
+courtyard. Sir Piercie Shafton remonstrated against the delay which this
+would occasion.
+
+"Fair and generous Molinara," he said, "had we not better undo the
+outward gate, and make the best of our way hence, even like a pair of
+sea-mews who make towards shelter of the rocks as the storm waxes high?"
+
+"We must drive out the cows first," said Mysie, "for a sin it were to
+spoil the poor widow's cattle, both for her sake and the poor beasts'
+own; and I have no mind any one shall leave the tower in a hurry to
+follow us. Besides, you must have your horse, for you will need a fleet
+one ere all be done."
+
+So saying, she locked and double-locked both the inward and outward door
+of the tower, proceeded to the cow-house, turned out the cattle, and,
+giving the knight his own horse to lead, drove them before her out at
+the court-yard gate, intending to return for her own palfrey. But the
+noise attending the first operation caught the wakeful attention of
+Edward, who, starting to the bartizan, called to know what the matter
+was.
+
+Mysie answered with great readiness, that "she was driving out the cows,
+for that they would be spoiled for want of looking to."
+
+"I thank thee, kind maiden," said Edward--"and yet," he added, after a
+moment's pause, "what damsel is that thou hast with thee?"
+
+Mysie was about to answer, when Sir Piercie Shafton, who apparently
+did not desire that the great work of his liberation should be executed
+without the interposition of his own ingenuity, exclaimed from beneath,
+"I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the
+milky mothers of the herd."
+
+"Hell and darkness!" exclaimed Edward, in a transport of fury
+and astonishment, "it is Piercie Shafton--What! treason!
+treason!--ho!--Dan--Jasper--Martin--the villain escapes!"
+
+"To horse! to horse!" cried Mysie, and in an instant mounted behind the
+knight, who was already in the saddle.
+
+Edward caught up a cross-bow, and let fly a bolt, which whistled so
+near Mysie's ear, that she called to her companion,--"Spur--spur, Sir
+Knight!--the next will not miss us.--Had it been Halbert instead of
+Edward who bent that bow, we had been dead."
+
+The knight pressed his horse, which dashed past the cows, and down the
+knoll on which the tower was situated. Then taking the road down the
+valley, the gallant animal, reckless of its double burden, soon conveyed
+them out of hearing of the tumult and alarm with which their departure
+filled the Tower of Glendearg.
+
+Thus it strangely happened, that two men were flying in different
+directions at the same time, each accused of being the other's murderer.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Twenty-Ninth.
+
+
+  -------------Sure he cannot
+  Be so unmanly as to leave me here;
+  If he do, maids will not so easily
+  Trust men again.
+                  THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.
+
+The knight continued to keep the good horse at a pace as quick as the
+road permitted, until they had cleared the valley of Glendearg, and
+entered upon the broad dale of the Tweed, which now rolled before
+them in crystal beauty, displaying on its opposite bank the huge gray
+Monastery of St. Mary's, whose towers and pinnacles were scarce yet
+touched by the newly-risen sun, so deeply the edifice lies shrouded
+under the mountains which rise to the southward.
+
+Turning to the left, the knight continued his road down to the northern
+bank of the river, until they arrived nearly opposite to the weir,
+or dam-dike, where Father Philip concluded his extraordinary aquatic
+excursion.
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton, whose brain seldom admitted more than one idea at
+a time, had hitherto pushed forward without very distinctly considering
+where he was going. But the sight of the Monastery so near to him,
+reminded, him that he was still on dangerous ground, and that he must
+necessarily provide for his safety by choosing some settled plan of
+escape. The situation of his guide and deliverer also occurred to him,
+for he was far from being either selfish or ungrateful. He listened, and
+discovered that the Miller's daughter was sobbing and weeping bitterly
+as she rested her head on his shoulder.
+
+"What ails thee," he said, "my generous Molinara?--is there aught that
+Piercie Shafton can do which may show his gratitude to his deliverer?"
+Mysie pointed with her finger across the river, but ventured not to
+turn her eyes in that direction. "Nay, but speak plain, most generous
+damsel," said the knight, who, for once, was puzzled as much as his own
+elegance of speech was wont to puzzle others, "for I swear to you that I
+comprehend nought by the extension of thy fair digit."
+
+"Yonder is my father's house," said Mysie, in a voice interrupted by the
+increased burst of her sorrow.
+
+"And I was carrying thee discourteously to a distance from thy
+habitation?" said Shafton, imagining he had found out the source of her
+grief. "Wo worth the hour that Piercie Shafton, in attention to his own
+safety, neglected the accommodation of any female, far less of his most
+beneficent liberatrice! Dismount, then, O lovely Molinara, unless thou
+wouldst rather that I should transport thee on horseback to the house of
+thy molendinary father, which, if thou sayest the word, I am prompt to
+do, defying all dangers which may arise to me personally, whether by
+monk or miller."
+
+Mysie suppressed her sobs, and with considerable difficulty muttered her
+desire to alight, and take her fortune by herself. Sir Piercie Shafton,
+too devoted a squire of dames to consider the most lowly as exempted
+from a respectful attention, independent of the claims which the
+Miller's maiden possessed over him, dismounted instantly from his horse,
+and received in his arms the poor girl, who still wept bitterly, and,
+when placed on the ground, seemed scarce able to support herself, or at
+least still clung, though, as it appeared, unconsciously, to the support
+he had afforded. He carried her to a weeping birch tree, which grew on
+the green-sward bank around which the road winded, and, placing her on
+the ground beneath it, exhorted her to compose herself. A strong touch
+of natural feeling struggled with, and half overcame, his acquired
+affectation, while he said, "Credit me, most generous damsel, the
+service you have done to Piercie Shafton he would have deemed too dearly
+bought, had he foreseen it was to cost you these tears and singults.
+Show me the cause of your grief, and if I can do aught to remove
+it, believe that the rights you have acquired over me will make your
+commands sacred as those of an empress. Speak, then, fair Molinara,
+and command him whom fortune hath rendered at once your debtor and your
+champion. What are your orders?"
+
+"Only that you will fly and save yourself," said Mysie, mustering up her
+utmost efforts to utter these few words.
+
+"Yet," said the knight, "let me not leave you without some token of
+remembrance." Mysie would have said there needed none, and most truly
+would she have spoken, could she have spoken for weeping. "Piercie
+Shafton is poor," he continued, "but let this chain testify he is not
+ungrateful to his deliverer."
+
+He took from his neck the rich chain and medallion we have formerly
+mentioned, and put it into the powerless hand of the poor maiden,
+who neither received nor rejected it, but, occupied with more intense
+feelings, seemed scarce aware of what he was doing.
+
+"We shall meet again," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "at least I trust so;
+meanwhile, weep no more, fair Molinara, an thou lovest me."
+
+The phrase of conjuration was but used as an ordinary commonplace
+expression of the time, but bore a deeper sense to poor Mysie's ear.
+She dried her tears; and when the knight, in all kind and chivalrous
+courtesy, stooped to embrace her at their parting, she rose humbly up to
+receive the proffered honour in a posture of more deference, and meekly
+and gratefully accepted the offered salute. Sir Piercie Shafton mounted
+his horse, and began to ride off, but curiosity, or perhaps a stronger
+feeling, soon induced him to look back, when he beheld the Miller's
+daughter standing still motionless on the spot where they had parted,
+her eyes turned after him, and the unheeded chain hanging from her hand.
+
+It was at this moment that a glimpse of the real state of Mysie's
+affections, and of the motive from which she had acted in the whole
+matter, glanced on Sir Piercie Shafton's mind. The gallants of that age,
+disinterested, aspiring, and lofty-minded, even in their coxcombry, were
+strangers to those degrading and mischievous pursuits which are usually
+termed low amours. They did not "chase the humble maidens of the plain,"
+or degrade their own rank, to deprive rural innocence of peace and
+virtue. It followed, of course, that as conquests in this class were no
+part of their ambition, they were in most cases totally overlooked and
+unsuspected, left unimproved, as a modern would call it, where, as
+on the present occasion, they were casually made. The companion of
+Astrophel, and flower of the tilt-yard of Feliciana, had no more idea
+that his graces and good parts could attach the love of Mysie Happer,
+than a first-rate beauty in the boxes dreams of the fatal wound which
+her charms may inflict on some attorney's romantic apprentice in the
+pit. I suppose, in any ordinary case, the pride of rank and distinction
+would have pronounced on the humble admirer the doom which Beau Fielding
+denounced against the whole female world, "Let them look and die;" but
+the obligations under which he lay to the enamoured maiden, miller's
+daughter as she was, precluded the possibility of Sir Piercie's treating
+the matter _en cavalier_, and, much embarrassed, yet a little flattered
+at the same time, he rode back to try what could be done for the
+damsel's relief.
+
+The innate modesty of poor Mysie could not prevent her showing too
+obvious signs of joy at Sir Piercie Shafton's return. She was betrayed
+by the sparkle of the rekindling eye, and a caress which, however
+timidly bestowed, she could not help giving to the neck of the horse
+which brought back the beloved rider.
+
+"What farther can I do for you, kind Molinara?" said Sir Piercie
+Shafton, himself hesitating and blushing; for, to the grace of Queen
+Bess's age be it spoken, her courtiers wore more iron on their breasts
+than brass on their foreheads, and even amid their vanities preserved
+still the decaying spirit of chivalry, which inspired of yore the very
+gentle Knight of Chaucer,
+
+     Who in his port was modest as a maid.
+
+Mysie blushed deeply, with her eyes fixed on the ground, and Sir Piercie
+proceeded in the same tone of embarrassed kindness. "Are you afraid to
+return home alone, my kind Molinara?--would you that I should accompany
+you?"
+
+"Alas!" said Mysie, looking up, and her cheek changing from scarlet to
+pale, "I have no home left."
+
+"How! no home!" said Shafton; "says my generous Molinara she hath no
+home, when yonder stands the house of her father, and but a crystal
+stream between?"
+
+
+"Alas!" answered the Miller's maiden, "I have no longer either home or
+father. He is a devoted servant to the Abbey--I have offended the Abbot,
+and if I return home my father will kill me."
+
+"He dare not injure thee, by Heaven!" said Sir Piercie; "I swear to
+thee, by my honour and knighthood, that the forces of my cousin of
+Northumberland shall lay the Monastery so flat, that a horse shall not
+stumble as he rides over it, if they should dare to injure a hair of
+your head! Therefore be hopeful and content, kind Mysinda, and know you
+have obliged one who can and will avenge the slightest wrong offered to
+you."
+
+He sprung from his horse as he spoke, and, in the animation of his
+argument, grasped the willing hand of Mysie, (or Mysinda as he had now
+christened her.) He gazed too upon full black eyes, fixed upon his own
+with an expression which, however subdued by maidenly shame, it was
+impossible to mistake, on cheeks where something like hope began to
+restore the natural colour, and on two lips which, like double rosebuds,
+were kept a little apart by expectation, and showed within a line of
+teeth as white as pearl. All this was dangerous to look upon, and Sir.
+Piercie Shafton, after repeating with less and less force his request
+that the fair Mysinda would allow him to carry her to her father's,
+ended by asking the fair Mysinda to go along with him--"At least," he
+added, "until I shall be able to conduct you to a place of safety."
+
+Mysie Happer made no answer; but blushing scarlet betwixt joy and shame,
+mutely expressed her willingness to accompany the Southron Knight,
+by knitting her bundle closer, and preparing to resume her seat _en
+croupe_. "And what is your pleasure that I should do with this?" she
+said, holding up the chain as if she had been for the first time aware
+that it was in her hand.
+
+"Keep it, fairest Mysinda, for my sake," said the Knight.
+
+"Not so, sir," answered Mysie, gravely; "the maidens of my country take
+no such gifts from their superiors, and I need no token to remind me of
+this morning."
+
+Most earnestly and courteously did the Knight urge her acceptance of
+the proposed guerdon, but on this point Mysie was resolute; feeling,
+perhaps, that to accept of any thing bearing the appearance of reward,
+would be to place the service she had rendered him on a mercenary
+footing. In short, she would only agree to conceal the chain, lest it
+might prove the means of detecting the owner, until Sir Piercie should
+be placed in perfect safety.
+
+They mounted and resumed their journey, of which Mysie, as bold and
+sharp-witted in some points as she was simple and susceptible in others,
+now took in some degree the direction, having only inquired its general
+destination, and learned that Sir Piercie Shafton desired to go to
+Edinburgh, where he hoped to find friends and protection. Possessed of
+this information, Mysie availed herself of her local knowledge to get as
+soon as possible out of the bounds of the Halidome, and into those of a
+temporal baron, supposed to be addicted to the reformed doctrines,
+and upon whose limits, at least, she thought their pursuers would not
+attempt to hazard any violence. She was not indeed very apprehensive of
+a pursuit, reckoning with some confidence that the inhabitants of the
+Tower of Glendearg would find it a matter of difficulty to surmount
+the obstacles arising from their own bolts and bars, with which she had
+carefully secured them before setting forth on the retreat.
+
+They journeyed on, therefore, in tolerable security, and Sir Piercie
+Shafton found leisure to amuse the time in high-flown speeches and long
+anecdotes of the court of Feliciana, to which Mysie bent an ear not a
+whit less attentive, that she did not understand one word out of three
+which was uttered by her fellow-traveller. She listened, however, and
+admired upon trust, as many a wise man has been contented to treat the
+conversation of a handsome but silly mistress. As for Sir Piercie,
+he was in his element; and, well assured of the interest and full
+approbation of his auditor, he went on spouting Euphuism of more than
+usual obscurity, and at more than usual length. Thus passed the morning,
+and noon brought them within sight of a winding stream, on the side of
+which arose an ancient baronial castle, surrounded by some large trees.
+At a small distance from the gate of the mansion, extended, as in those
+days was usual, a straggling hamlet, having a church in the centre.
+
+"There are two hostelries in this Kirk-town," said Mysie, "but the worst
+is best for our purpose; for it stands apart from the other houses, and
+I ken the man weel, for he has dealt with my father for malt."
+
+This _causa scientiae_, to use a lawyer's phrase, was ill chosen
+for Mysie's purpose; for Sir Piercie Shafton had, by dint of his own
+loquacity, been talking himself all this while into a high esteem for
+his fellow-traveller, and, pleased with the gracious reception which she
+afforded to his powers of conversation, had well-nigh forgotten that
+she was not herself one of those high-born beauties of whom he was
+recounting so many stories, when this unlucky speech at once placed
+the most disadvantageous circumstances attending her lineage under his
+immediate recollection. He said nothing, however. What indeed could
+he say? Nothing was so natural as that a miller's daughter should be
+acquainted with publicans who dealt with her father for malt, and all
+that was to be wondered at was the concurrence of events which had
+rendered such a female the companion and guide of Sir Piercie Shafton of
+Wilverton, kinsman of the great Earl of Northumberland, whom princes
+and sovereigns themselves termed cousin, because of the Piercie blood.
+[Footnote: Froissart tells us somewhere, (the readers of romances are
+indifferent to accurate reference,) that the King of France called one
+of the Piercies cousin, because of the blood of Northumberland.] He felt
+the disgrace of strolling through the country with a miller's maiden
+on the crupper behind him, and was even ungrateful enough to feel some
+emotions of shame, when he halted his horse at the door of the little
+inn.
+
+But the alert intelligence of Mysie Happer spared him farther sense of
+derogation, by instantly springing from his horse, and cramming the ears
+of mine host, who came out with his mouth agape to receive a guest of
+the knight's appearance, with an imagined tale, in which circumstance on
+circumstance were huddled so fast, as to astonish Sir Piercie Shafton,
+whose own invention was none of the most brilliant. She explained to
+the publican that this was a great English knight travelling from the
+Monastery to the court of Scotland, after having paid his vows to Saint
+Mary, and that she had been directed to conduct him so far on the road;
+and that Ball, her palfrey, had fallen by the way, because he had been
+over-wrought with carrying home the last melder of meal to the portioner
+of Langhope; and that she had turned in Ball to graze in the Tasker's
+park, near Cripplecross, for he had stood as still as Lot's wife with
+very weariness; and that the knight had courteously insisted she should
+ride behind him, and that she had brought him to her kend friend's
+hostelry rather than to proud Peter Peddie's, who got his malt at
+the Mellerstane mills; and that he must get the best that the house
+afforded, and that he must get it ready in a moment of time, and that
+she was ready to help in the kitchen.
+
+All this ran glibly off the tongue without pause on the part of
+Mysie Happer, or doubt on that of the landlord. The guest's horse was
+conducted to the stable, and he himself installed in the cleanest
+corner and best seat which the place afforded. Mysie, ever active and
+officious, was at once engaged in preparing food, in spreading the
+table, and in making all the better arrangements which her experience
+could suggest, for the honour and comfort of her companion. He would
+fain have resisted this; for while it was impossible not to be gratified
+with the eager and alert kindness which was so active in his service,
+he felt an undefinable pain in seeing Mysinda engaged in these menial
+services, and discharging them, moreover, as one to whom they were
+but too familiar. Yet this jarring feeling was mixed with, and perhaps
+balanced by, the extreme grace with which the neat-handed maiden
+executed these tasks, however mean in themselves, and gave to the
+wretched corner of a miserable inn of the period, the air of a bower,
+in which an enamoured fairy, or at least a shepherdess of Arcadia, was
+displaying, with unavailing solicitude, her designs on the heart of
+some knight, destined by fortune to higher thoughts, and a more splendid
+union.
+
+The lightness and grace with which Mysie covered the little round table
+with a snow-white cloth, and arranged upon it the hastily-roasted capon,
+with its accompanying stoup of Bourdeaux, were but plebeian graces in
+themselves; but yet there were very flattering ideas excited by each
+glance. She was so very well made, agile at once and graceful, with her
+hand and arm as white as snow, and her face in which a smile contended
+with a blush, and her eyes which looked ever at Shafton when he looked
+elsewhere, and were dropped at once when they encountered his, that
+she was irresistible! In fine, the affectionate delicacy of her whole
+demeanour, joined to the promptitude and boldness she had so lately
+evinced, tended to ennoble the services she had rendered, as if some
+
+  -----sweet engaging Grace
+  Put on some clothes to come abroad,
+    And took a waiter's place.
+
+But, on the other hand, came the damning reflection, that these duties
+were not taught her by Love, to serve the beloved only, but arose from
+the ordinary and natural habits of a miller's daughter, accustomed,
+doubtless, to render the same service to every wealthier churl who
+frequented her father's mill. This stopped the mouth of vanity, and of
+the love which vanity had been hatching, as effectually as a peck of
+literal flour would have done.
+
+Amidst this variety of emotions, Sir Piercie Shafton forgot not to ask
+the object of them to sit down and partake the good cheer which she had
+been so anxious to provide and to place in order. He expected that
+this invitation would have been bashfully, perhaps, but certainly most
+thankfully, accepted; but he was partly flattered, and partly piqued,
+by the mixture of deference and resolution with which Mysie declined his
+invitation. Immediately after, she vanished from the apartment, leaving
+the Euphuist to consider whether he was most gratified or displeased by
+her disappearance.
+
+In fact, this was a point on which he would have found it difficult
+to make up his mind, had there been any necessity for it. As there was
+none, he drank a few cups of claret, and sang (to himself) a strophe
+or two of the canzonettes of the divine Astrophel. But in spite both of
+wine and of Sir Philip Sidney, the connexion in which he now stood,
+and that which he was in future to hold, with the lovely Molinara, or
+Mysinda, as he had been pleased to denominate Mysie Happer, recurred
+to his mind. The fashion of the times (as we have already noticed)
+fortunately coincided with his own natural generosity of disposition,
+which indeed amounted almost to extravagance, in prohibiting, as
+a deadly sin, alike against gallantry, chivalry, and morality, his
+rewarding the good offices he had received from this poor maiden, by
+abusing any of the advantages which her confidence in his honour had
+afforded. To do Sir Piercie justice, it was an idea which never entered
+into his head; and he would probably have dealt the most scientific
+_imbroccata, stoccata_, or _punto reverso_, which the school of Vincent
+Saviola had taught him, to any man who had dared to suggest to him such
+selfish and ungrateful meanness. On the other hand, he was a man, and
+foresaw various circumstances which might render their journey together
+in this intimate fashion a scandal and a snare. Moreover, he was a
+coxcomb and a courtier, and felt there was something ridiculous in
+travelling the land with a miller's daughter behind his saddle, giving
+rise to suspicions not very creditable to either, and to ludicrous
+constructions, so far as he himself was concerned.
+
+"I would," he said half aloud, "that if such might be done without harm
+or discredit to the too-ambitious, yet too-well-distinguishing Molinara,
+she and I were fairly severed, and bound on our different courses; even
+as we see the goodly vessel bound for the distant seas hoist sails and
+bear away into the deep, while the humble fly-boat carries to shore
+those friends, who, with wounded hearts and watery eyes, have committed
+to their higher destinies the more daring adventurers by whom the fair
+frigate is manned."
+
+He had scarce uttered the wish when it was gratified; for the host
+entered to say that his worshipful knighthood's horse was ready to
+be brought forth as he had desired; and on his inquiry for "the--the
+damsel--that is--the young woman--"
+
+"Mysie Happer," said the landlord, "has returned to her father's; but
+she bade me say, you could not miss the road for Edinburgh, in respect
+it was neither far way nor foul gate."
+
+It is seldom we are exactly blessed with the precise fulfilment of our
+wishes at the moment when we utter them; perhaps, because Heaven wisely
+withholds what, if granted, would be often received with ingratitude.
+So at least it chanced in the present instance; for when mine host said
+that Mysie was returned homeward, the knight was tempted to reply, with
+an ejaculation of surprise and vexation, and a hasty demand, whither and
+when she had departed? The first emotions his prudence suppressed, the
+second found utterance.
+
+"Where is she gane?" said the host, gazing on him, and repeating his
+question--"She is gane hame to her father's, it is like--and she gaed
+just when she gave orders about your worship's horse, and saw it well
+fed, (she might have trusted me, but millers and millers' kin think a'
+body as thief-like as themselves,) an' she's three miles on the gate by
+this time."
+
+"Is she gone then?" muttered Sir Piercie, making two or three hasty
+strides through the narrow apartment--"Is she gone?--Well, then, let
+her go. She could have had but disgrace by abiding by me, and I little
+credit by her society. That I should have thought there was such
+difficulty in shaking her off! I warrant she is by this time laughing
+with some clown she has encountered; and my rich chain will prove a good
+dowry.--And ought it not to prove so? and has she not deserved it, were
+it ten times more valuable?--Piercie Shafton! Piercie Shafton! dost thou
+grudge thy deliverer the guerdon she hath so dearly won? The selfish air
+of this northern land hath infected thee, Piercie Shafton! and blighted
+the blossoms of thy generosity, even as it is said to shrivel the
+flowers of the mulberry.--Yet I thought," he added, after a moment's
+pause, "that she would not so easily and voluntarily have parted from
+me. But it skills not thinking of it.--Cast my reckoning, mine host, and
+let your groom lead forth my nag."
+
+The good host seemed also to have some mental point to discuss, for he
+answered not instantly, debating perhaps whether his conscience would
+bear a double charge for the same guests. Apparently his conscience
+replied in the negative, though not without hesitation, for he at length
+replied--"It's daffing to lee; it winna deny that the lawing is clean
+paid. Ne'ertheless, if your worshipful knighthood pleases to give aught
+for increase of trouble--"
+
+"How!" said the knight; "the reckoning paid? and by whom, I pray you?"
+
+"E'en by Mysie Happer, if truth maun be spoken, as I said before,"
+answered the honest landlord, with as many compunctious visitings for
+telling the verity as another might have felt for making a lie in the
+circumstances--"And out of the moneys supplied for your honour's journey
+by the Abbot, as she tauld to me. And laith were I to surcharge any
+gentleman that darkens my doors." He added in the confidence of honesty
+which his frank avowal entitled him to entertain, "Nevertheless, as I
+said before, if it pleases your knighthood of free good-will to consider
+extraordinary trouble--"
+
+The knight cut short his argument, by throwing the landlord a
+rose-noble, which probably doubled the value of a Scottish reckoning,
+though it would have defrayed but a half one at the Three Cranes or the
+Vintry. The bounty so much delighted mine host, that he ran to fill the
+stirrup-cup (for which no charge was ever made) from a butt yet charier
+than that which he had pierced for the former stoup. The knight paced
+slowly to horse, partook of his courtesy, and thanked him with the stiff
+condescension of the court of Elizabeth; then mounted and followed the
+northern path, which was pointed out as the nearest to Edinburgh, and
+which, though very unlike a modern highway, bore yet so distinct
+a resemblance to a public and frequented road as not to be easily
+mistaken.
+
+"I shall not need her guidance it seems," said he to himself, as he
+rode slowly onward; "and I suppose that was one reason of her abrupt
+departure, so different from what one might have expected.--Well, I am
+well rid of her. Do we not pray to be liberated from temptation? Yet
+that she should have erred so much in estimation of her own situation
+and mine, as to think of defraying the reckoning! I would I saw her once
+more, but to explain to her the solecism of which her inexperience hath
+rendered her guilty. And I fear," he added, as he emerged from some
+straggling trees, and looked out upon a wild moorish country, composed
+of a succession of swelling lumpish hills, "I fear I shall soon want the
+aid of this Ariadne, who might afford me a clew through the recesses of
+yonder mountainous labyrinth."
+
+As the Knight thus communed with himself, his attention was caught by
+the sound of a horse's footsteps; and a lad, mounted on a little gray
+Scottish nag, about fourteen hands high, coming along a path which
+led from behind the trees, joined him on the high-road, if it could be
+termed such. The dress of the lad was completely in village fashion, yet
+neat and handsome in appearance. He had a jerkin of gray cloth slashed
+and trimmed, with black hose of the same, with deer-skin rullions or
+sandals, and handsome silver spurs. A cloak of a dark mulberry colour
+was closely drawn round the upper part of his person, and the cape in
+part muffled his face, which was also obscured by his bonnet of black
+velvet cloth, and its little plume of feathers.
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton, fond of society, desirous also to have a guide,
+and, moreover, prepossessed in favour of so handsome a youth, failed not
+to ask him whence he came, and whither he was going. The youth looked
+another way, as he answered, that he was going to Edinburgh, "to seek
+service in some nobleman's family."
+
+"I fear me you have run away from your last master," said Sir Piercie,
+"since you dare not look me in the face while you answer my question."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I have not," answered the lad, bashfully, while, as if
+with reluctance, he turned round his face, and instantly withdrew it. It
+was a glance, but the discovery was complete. There was no mistaking
+the dark full eye, the cheek in which much embarrassment could not
+altogether disguise an expression of comic humour, and the whole figure
+at once betrayed, under her metamorphosis, the Maid of the Mill. The
+recognition was joyful, and Sir Piercie Shafton was too much pleased to
+have regained his companion to remember the very good reasons which had
+consoled him for losing her.
+
+To his questions respecting her dress, she answered that she had
+obtained it in the Kirktown from a friend; it was the holiday suit of a
+son of hers, who had taken the field with his liege-lord, the baron of
+the land. She had borrowed the suit under pretence she meant to play
+in some mumming or rural masquerade. She had left, she said, her own
+apparel in exchange, which was better worth ten crowns than this was
+worth four.
+
+"And the nag, my ingenious Molinara," said Sir Piercie, "whence comes
+the nag?"
+
+"I borrowed him from our host at the Gled's-Nest," she replied; and
+added, half stifling a laugh, "he has sent to get, instead of it, our
+Ball, which I left in the Tasker's Park at Cripplecross. He will be
+lucky if he find it there."
+
+"But then the poor man will lose his horse, most argute Mysinda," said
+Sir Piercie Shafton, whose English notions of property were a little
+startled at a mode of acquisition more congenial to the ideas of a
+miller's daughter (and he a Border miller to boot) than with those of an
+English person of quality.
+
+"And if he does lose his horse," said Mysie, laughing, "surely he is not
+the first man on the marches who has had such a mischance. But he will
+be no loser, for I warrant he will stop the value out of moneys which he
+has owed my father this many a day."
+
+"But then your father will be the loser," objected yet again the
+pertinacious uprightness of Sir Piercie Shafton.
+
+"What signifies it now to talk of my father?" said the damsel,
+pettishly; then instantly changing to a tone of deep feeling, she added,
+"my father has this day lost that which will make him hold light the
+loss of all the gear he has left."
+
+Struck with the accents of remorseful sorrow in which his companion
+uttered these few words, the English knight felt himself bound both in
+honour and conscience to expostulate with her as strongly as he could,
+on the risk of the step which she had now taken, and on the propriety of
+her returning to her father's house. The matter of his discourse, though
+adorned with many unnecessary flourishes, was honourable both to his
+head and heart.
+
+The Maid of the Mill listened to his flowing periods with her head sunk
+on her bosom as she rode, like one in deep thought or deeper sorrow.
+When he had finished, she raised up her countenance, looked full on
+the knight, and replied with great firmness--"If you are weary of my
+company, Sir Piercie Shafton, you have but to say so, and the Miller's
+daughter will be no farther cumber to you. And do not think I will be a
+burden to you, if we travel together to Edinburgh; I have wit enough and
+pride enough to be a willing burden to no man. But if you reject not my
+company at present, and fear not it will be burdensome to you hereafter,
+speak no more to me of returning back. All that you can say to me I have
+said to myself; and that I am now here, is a sign that I have said it to
+no purpose. Let this subject, therefore, be forever ended betwixt us.
+I have already, in some small fashion, been useful to you, and the time
+may come I may be more so; for this is not your land of England, where
+men say justice is done with little fear or favour to great and to
+small; but it is a land where men do by the strong hand, and defend by
+the ready wit, and I know better than you the perils you are exposed
+to."
+
+Sir Piercie Shafton was somewhat mortified to find that the damsel
+conceived her presence useful to him as a protectress as well as guide,
+and said something of seeking protection of nought save his own arm and
+his good sword. Mysie answered very quietly, that she nothing doubted
+his bravery; but it was that very quality of bravery which was most
+likely to involve him in danger. Sir Piercie Shafton, whose head never
+kept very long in any continued train of thinking, acquiesced without
+much reply, resolving in his own mind that the maiden only used this
+apology to disguise her real motive, of affection to his person.
+The romance of the situation flattered his vanity and elevated his
+imagination, as placing him in the situation of one of those romantic
+heroes of whom he had read the histories, where similar transformations
+made a distinguished figure.
+
+He took many a sidelong glance at his page, whose habits of country
+sport and country exercise had rendered her quite adequate to sustain
+the character she had assumed. She managed the little nag with
+dexterity, and even with grace; nor did any thing appear that could
+have betrayed her disguise, except when a bashful consciousness of her
+companion's eye being fixed on her, gave her an appearance of temporary
+embarrassment, which greatly added to her beauty.
+
+The couple rode forward as in the morning, pleased with themselves and
+with each other, until they arrived at the village where they were to
+repose for the night, and where all the inhabitants of the little inn,
+both male and female, joined in extolling the good grace and handsome
+countenance of the English knight, and the uncommon beauty of his
+youthful attendant.
+
+It was here that Mysie Happer first made Sir Piercie Shafton sensible
+of the reserved manner in which she proposed to live with him. She
+announced him as her master, and, waiting upon him with the reverent
+demeanour of an actual domestic, permitted not the least approach to
+familiarity, not even such as the knight might with the utmost innocence
+have ventured upon. For example, Sir Piercie, who, as we know, was a
+great connoisseur in dress, was detailing to her the advantageous change
+which he proposed to make in her attire as soon as they should reach
+Edinburgh, by arraying her in his own colours of pink and carnation.
+Mysie Happer listened with great complacency to the unction with which
+he dilated upon welts, laces, slashes, and trimmings, until, carried
+away by the enthusiasm with which he was asserting the superiority of
+the falling band over the Spanish ruff, he approached his hand, in
+the way of illustration, towards the collar of his page's doublet. She
+instantly stepped back and gravely reminded him that she was alone and
+under his protection.
+
+"You cannot but remember the cause which has brought me here," she
+continued; "make the least approach to any familiarity which you would
+not offer to a princess surrounded by her court, and you have seen the
+last of the Miller's daughter--She will vanish as the chaff disappears
+from the shieling-hill [Footnote: The place where corn was winnowed,
+while that operation was performed by the hand, was called in Scotland
+the Shieling-hill.] when the west wind blows."
+
+"I do protest, fair Molinara," said Sir Piercie Shafton--but the fair
+Molinara had disappeared before his protest could be uttered. "A most
+singular wench," said he to himself; "and by this hand, as discreet
+as she is fair-featured--Certes, shame it were to offer her scathe
+or dishonour! She makes similes too, though somewhat savouring of her
+condition. Had she but read Euphues, and forgotten that accursed mill
+and shieling-hill, it is my thought that her converse would be broidered
+with as many and as choice pearls of compliment, as that of the most
+rhetorical lady in the court of Feliciana. I trust she means to return
+to bear me company."
+
+But that was no part of Mysie's prudential scheme. It was then drawing
+to dusk, and he saw her not again until the next morning, when the
+horses were brought to the door that they might prosecute their journey.
+
+But our story here necessarily leaves the English knight and his page,
+to return to the Tower of Glendearg.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirtieth.
+
+
+  You call it an ill angel it may be so,
+  But sure I am, among the ranks which fell,
+  'Tis the first fiend e'er counsell'd man to rise,
+  And win the bliss the sprite himself had forfeited.
+                             OLD PLAY.
+
+We must resume our narrative at the period when Mary Avenel was
+conveyed to the apartment which had been formerly occupied by the two
+Glendinnings, and when her faithful attendant, Tibbie, had exhausted
+herself in useless attempts to compose and to comfort her. Father
+Eustace also dealt forth with well-meant kindness those apophthegms and
+dogmata of consolation, which friendship almost always offers to grief,
+though they are uniformly offered in vain. She was at length left to
+indulge in the desolation of her own sorrowful feelings. She felt as
+those who, loving for the first time, have lost what they loved, before
+time and repeated calamity have taught them that every loss is to a
+certain extent reparable or endurable.
+
+Such grief may be conceived better than it can be described, as is well
+known to those who have experienced it. But Mary Avenel had been taught
+by the peculiarity of her situation, to regard herself as the Child of
+Destiny; and the melancholy and reflecting turn of her disposition
+gave to her sorrows a depth and breadth peculiar to her character. The
+grave--and it was a bloody grave--had closed, as she believed, over the
+youth to whom she was secretly, but most warmly attached; the force and
+ardour of Halbert's character bearing a singular correspondence to the
+energy of which her own was capable. Her sorrow did not exhaust
+itself in sighs and tears, but when the first shock had passed away,
+concentrated itself with deep and steady meditation, to collect and
+calculate, like a bankrupt debtor, the full amount of her loss. It
+seemed as if all that connected her with earth, had vanished with this
+broken tie. She had never dared to anticipate the probability of an
+ultimate union with Halbert, yet now his supposed fall seemed that of
+the only tree which was to shelter her from the storm. She respected
+the more gentle character, and more peaceful attainments, of the younger
+Glendinning; but it had not escaped her (what never indeed escaped
+woman in such circumstances) that he was disposed to place himself in
+competition with what she, the daughter of a proud and warlike race,
+deemed the more manly qualities of his elder brother; and there is no
+time when a woman does so little justice to the character of a surviving
+lover, as when comparing him with the preferred rival of whom she has
+been recently deprived.
+
+The motherly, but coarse kindness of Dame Glendinning, and the doating
+fondness of her old domestic, seemed now the only kind feeling of which
+she formed the object; and she could not but reflect how little these
+were to be compared with the devoted attachment of a high-souled youth,
+whom the least glance of her eye could command, as the high-mettled
+steed is governed by the bridle of the rider. It was when plunged among
+these desolating reflections, that Mary Avenel felt the void of mind,
+arising from the narrow and bigoted ignorance in which Rome then
+educated the children of her church. Their whole religion was a ritual,
+and their prayers were the formal iteration of unknown words, which, in
+the hour of affliction, could yield but little consolation to those who
+from habit resorted to them. Unused to the practice of mental devotion,
+and of personal approach to the Divine Presence by prayer, she could not
+help exclaiming in her distress, "There is no aid for me on earth, and I
+know not how to ask it from Heaven!"
+
+As she spoke thus in an agony of sorrow, she cast her eyes into the
+apartment, and saw the mysterious Spirit, which waited upon the fortunes
+of her house, standing in the moonlight in the midst of the room. The
+same form, as the reader knows, had more than once offered itself to
+her sight; and either her native boldness of mind, or some peculiarity
+attached to her from her birth, made her now look upon it without
+shrinking. But the White Lady of Avenel was now more distinctly visible,
+and more closely present, than she had ever before seemed to be, and
+Mary was appalled by her presence. She would, however, have spoken; but
+there ran a tradition, that though others who had seen the White Lady
+had asked questions and received answers, yet those of the house of
+Avenel who had ventured to speak to her, had never long survived the
+colloquy. The figure, besides, as sitting up in her bed, Mary Avenel
+gazed on it intently, seemed by its gestures to caution her to keep
+silence, and at the same time to bespeak attention.
+
+The White Lady then seemed to press one of the planks of the floor with
+her foot, while, in her usual low, melancholy, and musical chant, she
+repeated the following verses:
+
+  "Maiden, whose sorrows wail the Living Dead,
+    Whose eyes shall commune with the Dead Alive,
+  Maiden, attend! Beneath my foot lies hid
+    The Word, the Law, the Path, which thou dost strive
+  To find and canst not find.--Could spirits shed
+    Tears for their lot, it were my lot to weep,
+  Showing the road which I shall never tread,
+    Though my foot points it.--Sleep, eternal sleep,
+  Dark, long, and cold forgetfulness my lot!--
+    But do not thou at human ills repine,
+  Secure there lies full guerdon in this spot
+    For all the woes that wait frail Adam's line--
+  Stoop, then, and make it yours--I may not make it mine!"
+
+The phantom stooped towards the floor as she concluded, as if with the
+intention of laying her hand on the board on which she stood. But
+ere she had completed that gesture, her form became indistinct, was
+presently only like the shade of a fleecy cloud, which passed betwixt
+earth and the moon, and was soon altogether invisible.
+
+A strong impression of fear, the first which she had experienced in her
+life to any agitating extent, seized upon the mind of Mary Avenel, and
+for a minute she felt a disposition to faint. She repelled it, however,
+mustered her courage, and addressed herself to saints and angels, as
+her church recommended. Broken slumbers at length stole on her exhausted
+mind and frame, and she slept until the dawn was about to rise, when
+she was awakened by the cry of "Treason! treason! follow, follow!" which
+arose in the tower, when it was found that Piercie Shafton had made his
+escape.
+
+Apprehensive of some new misfortune, Mary Avenel hastily arranged the
+dress which she had not laid aside, and, venturing to quit her chamber,
+learned from Tibb, who, with her gray hairs dishevelled like those of
+a sibyl, was flying from room to room, that the bloody Southron villain
+had made his escape, and that Halbert Glendinning, poor bairn,
+would sleep unrevenged and unquiet in his bloody grave. In the lower
+apartments, the young men were roaring like thunder, and venting
+in oaths and exclamations against the fugitives the rage which they
+experienced in finding themselves locked up within the tower, and
+debarred from their vindictive pursuit by the wily precautions of Mysie
+Happer. The authoritative voice of the Sub-Prior commanding silence was
+next heard; upon which Mary Avenel, whose tone of feeling did not lead
+her to enter into counsel or society with the rest of the party, again
+retired to her solitary chamber.
+
+The rest of the family held counsel in the spence, Edward almost beside
+himself with rage, and the Sub-Prior in no small degree offended at the
+effrontery of Mysie Happer in attempting such a scheme, as well as at
+the mingled boldness and dexterity with which it had been executed. But
+neither surprise nor anger availed aught. The windows, well secured
+with iron bars for keeping assailants out, proved now as effectual for
+detaining the inhabitants within. The battlements were open, indeed; but
+without ladder or ropes to act as a substitute for wings, there was no
+possibility of descending from them. They easily succeeded in alarming
+the inhabitants of the cottages beyond the precincts of the court; but
+the men had been called in to strengthen the guard for the night, and
+only women and children remained who could contribute nothing in the
+emergency, except their useless exclamations of surprise, and there were
+no neighbours for miles around. Dame Elspeth, however, though drowned in
+tears, was not so unmindful of external affairs, but that she could find
+voice enough to tell the women and children without, to "leave their
+skirling, and look after the cows that she couldna get minded, what
+wi' the awfu' distraction of her mind, what wi' that fause slut having
+locked them up in their ain tower as fast as if they had been in the
+Jeddart tolbooth."
+
+Meanwhile, the men finding other modes of exit impossible, unanimously
+concluded to force the doors with such tools as the house afforded
+for the purpose. These were not very proper for the occasion, and
+the strength of the doors was great. The interior one, formed of oak,
+occupied them for three mortal hours, and there was little prospect of
+the iron door being forced in double the time.
+
+While they were engaged in this ungrateful toil, Mary Avenel had
+with much less labour acquired exact knowledge of what the Spirit had
+intimated in her mystic rhyme. On examining the spot which the phantom
+had indicated by her gestures, it was not difficult to discover that a
+board had been loosened, which might be raised at pleasure. On removing
+this piece of plank, Mary Avenel was astonished to find the Black Book,
+well remembered by her as her mother's favourite study, of which she
+immediately took possession, with as much joy as her present situation
+rendered her capable of feeling.
+
+Ignorant in a great measure of its contents, Mary Avenel had been
+taught from her infancy to hold this volume in sacred veneration. It
+is probable that the deceased Lady of Walter Avenel only postponed
+initiating her daughter into the mysteries of the Divine Word, until she
+should be better able to comprehend both the lessons which it taught,
+and the risk at which, in those times, they were studied. Death
+interposed, and removed her before the times became favourable to the
+reformers, and before her daughter was so far advanced in age as to
+be fit to receive religious instruction of this deep import. But the
+affectionate mother had made preparations for the earthly work which she
+had most at heart. There were slips of paper inserted in the volume, in
+which, by an appeal to, and a comparison of, various passages in holy
+writ, the errors and human inventions with which the Church of Rome had
+defaced the simple edifice of Christianity, as erected by its divine
+architect, were pointed out. These controversial topics were treated
+with a spirit of calmness and Christian charity, which might have been
+an example to the theologians of the period; but they were clearly,
+fairly, and plainly argued, and supported by the necessary proofs and
+references. Other papers there were which had no reference whatever to
+polemics, but were the simple effusions of a devout mind communing with
+itself. Among these was one frequently used, as it seemed from the
+state of the manuscript, on which the mother of Mary had transcribed and
+placed together those affecting texts to which the heart has recourse,
+in affliction, and which assures us at once of the sympathy and
+protection afforded to the children of the promise. In Mary Avenel's
+state of mind, these attracted her above all the other lessons, which,
+coming from a hand so dear, had reached her at a time so critical, and
+in a manner so touching. She read the affecting promise, "I will never
+leave thee nor forsake thee," and the consoling exhortation, "Call upon
+me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee." She read them, and
+her heart acquiesced in the conclusion. Surely this is the word of God!
+
+There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and
+tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry
+and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its "still small
+voice" amid rural leisure and placid contentment. But perhaps the
+knowledge which causeth not to err, is most frequently impressed upon
+the mind during seasons of affliction; and tears are the softened
+showers which cause the seed of Heaven to spring and take root in the
+human breast. At least it was thus with Mary Avenel. She was insensible
+to the discordant noise which rang below, the clang of bars and the
+jarring symphony of the levers which they used to force them, the
+measured shouts of the labouring inmates as they combined their strength
+for each heave, and gave time with their voices to the exertion of their
+arms, and their deeply muttered vows of revenge on the fugitives who had
+bequeathed them at their departure a task so toilsome and difficult. Not
+all this din, combined in hideous concert, and expressive of aught but
+peace, love, and forgiveness, could divert Mary Avenel from the new
+course of study on which she had so singularly entered. "The serenity
+of Heaven," she said, "is above me; the sounds which are around are but
+those of earth and earthly passion."
+
+Meanwhile the noon was passed, and little impression was made on the
+iron grate, when they who laboured at it received a sudden reinforcement
+by the unexpected arrival of Christie of the Clinthill. He came at the
+head of a small party, consisting of four horsemen, who bore in their
+caps the sprig of holly, which was the badge of Avenel.
+
+"What, ho!--my masters," he said, "I bring you a prisoner."
+
+"You had better have brought us liberty," said Dan of the Howlet-hirst.
+
+Christie looked at the state of affairs with great surprise. "An I were
+to be hanged for it," he said, "as I may for as little a matter, I could
+not forbear laughing at seeing men peeping through their own bars like
+so many rats in a rat-trap, and he with the beard behind, like the
+oldest rat in the cellar."
+
+"Hush, thou unmannered knave," said Edward, "it is the Sub-Prior; and
+this is neither time, place, nor company, for your ruffian jests."
+
+"What, ho! is my young master malapert?" said Christie; "why, man, were
+he my own carnal father, instead of being father to half the world,
+I would have my laugh out. And now it is over, I must assist you, I
+reckon, for you are setting very greenly about this gear--put the pinch
+nearer the staple, man, and hand me an iron crow through the grate, for
+that's the fowl to fly away with a wicket on its shoulders. I have broke
+into as many grates as you have teeth in your young head--ay, and broke
+out of them too, as the captain of the Castle of Lochmaben knows full
+well."
+
+Christie did not boast more skill than he really possessed; for,
+applying their combined strength, under the direction of that
+experienced engineer, bolt and staple gave way before them, and in less
+than half an hour, the grate, which had so long repelled their force,
+stood open before them.
+
+"And now," said Edward, "to horse, my mates, and pursue the villain
+Shafton!"
+
+"Halt, there," said Christie of the Clinthill; "pursue your guest, my
+master's friend and my own?--there go two words to that bargain. What
+the foul fiend would you pursue him for?"
+
+"Let me pass," said Edward, vehemently, "I will be staid by no man--the
+villain has murdered my brother!"
+
+"What says he?" said Christie, turning to the others; "murdered? who is
+murdered, and by whom?"
+
+"The Englishman, Sir Piercie Shafton," said Dan of the Howlet-hirst,
+"has murdered young Halbert Glendinning yesterday morning, and we have
+all risen to the fray."
+
+"It is a bedlam business, I think," said Christie. "First I find you all
+locked up in your own tower, and next I am come to prevent you revenging
+a murder that was never committed!"
+
+"I tell you," said Edward, "that my brother was slain and buried
+yesterday morning by this false Englishman."
+
+"And I tell you," answered Christie, "that I saw him alive and well last
+night. I would I knew his trick of getting out of the grave; most men
+find it more hard to break through a green sod than a grated door."
+
+Every body now paused, and looked on Christie in astonishment, until the
+Sub-Prior, who had hitherto avoided communication with him, came up and
+required earnestly to know, whether he meant really to maintain that
+Halbert Glendinning lived.
+
+"Father," he said, with, more respect than he usually showed to any
+one save his master, "I confess I may sometimes jest with those of your
+coat, but not with you; because, as you may partly recollect, I owe you
+a life. It is certain as the sun is in heaven, that Halbert Glendinning
+supped at the house of my master the Baron of Avenel last night, and
+that he came thither in company with an old man, of whom more anon."
+
+"And where is he now?"
+
+"The devil only can answer that question," replied Christie, "for the
+devil has possessed the whole family, I think. He took fright, the
+foolish lad, at something or other which our Baron did in his moody
+humour, and so he jumped into the lake and swam ashore like a wild-duck.
+Robin of Redcastle spoiled a good gelding in chasing him this morning."
+
+"And why did he chase the youth?" said the Sub-Prior; "what harm had he
+done?"
+
+"None that I know of," said Christie; "but such was the Baron's order,
+being in his mood, and all the world having gone mad, as I have said
+before."
+
+"Whither away so fast, Edward?" said the monk.
+
+"To Corri-nan-shian, Father," answered the youth.--"Martin and Dan, take
+pickaxe and mattock, and follow me if you be men!"
+
+"Right," said the monk, "and fail not to give us instant notice what you
+find."
+
+"If you find aught there like Halbert Glendinning," said Christie,
+hallooing after Edward, "I will be bound to eat him unsalted.--'T is
+a sight to see how that fellow takes the bent!--It is in the time of
+action men see what lads are made of. Halbert was aye skipping up and
+down like a roo, and his brother used to sit in the chimney nook with
+his book and sic-like trash--But the lad was like a loaded hackbut,
+which will stand in the corner as quiet as an old crutch until ye draw
+the trigger, and then there is nothing but flash and smoke.--But here
+comes my prisoner; and, setting other matters aside, I must pray a word
+with you, Sir Sub-Prior, respecting him. I came on before to treat about
+him, but I was interrupted with this fasherie."
+
+As he spoke, two more of Avenel's troopers rode into the court-yard,
+leading betwixt them a horse, on which, with his hands bound to his
+side, sate the reformed preacher, Henry Warden.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-First.
+
+
+  At school I knew him--a sharp-witted youth,
+  Grave, thoughtful, and reserved among his mates,
+  Turning the hours of sport and food to labour,
+  Starving his body to inform his mind.
+                                           OLD PLAY.
+
+The Sub-Prior, at the Borderer's request, had not failed to return to
+the tower, into which he was followed by Christie of the Clinthill, who,
+shutting the door of the apartment, drew near, and began his discourse
+with great confidence and familiarity.
+
+"My master," he said, "sends me with his commendations to you, Sir
+Sub-Prior, above all the community of Saint Mary's, and more specially
+than even to the Abbot himself; for though he be termed my lord, and so
+forth, all the world knows that you are the tongue of the trump."
+
+"If you have aught to say to me concerning the community," said the
+Sub-Prior, "it were well you proceeded in it without farther delay. Time
+presses, and the fate of young Glendinnning dwells on my mind."
+
+"I will be caution for him, body for body," said Christie. "I do protest
+to you, as sure as I am a living man, so surely is he one."
+
+"Should I not tell his unhappy mother the joyful tidings?" said Father
+Eustace,--"and yet better wait till they return from searching the
+grave. Well, Sir Jackman, your message to me from your master?"
+
+"My lord and master," said Christie, "hath good reason to believe that,
+from the information of certain back friends, whom he will reward at
+more leisure, your reverend community hath been led to deem him ill
+attached to Holy Church, allied with heretics and those who favour
+heresy, and a hungerer after the spoils of your Abbey."
+
+"Be brief, good henchman," said the Sub-Prior, "for the devil is ever
+most to be feared when he preacheth."
+
+"Briefly, then--my master desires your friendship; and to excuse himself
+from the maligner's calumnies, he sends to your Abbot that Henry Warden,
+whose sermons have turned the world upside down, to be dealt with as
+Holy Church directs, and as the Abbot's pleasure may determine."
+
+The Sub-Prior's eyes sparkled at the intelligence; for it had been
+accounted a matter of great importance that this man should be arrested,
+possessed, as he was known to be, of so much zeal and popularity, that
+scarcely the preaching of Knox himself had been more awakening to the
+people, and more formidable to the Church of Rome.
+
+In fact, that ancient system, which so well accommodated its doctrines
+to the wants and wishes of a barbarous age, had, since the art of
+printing, and the gradual diffusion of knowledge, lain floating like
+some huge Leviathan, into which ten thousand reforming fishers were
+darting their harpoons. The Roman Church of Scotland, in particular,
+was at her last gasp, actually blowing blood and water, yet still with
+unremitted, though animal exertions, maintaining the conflict with the
+assailants, who on every side were plunging their weapons into her bulky
+body. In many large towns, the monasteries had been suppressed by
+the fury of the populace; in other places, their possessions had been
+usurped by the power of the reformed nobles; but still the hierarchy
+made a part of the common law of the realm, and might claim both its
+property and its privileges wherever it had the means of asserting them.
+The community of Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair was considered as being
+particularly in this situation. They had retained, undiminished,
+their territorial power and influence; and the great barons in the
+neighbourhood, partly from their attachment to the party in the state
+who still upheld the old system of religion, partly because each grudged
+the share of the prey which the others must necessarily claim, had
+as yet abstained from despoiling the Halidome. The Community was also
+understood to be protected by the powerful Earls of Northumberland and
+Westmoreland, whose zealous attachment to the Catholic faith caused at a
+later period the great rebellion of the tenth of Elizabeth.
+
+Thus happily placed, it was supposed by the friends of the decaying
+cause of the Roman Catholic faith, that some determined example of
+courage and resolution, exercised where the franchises of the church
+were yet entire, and her jurisdiction undisputed, might awe the progress
+of the new opinions into activity; and, protected by the laws which
+still existed, and by the favour of the sovereign, might be the means of
+securing the territory which Rome yet preserved in Scotland, and perhaps
+of recovering that which she had lost.
+
+The matter had been considered more than once by the northern Catholics
+of Scotland, and they had held communication with those of the south.
+Father Eustace, devoted by his public and private vows, had caught the
+flame, and had eagerly advised that they should execute the doom of
+heresy on the first reformed preacher, or, according to his sense, on
+the first heretic of eminence, who should venture within the precincts
+of the Halidome. A heart, naturally kind and noble, was, in this
+instance, as it has been in many more, deceived by its own generosity.
+Father Eustace would have been a bad administrator of the inquisitorial
+power of Spain, where that power was omnipotent, and where judgment was
+exercised without danger to those who inflicted it. In such a situation
+his rigour might have relented in favour of the criminal, whom it was
+at his pleasure to crush or to place at freedom. But in Scotland, during
+this crisis, the case was entirely different. The question was, whether
+one of the spirituality dared, at the hazard of his own life, to step
+forward to assert and exercise the rights of the church. Was there any
+who would venture to wield the thunder in her cause, or must it remain
+like that in the hand of a painted Jupiter, the object of derision
+instead of terror? The crisis was calculated to awake the soul of
+Eustace; for it comprised the question, whether he dared, at all hazards
+to himself, to execute with stoical severity a measure which, according
+to the general opinion, was to be advantageous to the church, and,
+according to ancient law, and to his firm belief, was not only
+justifiable but meritorious.
+
+While such resolutions were agitated amongst the Catholics, chance
+placed a victim within their grasp. Henry Warden had, with the animation
+proper to the enthusiastic reformers of the age, transgressed, in the
+vehemence of his zeal, the bounds of the discretional liberty allowed
+to his sect so far, that it was thought the Queen's personal dignity
+was concerned in bringing him to justice. He fled from Edinburgh,
+with recommendations, however, from Lord James Stewart, afterwards the
+celebrated Earl of Murray, to some of the Border chieftains of inferior
+rank, who were privately conjured to procure him safe passage into
+England. One of the principal persons to whom such recommendation was
+addressed, was Julian Avenel; for as yet, and for a considerable time
+afterwards, the correspondence and interest of Lord James lay rather
+with the subordinate leaders than with the chiefs of great power,
+and men of distinguished influence upon the Border. Julian Avenel had
+intrigued without scruple with both parties--yet bad as he was, he
+certainly would not have practised aught against the guest whom Lord
+James had recommended to his hospitality, had it not been for what he
+termed the preacher's officious inter-meddling in his family affairs.
+But when he had determined to make Warden rue the lecture he had read
+him, and the scene of public scandal which he had caused in his hall,
+Julian resolved, with the constitutional shrewdness of his disposition,
+to combine his vengeance with his interest. And therefore, instead of
+doing violence on the person of Henry Warden within his own castle, he
+determined to deliver him up to the Community of Saint Mary's, and at
+once make them the instruments of his own revenge, and found a claim of
+personal recompense, either in money, or in a grant of Abbey lands at a
+low quit-rent, which last began now to be the established form in which
+the temporal nobles plundered the spirituality.
+
+The Sub-Prior, therefore, of Saint Mary's, unexpectedly saw the
+steadfast, active, and inflexible enemy of the church delivered into
+his hand, and felt himself called upon to make good his promises to the
+friends of the Catholic faith, by quenching heresy in the blood of one
+of its most zealous professors.
+
+To the honour more of Father Eustace's heart than of his consistency,
+the communication that Henry Warden was placed within his power, struck
+him with more sorrow than triumph; but his next feelings were those of
+exultation. "It is sad," he said to himself, "to cause human suffering;
+it is awful to cause human blood to be spilled; but the judge to
+whom the sword of Saint Paul, as well as the keys of Saint Peter, are
+confided, must not flinch from his task. Our weapon returns into our
+own bosom, if not wielded with a steady and unrelenting hand against the
+irreconcilable enemies of the Holy Church. _Pereat iste!_ It is the doom
+he has incurred, and were all the heretics in Scotland armed and at his
+back, they should not prevent its being pronounced, and, if possible,
+enforced.--Bring the heretic before me," he said, issuing his commands
+aloud, and in a tone of authority.
+
+Henry Warden was led in, his hands still bound, but his feet at liberty.
+
+"Clear the apartment," said the Sub-Prior, "of all but the necessary
+guard on the prisoner."
+
+All retired except Christie of the Clinthill, who, having dismissed the
+inferior troopers whom he commanded, unsheathed his sword, and placed
+himself beside the door, as if taking upon him the character of
+sentinel.
+
+The judge and the accused met face to face, and in that of both was
+enthroned the noble confidence of rectitude. The monk was about, at
+the utmost risk to himself and his community, to exercise what in his
+ignorance he conceived to be his duty. The preacher, actuated by a
+better-informed, yet not a more ardent zeal, was prompt to submit to
+execution for God's sake, and to seal, were it necessary, his mission
+with his blood. Placed at such a distance of time as better enables us
+to appreciate the tendency of the principles on which they severally
+acted, we cannot doubt to which the palm ought to be awarded. But the
+zeal of Father Eustace was as free from passion and personal views as if
+it had been exerted in a better cause.
+
+They approached each other, armed each and prepared for intellectual
+conflict, and each intently regarding his opponent, as if either hoped
+to spy out some defect, some chasm in the armour of his antagonist.--As
+they gazed on each other, old recollections began to awake in either
+bosom, at the sight of features long unseen and much altered, but not
+forgotten. The brow of the Sub-Prior dismissed by degrees its frown of
+command, the look of calm yet stern defiance gradually vanished from
+that of Warden, and both lost for an instant that of gloomy solemnity.
+They had been ancient and intimate friends in youth at a foreign
+university, but had been long separated from each other; and the change
+of name, which the preacher had adopted from motives of safety, and
+the monk from the common custom of the convent, had prevented the
+possibility of their hitherto recognizing each other in the opposite
+parts which they had been playing in the great polemical and political
+drama. But now the Sub-Prior exclaimed, "Henry Wellwood!" and the
+preacher replied, "William Allan!"--and, stirred by the old familiar
+names, and never-to-be-forgotten recollections of college studies and
+college intimacy, their hands were for a moment locked in each other.
+
+"Remove his bonds," said the Sub-Prior, and assisted Christie in
+performing that office with his own hands, although the prisoner
+scarcely would consent to be unbound, repeating with emphasis, that he
+rejoiced in the cause for which he suffered shame. When his hands
+were at liberty, however, he showed his sense of the kindness by again
+exchanging a grasp and a look of affection with the Sub-Prior.
+
+The salute was frank and generous on either side, yet it was but the
+friendly recognition and greeting which are wont to take place betwixt
+adverse champions, who do nothing in hate but all in honour. As each
+felt the pressure of the situation in which they stood, he quitted the
+grasp of the other's hand, and fell back, confronting each other with
+looks more calm and sorrowful than expressive of any other passion. The
+Sub-Prior was the first to speak.
+
+"And is this, then, the end of that restless activity of mind, that bold
+and indefatigable love of truth that urged investigation to its
+utmost limits, and seemed to take heaven itself by storm--is this the
+termination of Wellwood's career?--And having known and loved him during
+the best years of our youth, do we meet in our old age as judge and
+criminal?"
+
+"Not as judge and criminal," said Henry Warden,--for to avoid confusion
+we describe him by his later and best known name--"Not as judge and
+criminal do we meet, but as a misguided oppressor and his ready and
+devoted victim. I, too, may ask, are these the harvest of the rich hopes
+excited by the classical learning, acute logical powers, and varied
+knowledge of William Allan, that he should sink to be the solitary
+drone of a cell, graced only above the swarm with the high commission of
+executing Roman malice on all who oppose Roman imposture?"
+
+"Not to thee," answered the Sub-Prior, "be assured--not unto thee, nor
+unto mortal man, will I render an account of the power with which the
+church may have invested me. It was granted but as a deposit for her
+welfare--for her welfare it shall at every risk be exercised, without
+fear and without favour."
+
+"I expected no less from your misguided zeal," answered the preacher;
+"and in me have you met one on whom you may fearlessly exercise your
+authority, secure that his mind at least will defy your influence, as
+the snows of that Mont Blanc which we saw together, shrink not under the
+heat of the hottest summer sun."
+
+"I do believe thee," said the Sub-Prior, "I do believe that thine is
+indeed metal unmalleable by force. Let it yield then to persuasion. Let
+us debate these matters of faith, as we once were wont to conduct our
+scholastic disputes, when hours, nay, days, glided past in the mutual
+exercise of our intellectual powers. It may be thou mayest yet hear the
+voice of the shepherd, and return to the universal fold."
+
+"No, Allan," replied the prisoner, "this is no vain question, devised by
+dreaming scholiasts, on which they may whet their intellectual faculties
+until the very metal be wasted away. The errors which I combat are like
+those fiends which are only cast out by fasting and prayer. Alas! not
+many wise, not many learned are chosen; the cottage and the hamlet shall
+in our days bear witness against the schools and their disciples. Thy
+very wisdom, which is foolishness, hath made thee, as the Greeks of old,
+hold as foolishness that which is the only true wisdom."
+
+"This," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, "is the mere cant of ignorant
+enthusiasm, which appealeth from learning and from authority, from the
+sure guidance of that lamp which God hath afforded us in the Councils
+and in the Fathers of the Church, to a rash, self-willed, and arbitrary
+interpretation of the Scriptures, wrested according to the private
+opinion of each speculating heretic."
+
+"I disdain to reply to the charge," replied Warden. "The question at
+issue between your Church and mine, is, whether we will be judged by the
+Holy Scriptures, or by the devices and decisions of men not less subject
+to error than ourselves, and who have defaced our holy religion with
+vain devices, reared up idols of stone and wood, in form of those, who,
+when they lived, were but sinful creatures, to share the worship due
+only to the Creator--established a toll-house betwixt heaven and hell,
+that profitable purgatory of which the Pope keeps the keys, like an
+iniquitous judge commutes punishment for bribes, and----"
+
+"Silence, blasphemer," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, "or I will have thy
+blatant obloquy stopped with a gag!"
+
+"Ay," replied Warden, "such is the freedom of the Christian conference
+to which Rome's priests so kindly invite us!--the gag--the rack--the
+axe--is the _ratio ultima Romae_. But know thou, mine ancient friend,
+that the character of thy former companion is not so changed by age, but
+that he still dares to endure for the cause of truth all that thy proud
+hierarchy shall dare to inflict."
+
+"Of that," said the monk, "I nothing doubt--Thou wert ever a lion to
+turn against the spear of the hunter, not a stag to be dismayed at the
+sound of his bugle."--He walked through the room in silence. "Wellwood,"
+he said at length, "we can no longer be friends. Our faith, our hope,
+our anchor on futurity, is no longer the same."
+
+"Deep is my sorrow that thou speakest truth. May God so judge me," said
+the Reformer, "as I would buy the conversion of a soul like thine with
+my dearest heart's blood."
+
+"To thee, and with better reason, do I return the wish," replied the
+Sub-Prior; "it is such an arm as thine that should defend the bulwarks
+of the Church, and it is now directing the battering-ram against them,
+and rendering practicable the breach through which all that is greedy,
+and all that is base, and all that is mutable and hot-headed in this
+innovating age, already hope to advance to destruction and to spoil.
+But since such is our fate, that we can no longer fight side by side
+as friends, let us at least act as generous enemies. You cannot have
+forgotten,
+
+  'O gran bonta dei caralieri antiqui!
+  Erano nemici, eran' de fede diversa'--
+
+Although, perhaps," he added, stopping short in his quotation, "your new
+faith forbids you to reserve a place in your memory, even for what high
+poets have recorded of loyal faith and generous sentiment."
+
+"The faith of Buchanan," replied the preacher, "the faith of Buchanan
+and of Beza, cannot be unfriendly to literature. But the poet you have
+quoted affords strains fitter for a dissolute court than for a convent."
+
+"I might retort on your Theodore Beza," said the Sub-Prior, smiling;
+"but I hate the judgment that, like the flesh-fly, skims over whatever
+is sound, to detect and settle upon some spot which is tainted. But to
+the purpose. If I conduct thee or send thee a prisoner to St. Mary's,
+thou art to-night a tenant of the dungeon, to-morrow a burden to the
+gibbet-tree. If I were to let thee go hence at large, I were thereby
+wronging the Holy Church, and breaking mine own solemn vow. Other
+resolutions may be adopted in the capital, or better times may speedily
+ensue. Wilt thou remain a true prisoner upon thy parole, rescue or no
+rescue, as is the phrase amongst the warriors of this country? Wilt
+thou solemnly promise that thou wilt do so, and at my summons thou wilt
+present thyself before the Abbot and Chapter at Saint Mary's, and that
+thou wilt not stir from this house above a quarter of a mile in any
+direction? Wilt thou, I say, engage me thy word for this? and such is
+the sure trust which I repose in thy good faith, that thou shalt remain
+here unharmed and unsecured, a prisoner at large, subject only to appear
+before our court when called upon."
+
+The preacher paused--"I am unwilling," he said, "to fetter my native
+liberty by any self-adopted engagement. But I am already in your power,
+and you may bind me to my answer. By such promise, to abide within
+a certain limit, and to appear when called upon, I renounce not any
+liberty which I at present possess, and am free to exercise; but, on the
+contrary, being in bonds, and at your mercy, I acquire thereby a liberty
+which I at present possess not. I will therefore accept of thy proffer,
+as what is courteously offered on thy part, and may be honourably
+accepted on mine."
+
+"Stay yet," said the Sub-Prior; "one important part of thy engagement is
+forgotten--thou art farther to promise, that while thus left at liberty,
+thou wilt not preach or teach, directly or indirectly, any of those
+pestilent heresies by which so many souls have been in this our day won
+over from the kingdom of light to the kingdom of darkness."
+
+"There we break off our treaty," said Warden, firmly--"Wo unto me if I
+preach not the Gospel!"
+
+The Sub-Prior's countenance became clouded, and he again paced the
+apartment, and muttered, "A plague upon the self-willed fool!" then
+stopped short in his walk, and proceeded in his argument.--"Why, by
+thine own reasoning, Henry, thy refusal here is but peevish obstinacy.
+It is in my power to place you where your preaching can reach no human
+ear; in promising therefore to abstain from it, you grant nothing which
+you have it in your power to refuse."
+
+"I know not that," replied Henry Warden; "thou mayest indeed cast me
+into a dungeon, but can I foretell that my Master hath not task-work for
+me to perform even in that dreary mansion? The chains of saints have,
+ere now, been the means of breaking the bonds of Satan. In a prison,
+holy Paul found the jailor whom he brought to believe the word of
+salvation, he and all his house."
+
+"Nay," said the Sub-Prior, in a tone betwixt anger and scorn, "if
+you match yourself with the blessed Apostle, it were time we had
+done--prepare to endure what thy folly, as well as thy heresy,
+deserves.--Bind him, soldier."
+
+With proud submission to his fate, and regarding the Sub-Prior with
+something which almost amounted to a smile of superiority, the preacher
+placed his arms so that the bonds could be again fastened round him.
+
+"Spare me not," he said to Christie; for even that ruffian hesitated to
+draw the cord straitly.
+
+The Sub-Prior, meanwhile, looked at him from under his cowl, which he
+had drawn over his head, and partly over his face, as if he wished to
+shade his own emotions. They were those of a huntsman within point-blank
+shot of a noble stag, who is yet too much struck with his majesty of
+front and of antler to take aim at him. They were those of a fowler,
+who, levelling his gun at a magnificent eagle, is yet reluctant to use
+his advantage when he sees the noble sovereign of the birds pruning
+himself in proud defiance of whatever may be attempted against him. The
+heart of the Sub-Prior (bigoted as he was) relented, and he doubted
+if he ought to purchase, by a rigorous discharge of what he deemed his
+duty, the remorse he might afterwards feel for the death of one so nobly
+independent in thought and character, the friend, besides, of his own
+happiest years, during which they had, side by side, striven in the
+noble race of knowledge, and indulged their intervals of repose in the
+lighter studies of classical and general letters.
+
+The Sub-Prior's hand pressed his half-o'ershadowed cheek, and his eye,
+more completely obscured, was bent on the ground, as if to hide the
+workings of his relenting nature.
+
+"Were but Edward safe from the infection," he thought to
+himself--"Edward, whose eager and enthusiastic mind presses forward in
+the chase of all that hath even the shadow of knowledge, I might trust
+this enthusiast with the women, after due caution to them that they
+cannot, without guilt, attend to his reveries."
+
+As the Sub-Prior revolved these thoughts, and delayed the definitive
+order which was to determine the fate of the prisoner, a sudden noise
+at the entrance of the tower diverted his attention for an instant, and,
+his cheek and brow inflamed with all the glow of heat and determination,
+Edward Glendinning rushed into the room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Second.
+
+
+  Then in my gown of sober gray
+    Along the mountain path I'll wander,
+  And wind my solitary way
+    To the sad shrine that courts me yonder.
+
+  There, in the calm monastic shade,
+    All injuries may be forgiven;
+  And there for thee, obdurate maid,
+    My orisons shall rise to heaven.
+          THE CRUEL LADY OF THE MOUNTAINS.
+
+The first words which Edward uttered were,--"My brother is safe,
+reverend father--he is safe, thank God, and lives!--There is not in
+Corri-nan-shian a grave, nor a vestige of a grave. The turf around the
+fountain has neither been disturbed by pick-axe, spade, nor mattock,
+since the deer's-hair first sprang there. He lives as surely as I live!"
+
+The earnestness of the youth--the vivacity with which he looked and
+moved--the springy step, outstretched hand, and ardent eye, reminded
+Henry Warden of Halbert, so lately his guide. The brothers had indeed
+a strong family resemblance, though Halbert was far more athletic and
+active in his person, taller and better knit in the limbs, and though
+Edward had, on ordinary occasions, a look of more habitual acuteness
+and more profound reflection. The preacher was interested as well as the
+Sub-Prior.
+
+"Of whom do you speak, my son?" he said, in a tone as unconcerned as if
+his own fate had not been at the same instant trembling in the balance,
+and as if a dungeon and death did not appear to be his instant doom--"Of
+whom, I say, speak you? If of a youth somewhat older than you seem to
+be--brown-haired, open-featured, taller and stronger than you appear,
+yet having much of the same air and of the same tone of voice--if such a
+one is the brother whom you seek, it may be I can tell you news of him."
+
+"Speak, then, for Heaven's sake," said Edward--"life or death lies on
+thy tongue!"
+
+The Sub-Prior joined eagerly in the same request, and, without waiting
+to be urged, the preacher gave so minute an account of the circumstances
+under which he met the elder Glendinning, with so exact a description
+of his person, that there remained no doubt as to his identity. When he
+mentioned that Halbert Glendinning had conducted him to a dell in which
+they found the grass bloody, and a grave newly closed, and told how
+the youth accused himself of the slaughter of Sir Piercie Shafton, the
+Sub-Prior looked on Edward with astonishment.
+
+"Didst thou not say, even now," he said, "that there was no vestige of a
+grave in that spot?"
+
+"No more vestige of the earth having been removed than if the turf had
+grown there since the days of Adam," replied Edward Glendinning. "It is
+true," he added, "that the adjacent grass was trampled and bloody."
+
+"These are delusions of the Enemy," said the Sub-Prior, crossing
+himself.--"Christian men may no longer doubt of it."
+
+"But an it be so," said Warden, "Christian men might better guard
+themselves by the sword of prayer than by the idle form of a
+cabalistical spell."
+
+"The badge of our salvation," said the Sub-Prior, "cannot be so
+termed--the sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."
+
+"Ay," answered Henry Warden, apt and armed for controversy, "but it
+should be borne in the heart, not scored with the fingers in the air.
+That very impassive air, through which your hand passes, shall as soon
+bear the imprint of your action, as the external action shall avail the
+fond bigot who substitutes vain motions of the body, idle genuflections,
+and signs of the cross, for the living and heart-born duties of faith
+and good works."
+
+"I pity thee," said the Sub-Prior, as actively ready for polemics as
+himself,--"I pity thee, Henry, and reply not to thee. Thou mayest as
+well winnow forth and measure the ocean with a sieve, as mete out the
+power of holy words, deeds, and signs, by the erring gauge of thine own
+reason."
+
+"Not by mine own reason would I mete them," said Warden; "but by His
+holy Word, that unfading and unerring lamp of our paths, compared to
+which human reason is but as a glimmering and fading taper, and your
+boasted tradition only a misleading wildfire. Show me your Scripture
+warrant for ascribing virtue to such vain signs and motions!"
+
+"I offered thee a fair field of debate," said the Sub-Prior, "which thou
+didst refuse. I will not at present resume the controversy."
+
+"Were these my last accents," said the reformer, "and were they uttered
+at the stake, half-choked with smoke, and as the fagots kindled into a
+blaze around me, with that last utterance I would testify against the
+superstitious devices of Rome."
+
+The Sub-Prior suppressed with pain the controversial answer which arose
+to his lips, and, turning to Edward Glendinning, he said, "there could
+be now no doubt that his mother ought presently to be informed that her
+son lived."
+
+"I told you that two hours since," said Christie of the Clinthill, "an
+you would have believed me. But it seems you are more willing to take
+the word of an old gray sorner, whose life has been spent in pattering
+heresy, than mine, though I never rode a foray in my life without duly
+saying my paternoster."
+
+"Go then," said Father Eustace to Edward; "let thy sorrowing mother know
+that her son is restored to her from the grave, like the child of the
+widow of Zarephath; at the intercession," he added, looking at Henry
+Warden, "of the blessed Saint whom I invoked in his behalf."
+
+"Deceived thyself," said Warden, instantly, "thou art a deceiver of
+others. It was no dead man, no creature of clay, whom the blessed
+Tishbite invoked, when, stung by the reproach of the Shunamite woman, he
+prayed that her son's soul might come into him again."
+
+"It was by his intercession, however," repeated the Sub-Prior; "for
+what says the Vulgate? Thus it is written: '_Et exaudivit Dominus vocem
+Helie; et reversa est anima pueri intra cum, et revixit_;'--and thinkest
+thou the intercession of a glorified saint is more feeble than when he
+walks on earth, shrouded in a tabernacle of clay, and seeing but with
+the eye of flesh?"
+
+During this controversy Edward Glendinning appeared restless and
+impatient, agitated by some internal feeling, but whether of joy, grief,
+or expectation, his countenance did not expressly declare. He took now
+the unusual freedom to break in upon the discourse of the Sub-Prior,
+who, notwithstanding his resolution to the contrary, was obviously
+kindling in the spirit of controversy, which Edward diverted by
+conjuring his reverence to allow him to speak a few words with him in
+private.
+
+"Remove the prisoner," said the Sub-Prior to Christie; "look to him
+carefully that he escape not; but for thy life do him no injury."
+
+His commands being obeyed, Edward and the monk were left alone, when the
+Sub-Prior thus addressed him:
+
+"What hath come over thee, Edward, that thy eye kindles so wildly, and
+thy cheek is thus changing from scarlet to pale? Why didst thou break
+in so hastily and unadvisedly upon the argument with which I was
+prostrating yonder heretic? And wherefore dost thou not tell thy mother
+that her son is restored to her by the intercession, as Holy Church well
+warrants us to believe, of Blessed Saint Benedict, the patron of our
+Order? For if ever my prayers were put forth to him with zeal, it hath
+been in behalf of this house, and thine eyes have seen the result--go
+tell it to thy mother."
+
+"I must tell her then," said Edward, "that if she has regained one son,
+another is lost to her."
+
+"What meanest thou, Edward? what language is this?" said the Sub-Prior.
+
+"Father," said the youth, kneeling down to him, "my sin and my shame
+shall be told thee, and thou shalt witness my penance with thine own
+eyes."
+
+"I comprehend thee not," said the Sub-Prior. "What canst thou have done
+to deserve such self-accusation?--Hast thou too listened," he added,
+knitting his brows, "to the demon of heresy, ever most effectual tempter
+of those, who, like yonder unhappy man, are distinguished by their love
+of knowledge?"
+
+"I am guiltless in that matter," answered Glendinning, "nor have
+presumed to think otherwise than thou, my kind father, hast taught me,
+and than the Church allows."
+
+"And what is it then, my son," said the Sub-Prior, kindly, "which thus
+afflicts thy conscience? speak it to me, that I may answer thee in the
+words of comfort; for the Church's mercy is great to those obedient
+children who doubt not her power."
+
+"My confession will require her mercy," replied Edward. "My brother
+Halbert--so kind, so brave, so gentle, who spoke not, thought not, acted
+not, but in love to me, whose hand had aided me in every difficulty,
+whose eye watched over me like the eagle's over her nestlings, when they
+prove their first flight from the eyry--this brother, so kind, so gently
+affectionate--I heard of his sudden, his bloody, his violent death, and
+I rejoiced--I heard of his unexpected restoration, and I sorrowed!"
+
+"Edward," said the father, "thou art beside thyself--what could urge
+thee to such odious ingratitude?--In your hurry of spirits you have
+mistaken the confused tenor of your feelings--Go, my son, pray and
+compose thy mind--we will speak of this another time."
+
+"No, father, no," said Edward, vehemently, "now or never!--I will find
+the means to tame this rebellious heart of mine, or I will tear it
+out of my bosom--Mistake its passions?--No, father, grief can ill be
+mistaken for joy--All wept, all shrieked around me--my mother--the
+menials--she too, the cause of my crime--all wept--and I--I could
+hardly disguise my brutal and insane joy under the appearance of
+revenge--Brother, I said, I cannot give thee tears, but I will give thee
+blood--Yes, father, as I counted hour after hour, while I kept watch
+upon the English prisoner, and said, I am an hour nearer to hope and to
+happiness----"
+
+"I understand thee not, Edward," said the monk, "nor can I conceive in
+what way thy brother's supposed murder should have affected thee with
+such unnatural joy--Surely the sordid desire to succeed him in his small
+possessions----"
+
+"Perish the paltry trash!" said Edward, with the same emotion. "No,
+father, it was rivalry--it was jealous rage--it was the love of Mary
+Avenel, that rendered me the unnatural wretch I confess myself!"
+
+"Of Mary Avenel!" said the Priest--"of a lady so high above either of
+you in name and in rank? How dared Halbert--how dared you, to presume to
+lift your eye to her but in honour and respect, as a superior of another
+degree from yours?"
+
+"When did love wait for the sanction of heraldry?" replied Edward; "and
+in what but a line of dead ancestors was Mary, our mother's guest and
+foster-child, different from us, with whom she was brought up?--Enough,
+we loved--we both loved her! But the passion of Halbert was requited. He
+knew it not, he saw it not--but I was sharper-eyed. I saw that even when
+I was more approved, Halbert was more beloved. With me she would sit for
+hours at our common task with the cold simplicity and indifference of
+a sister, but with Halbert she trusted not herself. She changed colour,
+she was fluttered when he approached her; and when he left her, she was
+sad, pensive, and solitary. I bore all this--I saw my rival's advancing
+progress in her affections--I bore it, father, and yet I hated him
+not--I could not hate him!"
+
+"And well for thee that thou didst not," said the father; "wild and
+headstrong as thou art, wouldst thou hate thy brother for partaking in
+thine own folly?"
+
+"Father," replied Edward, "the world esteems thee wise, and holds thy
+knowledge of mankind high; but thy question shows that thou hast never
+loved. It was by an effort that I saved myself from hating my kind
+and affectionate brother, who, all unsuspicious of my rivalry, was
+perpetually loading me with kindness. Nay, there were moods of my
+mind, in which I could return that kindness for a time with energetic
+enthusiasm. Never did I feel this so strongly as on the night which
+parted us. But I could not help rejoicing when he was swept from my
+path--could not help sorrowing when he was again restored to be a
+stumbling-block in my paths."
+
+"May God be gracious to thee, my son!" said the monk; "this is an awful
+state of mind. Even in such evil mood did the first murderer rise up
+against his brother, because Abel's was the more acceptable sacrifice."
+
+"I will wrestle with the demon which has haunted me, father," replied
+the youth, firmly--"I will wrestle with him, and I will subdue him. But
+first I must remove from the scenes which are to follow here. I cannot
+endure that I should see Mary Avenel's eyes again flash with joy at the
+restoration of her lover. It were a sight to make indeed a second Cain
+of me! My fierce, turbid, and transitory joy discharged itself in a
+thirst to commit homicide, and how can I estimate the frenzy of my
+despair?"
+
+"Madman!" said the Sub-Prior, "at what dreadful crime does thy fury
+drive?"
+
+"My lot is determined, father," said Edward, in a resolute tone; "I will
+embrace the spiritual state which you have so oft recommended. It is my
+purpose to return with you to Saint Mary's, and, with the permission
+of the Holy Virgin and of Saint Benedict, to offer my profession to the
+Abbot."
+
+"Not now, my son," said the Sub-Prior, "not in this distemperature
+of mind. The wise and good accept not gifts which are made in heat
+of blood, and which may be after repented of; and shall we make
+our offerings to wisdom and to goodness itself with less of solemn
+resolution and deep devotion of mind, than is necessary to make them
+acceptable to our own frail companions in this valley of darkness? This
+I say to thee, my son, not as meaning to deter thee from the good path
+thou art now inclined to prefer, but that thou mayst make thy vocation
+and thine election sure."
+
+"There are actions, father," returned Edward, "which brook no delay, and
+this is one. It must be done this very _now_; or it may never be done.
+Let me go with you; let me not behold the return of Halbert into this
+house. Shame, and the sense of the injustice I have already done him,
+will join with these dreadful passions which urge me to do him yet
+farther wrong. Let me then go with you."
+
+"With me, my son," said the Sub-Prior, "thou shalt surely go; but our
+rule, as well as reason and good order, require that you should dwell a
+space with us as a probationer, or novice, before taking upon thee those
+final vows, which, sequestering thee for ever from the world, dedicate
+thee to the service of Heaven."
+
+"And when shall we set forth, father?" said the youth, as eagerly as
+if the journey which he was now undertaking led to the pleasures of a
+summer holiday.
+
+"Even now, if thou wilt," said the Sub-Prior, yielding to his
+impetuosity--"go, then, and command them to prepare for our
+departure.--Yet stay," he said, as Edward, with all the awakened
+enthusiasm of his character, hastened from his presence, "come hither,
+my son, and kneel down."
+
+Edward obeyed, and kneeled down before him. Notwithstanding his slight
+figure and thin features, the Sub-Prior could, from the energy of his
+tone, and the earnestness of his devotional manner, impress his pupils
+and his penitents with no ordinary feelings of personal reverence. His
+heart always was, as well as seemed to be, in the duty which he was
+immediately performing; and the spiritual guide who thus shows a deep
+conviction of the importance of his office, seldom fails to impress a
+similar feeling upon his hearers. Upon such occasions as the present,
+his puny body seemed to assume more majestic stature--his spare and
+emaciated countenance bore a bolder, loftier, and more commanding
+port--his voice, always beautiful, trembled as labouring under the
+immediate impulse of the Divinity--and his whole demeanour seemed to
+bespeak, not the mere ordinary man, but the organ of the Church in which
+she had vested her high power for delivering sinners from their load of
+iniquity.
+
+"Hast thou, my fair son," said he, "faithfully recounted the
+circumstances which have thus suddenly determined thee to a religious
+life?"
+
+"The sins I have confessed, my father," answered Edward, "but I have
+not yet told of a strange appearance, which, acting in my mind, hath, I
+think, aided to determine my resolution."
+
+"Tell it, then, now," returned the Sub-Prior; "it is thy duty to
+leave me uninstructed in nought, so that thereby I may understand the
+temptation that besets thee."
+
+"I tell it with unwillingness," said Edward; "for although, God wot, I
+speak but the mere truth, yet even while my tongue speaks it as truth,
+my own ears receive it as fable."
+
+"Yet say the whole," said Father Eustace; "neither fear rebuke from me,
+seeing I may know reasons for receiving as true that which others might
+regard as fabulous."
+
+"Know, then, father," replied Edward, "that betwixt hope and
+despair--and, heavens! what a hope!--the hope to find the corpse mangled
+and crushed hastily in amongst the bloody clay which the foot of the
+scornful victor had trod down upon my good, my gentle, my courageous
+brother,--I sped to the glen called Corri-nan-shian; but, as your
+reverence has been already informed, neither the grave, which my
+unhallowed wishes had in spite of my better self longed to see, nor any
+appearance of the earth having been opened, was visible in the solitary
+spot where Martin had, at morning yesterday, seen the fatal hillock.
+You know your dalesmen, father. The place hath an evil name, and this
+deception of the sight inclined them to leave it. My companions became
+affrighted, and hastened down the glen as men caught in trespass. My
+hopes were too much blighted, my mind too much agitated, to fear either
+the living or the dead. I descended the glen more slowly than they,
+often looking back, and not ill pleased with the poltroonery of my
+companions, which left me to my own perplexed and moody humour, and
+induced them to hasten into the broader dale. They were already out of
+sight, and lost amongst the windings of the glen, when, looking back, I
+saw a female form standing beside the fountain----"
+
+"How, my fair son?" said the Sub-Prior, "beware you jest not with your
+present situation!"
+
+"I jest not, father," answered the youth; "it may be I shall never jest
+again--surely not for many a day. I saw, I say, the form of a female
+clad in white, such as the Spirit which haunts the house of Avenel is
+supposed to be. Believe me, my father, for, by heaven and earth, I say
+nought but what I saw with these eyes!"
+
+"I believe thee, my son," said the monk; "proceed in thy strange story."
+
+"The apparition," said Edward Glendinning, "sung, and thus ran her lay;
+for, strange as it may seem to you, her words abide by my remembrance as
+if they had been sung to me from infancy upward:--
+
+  'Thou who seek'st my fountain lone,
+  With thoughts and hopes thou dar'st not own;
+  Whose heart within leap'd wildly glad
+  When most his brow seem'd dark and sad;
+  Hie thee back, thou find'st not here
+  Corpse or coffin, grave or bier;
+  The Dead Alive is gone and fled--
+  Go thou, and join the Living Dead!
+
+  'The Living Dead, whose sober brow
+  Oft shrouds such thoughts as thou hast now,
+  Whose hearts within are seldom cured
+  Of passions by their vows abjured;
+  Where, under sad and solemn show,
+  Vain hopes are nursed, wild wishes glow.
+  Seek the convent's vaulted room,
+  Prayer and vigil be thy doom;
+  Doff the green, and don the gray,
+  To the cloister hence away!'"
+
+"'Tis a wild lay," said the Sub-Prior, "and chanted, I fear me, with
+no good end. But we have power to turn the machinations of Satan to his
+shame. Edward, thou shalt go with me as thou desirest; thou shalt prove
+the life for which I have long thought thee best fitted--thou shalt aid,
+my son, this trembling hand of mine to sustain the Holy Ark, which bold
+unhallowed men press rashly forward to touch and to profane.--Wilt thou
+not first see thy mother?"
+
+"I will see no one," said Edward, hastily; "I will risk nothing that
+may shake the purpose of my heart. From Saint Mary's they shall learn
+my destination--all of them shall learn it. My mother--Mary Avenel--my
+restored and happy brother--they shall all know that Edward lives no
+longer to the world to be a clog on their happiness. Mary shall no
+longer need to constrain her looks and expressions to coldness because I
+am nigh. She shall no longer----"
+
+"My son," said the Sub-Prior, interrupting him, "it is not by looking
+back on the vanities and vexations of this world, that we fit ourselves
+for the discharge of duties which are not of it. Go, get our horses
+ready, and, as we descend the glen together, I will teach thee the
+truths through which the fathers and wise men of old had that precious
+alchemy, which can convert suffering into happiness."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Third.
+
+
+  Now, on my faith, this gear is all entangled,
+  Like to the yarn-clew of the drowsy knitter,
+  Dragg'd by the frolic kitten through the cabin,
+  While the good dame sits nodding o'er the fire!
+  Masters, attend; 'twill crave some skill to clear it.
+                                       OLD PLAY.
+
+Edward, with the speed of one who doubts the steadiness of his own
+resolution, hastened to prepare the horses for their departure, and at
+the same time thanked and dismissed the neighbours who had come to his
+assistance, and who were not a little surprised both at the suddenness
+of his proposed departure, and at the turn affairs had taken.
+
+"Here's cold hospitality," quoth Dan of the Howlet-hirst to his
+comrades; "I trow the Glendinnings may die and come alive right oft, ere
+I put foot in stirrup again for the matter."
+
+Martin soothed them by placing food and liquor before them. They ate
+sullenly, however, and departed in bad humour.
+
+The joyful news that Halbert Glendinning lived, was quickly communicated
+through the sorrowing family. The mother wept and thanked Heaven
+alternately; until her habits of domestic economy awakening as her
+feelings became calmer, she observed, "It would be an unco task to
+mend the yetts, and what were they to do while they were broken in that
+fashion? At open doors dogs come in."
+
+Tibb remarked, "She aye thought Halbert was ower gleg at his weapon to
+be killed sae easily by ony Sir Piercie of them a'. They might say of
+these Southrons as they liked; but they had not the pith and wind of a
+canny Scot, when it came to close grips."
+
+On Mary Avenel the impression was inconceivably deeper. She had but
+newly learned to pray, and it seemed to her that her prayers had been
+instantly answered--that the compassion of Heaven, which she had learned
+to implore in the words of Scripture, had descended upon her after a
+manner almost miraculous, and recalled the dead from the grave at the
+sound of her lamentations. There was a dangerous degree of enthusiasm in
+this strain of feeling, but it originated in the purest devotion.
+
+A silken and embroidered muffler, one of the few articles of more costly
+attire which she possessed, was devoted to the purpose of wrapping up
+and concealing the sacred volume, which henceforth she was to regard
+as her chiefest treasure, lamenting only that, for want of a fitting
+interpreter, much must remain to her a book closed and a fountain
+sealed. She was unaware of the yet greater danger she incurred, of
+putting an imperfect or even false sense upon some of the doctrines
+which appeared most comprehensible. But Heaven had provided against both
+these hazards.
+
+While Edward was preparing the horses, Christie of the Clinthill again
+solicited his orders respecting the reformed preacher, Henry Warden,
+and again the worthy monk laboured to reconcile in his own mind the
+compassion and esteem which, almost in spite of him, he could not help
+feeling for his former companion, with the duty which he owed to the
+Church. The unexpected resolution of Edward had removed, he thought, the
+chief objection to his being left at Glendearg.
+
+"If I carry this Well-wood, or Warden, to the Monastery." he thought,
+"he must die--die in his heresy--perish body and soul. And though such a
+measure was once thought advisable, to strike terror into the heretics,
+yet such is now their daily increasing strength, that it may rather
+rouse them to fury and to revenge. True, he refuses to pledge himself
+to abstain from sowing his tares among the wheat; but the ground here
+is too barren to receive them. I fear not his making impression on these
+poor women, the vassals of the Church, and bred up in due obedience to
+her behests. The keen, searching, inquiring, and bold disposition of
+Edward, might have afforded fuel to the fire; but that is removed, and
+there is nothing left which the flame may catch to.--Thus shall he have
+no power to spread his evil doctrines abroad, and yet his life shall be
+preserved, and it may be his soul rescued as a prey from the fowler's
+net. I will myself contend with him in argument; for when we studied in
+common, I yielded not to him, and surely the cause for which I struggle
+will support me, were I yet more weak than I deem myself. Were this man
+reclaimed from his errors, an hundred-fold more advantage would arise
+to the Church from his spiritual regeneration, than from his temporal
+death."
+
+Having finished these meditations, in which there was at once goodness
+of disposition and narrowness of principle, a considerable portion
+of self-opinion, and no small degree of self-delusion, the Sub-Prior
+commanded the prisoner to be brought into his presence.
+
+"Henry," he said, "whatever a rigid sense of duty may demand of me,
+ancient friendship and Christian compassion forbid me to lead thee to
+assured death. Thou wert wont to be generous, though stern and stubborn
+in thy resolves; let not thy sense of what thine own thoughts term duty,
+draw thee farther than mine have done. Remember, that every sheep whom
+thou shalt here lead astray from the fold, will be demanded in time and
+through eternity of him who hath left thee the liberty of doing such
+evil. I ask no engagement of thee, save that thou remain a prisoner on
+thy word at this tower, and wilt appear when summoned."
+
+"Thou hast found an invention to bind my hands," replied the preacher,
+"more sure than would have been the heaviest shackles in the prison
+of thy convent. I will not rashly do what may endanger thee with thy
+unhappy superiors, and I will be the more cautious, because, if we had
+farther opportunity of conference, I trust thine own soul may yet be
+rescued as a brand from the burning, and that, casting from thee the
+livery of Anti-Christ, that trader in human sins and human souls, I may
+yet assist thee to lay hold on the Rock of Ages."
+
+The Sub-Prior heard the sentiment, so similar to that which had occurred
+to himself, with the same kindly feelings with which the game-cock hears
+and replies to the challenge of his rival.
+
+"I bless God and Our Lady," said he, drawing himself up, "that my
+faith is already anchored on that Rock on which Saint Peter founded his
+Church."
+
+"It is a perversion of the text," said the eager Henry Warden, "grounded
+on a vain play upon words--a most idle paronomasia."
+
+The controversy would have been rekindled, and in all probability--for
+what can insure the good temper and moderation of polemics?--might have
+ended in the preacher's being transported a captive to the Monastery,
+had not Christie of the Clinthill observed that it was growing late, and
+that he, having to descend the glen, which had no good reputation, cared
+not greatly for travelling there after sunset. The Sub-Prior, therefore,
+stifled his desire of argument, and again telling the preacher, that he
+trusted to his gratitude and generosity, he bade him farewell.
+
+"Be assured, my old friend," replied Warden, "that no willing act of
+mine shall be to thy prejudice. But if my Master shall place work before
+me, I must obey God rather than man."
+
+These two men, both excellent from natural disposition and acquired
+knowledge, had more points of similarity than they themselves would have
+admitted. In truth, the chief distinction betwixt them was, that the
+Catholic, defending a religion which afforded little interest to the
+feelings, had, in his devotion to the cause he espoused, more of the
+head than of the heart, and was politic, cautious, and artful; while
+the Protestant, acting under the strong impulse of more lately-adopted
+conviction, and feeling, as he justly might, a more animated confidence
+in his cause, was enthusiastic, eager, and precipitate in his desire to
+advance it. The priest would have been contented to defend, the preacher
+aspired to conquer; and, of course, the impulse by which the latter was
+governed, was more active and more decisive. They could not part from
+each other without a second pressure of hands, and each looked in the
+face of his old companion, as he bade him adieu, with a countenance
+strongly expressive of sorrow, affection, and pity.
+
+Father Eustace then explained briefly to Dame Glendinning, that this
+person was to be her guest for some days, forbidding her and her whole
+household, under high spiritual censures, to hold any conversation with
+him on religious subjects, but commanding her to attend to his wants in
+all other particulars.
+
+"May Our Lady forgive me, reverend father," said Dame Glendinning,
+somewhat dismayed at this intelligence, "but I must needs say, that ower
+mony guests have been the ruin of mony a house, and I trow they will
+bring down Glendearg. First came the Lady of Avenel--(her soul be at
+rest--she meant nae ill)--but she brought with her as mony bogles and
+fairies, as hae kept the house in care ever since, sae that we have been
+living as it were in a dream. And then came that English knight, if it
+please you, and if he hasna killed my son outright, he has chased him
+aff the gate, and it may be lang eneugh ere I see him again--forby the
+damage done to outer door and inner door. And now your reverence has
+given me the charge of a heretic, who, it is like, may bring the great
+horned devil himself down upon us all; and they say that it is neither
+door nor window will serve him, but he will take away the side of the
+auld tower along with him. Nevertheless, reverend father, your pleasure
+is doubtless to be done to our power."
+
+"Go to, woman," said the Sub-Prior; "send for workmen from the clachan,
+and let them charge the expense of their repairs to the Community, and I
+will give the treasurer warrant to allow them. Moreover, in settling the
+rental mails, and feu-duties, thou shalt have allowance for the trouble
+and charges to which thou art now put, and I will cause strict search to
+be made after thy son."
+
+The dame curtsied deep and low at each favourable expression; and when
+the Sub-Prior had done speaking, she added her farther hope that
+the Sub-Prior would hold some communing with her gossip the Miller,
+concerning the fate of his daughter, and expound to him that the chance
+had by no means happened through any negligence on her part.
+
+"I sair doubt me, father," she said, "whether Mysie finds her way back
+to the Mill in a hurry; but it was all her father's own fault that let
+her run lamping about the country, riding on bare-backed naigs, and
+never settling to do a turn of wark within doors, unless it were to
+dress dainties at dinner-time for his ain kyte."
+
+"You remind me, dame, of another matter of urgency," said Father
+Eustace; "and, God knows, too many of them press on me at this moment.
+This English knight must be sought out, and explanation given to him of
+these most strange chances. The giddy girl must also be recovered. If
+she hath suffered in reputation by this unhappy mistake, I will not hold
+myself innocent of the disgrace. Yet how to find them out I know not."
+
+"So please you," said Christie of the Clinthill, "I am willing to take
+the chase, and bring them back by fair means or foul; for though
+you have always looked as black as night at me, whenever we have
+forgathered, yet I have not forgotten that had it not been for you,
+my neck would have kend the weight of my four quarters. If any man
+can track the tread of them, I will say in the face of both Merse and
+Teviotdale, and take the Forest to boot, I am that man. But first I have
+matters to treat of on my master's score, if you will permit me to ride
+down the glen with you."
+
+"Nay, but my friend," said the Sub-Prior, "thou shouldst remember I
+have but slender cause to trust thee for a companion through a place so
+solitary."
+
+"Tush! tush!" said the Jackman, "fear me not; I had the worst too surely
+to begin that sport again. Besides, have I not said a dozen of times,
+I owe you a life? and when I owe a man either a good turn or a bad, I
+never fail to pay it sooner or later. Moreover, beshrew me if I care to
+go alone down the glen, or even with my troopers, who are, every loon
+of them, as much devil's bairns as myself; whereas, if your reverence,
+since that is the word, take beads and psalter, and I come along with
+jack and spear, you will make the devils take the air, and I will make
+all human enemies take the earth."
+
+Edward here entered, and told his reverence that his horse was prepared.
+At this instant his eye caught his mother's, and the resolution which he
+had so strongly formed was staggered when he recollected the necessity
+of bidding her farewell. The Sub-Prior saw his embarrassment, and came
+to his relief.
+
+"Dame," said he, "I forgot to mention that your son Edward goes with me
+to Saint Mary's, and will not return for two or three days."
+
+"You'll be wishing to help him to recover his brother? May the saints
+reward your kindness!"
+
+The Sub-Prior returned the benediction which, in this instance, he had
+not very well deserved, and he and Edward set forth on their route. They
+were presently followed by Christie, who came up with his followers at
+such a speedy pace, as intimated sufficiently that his wish to obtain
+spiritual convoy through the glen, was extremely sincere. He had,
+however, other matters to stimulate his speed, for he was desirous to
+communicate to the Sub-Prior a message from his master Julian, connected
+with the delivery of the prisoner Warden; and having requested the
+Sub-Prior to ride with him a few yards before Edward, and the troopers
+of his own party, he thus addressed him, sometimes interrupting his
+discourse in a manner testifying that his fear of supernatural beings
+was not altogether lulled to rest by his confidence in the sanctity of
+his fellow-traveller.
+
+"My master," said the rider, "deemed he had sent you an acceptable gift
+in that old heretic preacher; but it seems, from the slight care you
+have taken of him, that you make small account of the boon."
+
+"Nay," said the Sub-Prior, "do not thus judge of it. The Community
+must account highly of the service, and will reward it to thy master in
+goodly fashion. But this man and I are old friends, and I trust to bring
+him back from the paths of perdition."
+
+"Nay," said the moss-trooper, "when I saw you shake hands at the
+beginning I counted that you would fight it all out in love and honour,
+and that there would be no extreme dealings betwixt ye--however it is
+all one to my master--Saint Mary! what call you yon, Sir Monk?"
+
+"The branch of a willow streaming across the path betwixt us and the
+sky."
+
+"Beshrew me," said Christie, "if it looked not like a man's hand holding
+a sword.--But touching my master, he, like a prudent man, hath kept
+himself aloof in these broken times, until he could see with precision
+what footing he was to stand upon. Right tempting offers he hath had
+from the Lords of Congregation, whom you call heretics; and at one time
+he was minded, to be plain with you, to have taken their way--for he was
+assured that the Lord James [Footnote: Lord James Stewart, afterwards
+the Regent Murray.] was coming this road at the head of a round body of
+cavalry. And accordingly Lord James did so far reckon upon him, that
+he sent this man Warden, or whatsoever be his name, to my master's
+protection, as an assured friend; and, moreover, with tidings that he
+himself was marching hitherward at the head of a strong body of horse."
+
+"Now, Our Lady forfend!" said the Sub-Prior.
+
+"Amen!" answered Christie, in some trepidation, "did your reverence see
+aught?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," replied the monk; "it was thy tale which wrested
+from me that exclamation."
+
+"And it was some cause," replied he of the Clinthill, "for if Lord James
+should come hither, your Halidome would smoke for it. But be of good
+cheer--that expedition is ended before it was begun. The Baron of Avenel
+had sure news that Lord James has been fain to march westward with his
+merry-men, to protect Lord Semple against Cassilis and the Kennedies.
+By my faith, it will cost him a brush; for wot ye what they say of that
+name,--
+
+  "Twixt Wigton and the town of Ayr,
+    Portpatrick and the cruives of Cree,
+  No man need think for to bide there,
+    Unless he court Saint Kennedie.'"
+
+"Then," said the Sub-Prior, "the Lord James's purpose of coming
+southwards being broken, cost this person, Henry Warden, a cold
+reception at Avenel Castle."
+
+"It would not have been altogether so rough a one," said the
+mosstrooper; "for my master was in heavy thought what to do in these
+unsettled times, and would scarce have hazarded misusing a man sent to
+him by so terrible a leader as the Lord James. But, to speak the truth,
+some busy devil tempted the old man to meddle with my master's Christian
+liberty of hand-fasting with Catherine of Newport. So that broke the
+wand of peace between them, and now ye may have my master, and all the
+force he can make, at your devotion, for Lord James never forgave wrong
+done to him; and if he come by the upper hand, he will have Julian's
+head if there were never another of the name, as it is like there is
+not, excepting the bit slip of a lassie yonder. And now I have told you
+more of my master's affairs than he would thank me for; but you have
+done me a frank turn once, and I may need one at your hands again."
+
+"Thy frankness," said the Sub-Prior, "shall surely advantage thee; for
+much it concerns the Church in these broken times to know the purposes
+and motives of those around us. But what is it that thy master expects
+from us in reward of good service? for I esteem him one of those who are
+not willing to work without their hire."
+
+"Nay, that I can tell you flatly; for Lord James had promised him, in
+case he would be of his faction in these parts, an easy tack of the
+teindsheaves of his own Barony of Avenel, together with the lands of
+Cranberry-moor, which lie intersected with his own. And he will look for
+no less at your hand."
+
+"But there is old Gilbert of Cranberry-moor," said the Sub-Prior; "what
+are we to make of him? The heretic Lord James may take on him to dispone
+upon the goods and lands of the Halidome at his pleasure, because,
+doubtless, but for the protection of God, and the baronage which yet
+remain faithful to their creed, he may despoil us of them by force; but
+while they are the property of the Community, we may not take steadings
+from ancient and faithful vassals, to gratify the covetousness of those
+who serve God only from the lucre of gain."
+
+"By the mass," said Christie, "it is well talking, Sir Priest; but when
+ye consider that Gilbert has but two half-starved cowardly peasants to
+follow him, and only an auld jaded aver to ride upon, fitter for the
+plough than for manly service; and that the Baron of Avenel never rides
+with fewer than ten jackmen at his back, and oftener with fifty, bodin
+in all that effeirs to war as if they were to do battle for a kingdom,
+and mounted on nags that nicker at the clash of the sword as if it were
+the clank of the lid of a corn-chest--I say, when ye have computed all
+this, ye may guess what course will best serve your Monastery."
+
+"Friend," said the monk, "I would willingly purchase thy master's
+assistance on his own terms, since times leave us no better means of
+defence against sacrilegious spoliation of heresy; but to take from a
+poor man his patrimony--"
+
+"For that matter," said the rider, "his seat would scarce be a soft one,
+if my master thought that Gilbert's interest stood betwixt him and what
+he wishes. The Halidome has land enough, and Gilbert may be quartered
+elsewhere."
+
+"We will consider the possibility of so disposing the matter," said
+the monk, "and will expect in consequence your master's most active
+assistance, with all the followers he can make, to join in the defence
+of the Halidome, against any force by which it may be threatened."
+
+"A man's hand and a mailed glove on that," said the jackman. "They
+
+[Footnote: As some atonement for their laxity of morals on most
+occasions, the Borderers were severe observers of the faith which they
+had pledged, even to an enemy. If any person broke his word so plighted,
+the individual to whom faith had not been observed, used to bring to the
+next Border-meeting a glove hung on the point of a spear, and proclaim
+to Scots and English the name of the defaulter. This was accounted
+so great a disgrace to all connected with him, that his own clansmen
+sometimes destroyed him, to escape the infamy he had brought on them.
+
+Constable, a spy engaged by Sir Ralph Sadler, talks of two Border
+thieves, whom he used as his guides:--"That they would not care to
+steal, and yet that they would not betray any man that trusts in them,
+for all the gold in Scotland or in France. They are my guides and
+outlaws. If they would betray me they might get their pardons, and cause
+me to be hanged; but I have tried them ere this."--_Sadler's letters
+during the Northern Insurrection._]
+
+call us marauders, thieves, and what not; but the side we take we hold
+by.--And I will be blithe when my Baron comes to a point which side he
+will take, for the castle is a kind of hell, (Our Lady forgive me for
+naming such a word in this place!) while he is in his mood, studying how
+he may best advantage himself. And now, Heaven be praised, we are in
+the open valley, and I may swear a round oath, should aught happen to
+provoke it."
+
+"My friend," said the Sub-Prior, "thou hast little merit in abstaining
+from oaths or blasphemy, if it be only out of fear of evil spirits."
+
+"Nay, I am not quite a Church vassal yet," said the jackman, "and if
+you link the curb too tight on a young horse, I promise you he will
+rear--Why, it is much for me to forbear old customs on any account
+whatever."
+
+The night being fine, they forded the river at the spot where the
+Sacristan met with his unhappy encounter with the spirit. As soon as
+they arrived at the gate of the Monastery, the porter in waiting eagerly
+exclaimed, "Reverend father, the Lord Abbot is most anxious for your
+presence."
+
+"Let these strangers be carried to the great hall," said the Sub-Prior,
+"and be treated with the best by the cellarer; reminding them, however,
+of that modesty and decency of conduct which becometh guests in a house
+like this."
+
+"But the Lord Abbot demands you instantly, my venerable brother,"
+said Father Philip, arriving in great haste. "I have not seen him more
+discouraged or desolate of counsel since the field of Pinkie-cleugh was
+stricken."
+
+"I come, my good brother, I come," said Father Eustace. "I pray thee,
+good brother, let this youth, Edward Glendinning, be conveyed to the
+Chamber of the Novices, and placed under their instructor. God hath
+touched his heart, and he proposeth laying aside the vanities of the
+world, to become a brother of our holy order; which, if his good parts
+be matched with fitting docility and humility, he may one day live to
+adorn."
+
+"My very venerable brother," exclaimed old Father Nicholas, who came
+hobbling with a third summons to the Sub-Prior, "I pray thee to hasten
+to our worshipful Lord Abbot. The holy patroness be with us! never saw
+I Abbot of the House of St. Mary's in such consternation; and yet I
+remember me well when Father Ingelram had the news of Flodden-field."
+
+"I come, I come, venerable brother," said Father Eustace--And having
+repeatedly ejaculated "I come!" he at last went to the Abbot in good
+earnest.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Fourth.
+
+
+  It is not texts will do it--Church artillery
+  Are silenced soon by real ordnance,
+  And canons are but vain opposed to cannon.
+  Go, coin your crosier, melt your church plate down
+  Bid the starved soldier banquet in your halls,
+  And quaff your long-saved hogsheads--Turn them out
+  Thus primed with your good cheer, to guard your wall,
+  And they will venture for't.--
+                                 OLD PLAY.
+
+The Abbot received his counsellor with a tremulous eagerness of welcome,
+which announced to the Sub-Prior an extreme agitation of spirits,
+and the utmost need of good counsel. There was neither mazer-dish nor
+standing-cup upon the little table, at the elbow of his huge chair
+of state; his beads alone lay there, and it seemed as if he had been
+telling them in his extremity of distress. Beside the beads was placed
+the mitre of the Abbot, of an antique form, and blazing with precious
+stones, and the rich and highly-embossed crosier rested against the same
+table.
+
+The Sacristan and old Father Nicholas had followed the Sub-Prior into
+the Abbot's apartment, perhaps with the hope of learning something
+of the important matter which seemed to be in hand.--They were not
+mistaken; for, after having ushered in the Sub-Prior, and being
+themselves in the act of retiring, the Abbot made them a signal to
+remain.
+
+"My brethren," he said, "it is well known to you with what painful zeal
+we have overseen the weighty affairs of this house committed to our
+unworthy hand--your bread hath been given to you, and your water
+hath been sure--I have not wasted the revenues of the Convent on vain
+pleasures, as hunting or hawking, or in change of rich cope or alb, or
+in feasting idle bards and jesters, saving those who, according to old
+wont, were received in time of Christmas and Easter. Neither have I
+enriched either mine own relations nor strange women, at the expense of
+the Patrimony."
+
+"There hath not been such a Lord Abbot," said Father Nicholas, "to my
+knowledge, since the days of Abbot Ingelram, who----"
+
+At that portentous word, which always preluded a long story, the Abbot
+broke in.
+
+"May God have mercy on his soul!--we talk not of him now.--What I would
+know of ye, my brethren, is, whether I have, in your mind, faithfully
+discharged the duties of mine office?"
+
+"There has never been subject of complaint," answered the Sub-Prior.
+
+The Sacristan, more diffuse, enumerated the various acts of indulgence
+and kindness which the mild government of Abbot Boniface had
+conferred on the brotherhood of Saint Mary's--the _indulgentiae_--the
+_gratias_--the _biberes_-the weekly mess of boiled almonds--the
+enlarged accommodation of the refectory--the better arrangement of
+the cellarage--the improvement of the revenue of the Monastery--the
+diminution of the privations of the brethren.
+
+"You might have added, my brother," said the Abbot, listening with
+melancholy acquiescence to the detail of his own merits, "that I caused
+to be built that curious screen, which secureth the cloisters from the
+north-east wind.--But all these things avail nothing--As we read in holy
+Maccabee, _Capta est civitas per voluntatem Dei_. It hath cost me no
+little thought, no common toil, to keep these weighty matters in such
+order as you have seen them--there was both barn and binn to be kept
+full--Infirmary, dormitory, guest-hall, and refectory, to be looked
+to--processions to be made, confessions to be heard, strangers to be
+entertained, _veniae_ to be granted or refused; and I warrant me, when
+every one of you was asleep in your cell, the Abbot hath lain awake for
+a full hour by the bell, thinking how these matters might be ordered
+seemly and suitably."
+
+"May we ask, reverend my lord," said the Sub-Prior, "what additional
+care has now been thrown upon you, since your discourse seems to point
+that way?"
+
+"Marry, this it is," said the Abbot. "The talk is not now of _biberes_,
+
+[Footnote: The _biberes, caritas_, and boiled almonds, of which Abbot
+Boniface speaks, were special occasions for enjoying luxuries, afforded
+to the monks by grants from different sovereigns, or from other
+benefactors to the convent. There is one of these charters called _De
+Pitancia Centum Librarum_ By this charter, which is very curious, our
+Robert Bruce, on the 10th January, and in the twelfth year of his reign,
+assigns, out of the customs of Berwick, and failing them, out of the
+customs of Edinburgh or Haddington, the sum of one hundred pounds, at
+the half-yearly terms of Pentecost and Saint Martin's in winter, to the
+abbot and community of the monks of Melrose. The precise purpose of this
+annuity is to furnish to each of the monks of the said monastery, while
+placed at food in the refectory, an extra mess of rice boiled with
+milk, or of almonds, or peas, or other pulse of that kind which could
+be procured in the country. This addition to their commons is to be
+entitled the King's Mess. And it is declared, that although any monk
+should, from some honest apology, want appetite or inclination to eat of
+the king's mess, his share should, nevertheless, be placed on the table
+with those of his brethren, and afterwards carried to the gate and
+given to the poor. "Neither is it our pleasure," continues the bountiful
+sovereign, "that the dinner, which is or ought to be served up to the
+said monks according to their ancient rule, should be diminished in
+quantity, or rendered inferior in quality, on account of this our mess,
+so furnished as aforesaid." It is, moreover, provided, that the abbot,
+with the consent of the most sage of his brethren, shall name a prudent
+and decent monk for receiving, directing, and expending, all matters
+concerning this annuity for the benefit of the community, agreeably to
+the royal desire and intention, rendering a faithful account thereof
+to the abbot and superiors of the same convent. And the same charter
+declares the king's farther pleasure, that the said men of religion
+should be bound yearly and for ever, in acknowledgment of the above
+donation, to clothe fifteen poor men at the feast of Saint Martin in
+winter, and to feed them on the same day, delivering to each of them
+four ells of large or broad, or six ells of narrow cloth, and to each
+also a new pair of shoes or sandals, according to their order; and if
+the said monks shall fail in their engagements or any of them, it is the
+king's will that the fault shall be redeemed by a double performance of
+what has been omitted, to be executed at the sight of the chief forester
+of Ettrick for the time being, and before the return of Saint Martin's
+day succeeding that on which the omission has taken place.
+
+Of this charter, respecting the pittance of 100_l_ assigned to furnish
+the monks of Melrose with a daily mess of boiled rice, almonds, or other
+pulse, to mend their commons, the antiquarian reader will be pleased,
+doubtless, to see the original.
+
+CARTA REGIS ROBERTI I. ABBATI ET CONVENTUI DE MELROSS.
+
+_Carta de Pitancia Centum Librarum._
+
+Robertus Dei gracia Rex Scottorum omnibus probis hominibus tocius terre
+sue Salutem. Sciatis nos pro salute anime nostre et pro salute animarum
+antecessorum et suocessorum nostrorum Regum Scocie Dedisse Concessisse
+et hac presenti Carta nostra confirmasse Deo et Beate Marie virgini et
+Religiosis viris Abbati et Conventui de Melross et eorum successoribus
+in perpetuum Centum Libras Sterlingorum Annui Redditus singulis annis
+percipiendas de firmis nostris Burgi Berwici super. Twedam ad terminos
+Pentecostis et Sancti Martini in hyeme pro equali portione vel de nova
+Custuma nostra Burgi predicti si firme nostre predicte ad dictam summam
+pecunie sufficere non poterunt vel de nova Custuma nostra Burgorum
+nostrorum de Edenburg et de Hadington Si firme nostre et Custuma nostra
+ville Berwici aliquo casu contingente ad hoc forte non sufficiant. Ita
+quod dicta summa pecunie Centum Librarum eis annuatim integre et
+absque contradictione aliqua plenarie persolvatur pre cunctis aliis
+quibuscunque assignacionibus per nos factis seu faciendis ad inveniendum
+in perpetunm singulis diebus cuilibet monacho monasterii predicti
+comedenti in Refectorio unum sufficiens ferculum risarum factarum
+cum lacte, amigdalarum vel pisarum sive aliorum ciborum consimilis
+condicionis inventornm in patria et illud ferculum ferculum Regis
+vocabitur in eternum. Et si aliquis monachus ex aliqua causa honesta de
+dicto ferculo comedere noluerit vel refici non poterit non minus
+attamen sibi de dicto ferculo ministretur et ad portam pro pauperibus
+deportetur. Nec volumus quod occasione ferculi nostri predicti prandium
+dicti Conventus de quo antiquitus communiter eis deserviri sive
+ministrari solebat in aliquo pejoretur seu diminuatur. Volum us insuper
+et ordinamus quod Abbas ejusdem monasterii qui pro tempore fuerit de
+cousensu saniorum de Conventu specialiter constituat unum monachum
+providum et discretum ad recipiendum ordinandum et expendendum totam
+summam pecunie memorate pro utilitate conventus secundum votum et
+intencionem mentis nostre superius annotatum et ad reddendum fidele
+compotum coram Abbate et Maioribus de Conventu singulis annis de pecunia
+sic recepta. Et volumus quod dicti religiosi teneantur annuatim in
+perpetuum pro predicta donacione nostra ad perpetuam nostri memoriam
+vestire quindecim pauperes ad festum Sancti Martini in hieme et eosdem
+cibare eodem die liberando eorum cuilibet quatuor ulnas panni grossi
+et lati vel sex ulnas panni stricti et eorum cuilibet unum novum par
+sotularium de ordine suo. Et si dicti religiosi in premissis vel
+aliquo premissorum aliquo anno defecerint volumus quod illud quod
+minus perimpletum fuerit dupplicetur diebus magis necessariis per visum
+capitalis forestarii nostri de Selkirk, qui pro tempore fuerit. Et quod
+dicta dupplicatio fiat ante natale domini proximo sequens festum Sancti
+Martini predictum. In cujus rei testimonium presenti Carte nostre
+sigillum nostrum precipimus apponi. Testibus venerabilibus in Christo
+patribus Willielmo, Johanne, Willielmo et David Sancti Andree,
+Glasguensis, Dunkeldensis et Moraviensis ecclesiarum dei gracia
+episcopis Bernardo Abbate de Abirbrothock Cancellario, Duncano, Malisio,
+et Hugone de Fyf de Strathin et de Ross, Comitibus Waltero Senescallo
+Scocie, Jacobo domini de Duglas et Alexandro Fraser Camerario nostro
+Socie militibus. Apud Abirbrothock, decimo die Januarij. Anno Regni
+nostri vicesimo.]
+
+or of _caritas_, or of boiled almonds, but of an English band coming
+against us from Hexham, commanded by Sir John Foster; nor is it of the
+screening us from the east wind, but how to escape Lord James Stewart,
+who cometh to lay waste and destroy with his heretic soldiers."
+
+"I thought that purpose had been broken by the feud between Semple and
+the Kennedies," said the Sub-Prior, hastily.
+
+"They have accorded that matter at the expense of the church as usual,"
+said the Abbot; "the Earl of Cassilis is to have the teind-sheaves of
+his lands, which were given to the house of Crossraguel, and he has
+stricken hands with Stewart, who is now called Murray.--_Principes
+convenerunt unum adversus Dominum._--There are the letters."
+
+The Sub-Prior took the letters, which had come by an express messenger
+from the Primate of Scotland, who still laboured to uphold the tottering
+fabric of the system under which he was at length buried, and,
+stepping towards the lamp, read them with an air of deep and settled
+attention--the Sacristan and Father Nicholas looked as helplessly at
+each other, as the denizens of the poultry-yard when the hawk soars
+over it. The Abbot seemed bowed down with the extremity of sorrowful
+apprehension, but kept his eye timorously fixed on the Sub-Prior, as if
+striving to catch some comfort from the expression of his countenance.
+When at length he beheld that, after a second intent perusal of the
+letters, he remained still silent and full of thought, he asked him in
+an anxious tone, "What is to be done?"
+
+"Our duty must be done," answered the Sub-Prior, "and the rest is in the
+hands of God."
+
+"Our duty--our duty?" answered the Abbot, impatiently; "doubtless we are
+to do our duty; but what is that duty? or how will it serve us?--Will
+bell, book, and candle, drive back the English heretics? or will Murray
+care for psalms and antiphonars? or can I fight for the Halidome, like
+Judas Maccabeus, against those profane Nicanors? or send the Sacristan
+against this new Holofernes, to bring back his head in a basket?"
+
+"True, my Lord Abbot," said the Sub-Prior, "we cannot fight with carnal
+weapons, it is alike contrary to our habit and vow; but we can die for
+our Convent and for our Order. Besides, we can arm those who will and
+can fight. The English are but few in number, trusting, as it would
+seem, that they will be joined by Murray, whose march has been
+interrupted. If Foster, with his Cumberland and Hexham bandits, ventures
+to march into Scotland, to pillage and despoil our House, we will levy
+our vassals, and, I trust, shall be found strong enough to give him
+battle."
+
+"In the blessed name of Our Lady," said the Abbot, "think you that I am
+Petrus Eremita, to go forth the leader of an host?"
+
+"Nay," said the Sub-Prior, "let some man skilled in war lead our
+people--there is Julian Avenel, an approved soldier."
+
+"But a scoffer, a debauched person, and, in brief, a man of Belial,"
+quoth the Abbot.
+
+"Still," said the monk, "we must use his ministry in that to which he
+has been brought up. We can guerdon him richly, and indeed I already
+know the price of his service. The English, it is expected, will
+presently set forth, hoping here to seize upon Piercie Shafton, whose
+refuge being taken with us, they make the pretext of this unheard-of
+inroad."
+
+"Is it even so?" said the Abbot; "I never judged that his body of satin
+and his brain of feathers boded us much good."
+
+"Yet we must have his assistance, if possible," said the Sub-Prior; "he
+may interest in our behalf the great Piercie, of whose friendship he
+boasts, and that good and faithful Lord may break Foster's purpose. I
+will despatch the jackman after him with all speed.--Chiefly, however, I
+trust to the military spirit of the land, which will not suffer peace to
+be easily broken on the frontier. Credit me, my lord, it will bring
+to our side the hands of many, whose hearts may have gone astray after
+strange doctrines. The great chiefs and barons will be ashamed to let
+the vassals of peaceful monks fight unaided against the old enemies of
+Scotland."
+
+"It may be," said the Abbot, "that Foster will wait for Murray, whose
+purpose hitherward is but delayed for a short space."
+
+"By the rood, he will not," said the Sub-Prior; "we know this Sir John
+Foster--a pestilent heretic, he will long to destroy the church--born a
+Borderer, he will thirst to plunder her of her wealth--a Border-warden,
+he will be eager to ride in Scotland. There are too many causes to urge
+him on. If he joins with Murray, he will have at best but an auxiliary's
+share of the spoil--if he comes hither before him, he will reckon on the
+whole harvest of depredation as his own. Julian Avenel also has, as I
+have heard, some spite against Sir John Foster; they will fight,
+when they meet, with double determination.--Sacristan, send for our
+bailiff.--Where is the roll of fencible men liable to do suit and
+service to the Halidome?--Send off to the Baron of Meigallot; he
+can raise threescore horse and better--Say to him the Monastery will
+compound with him for the customs of his bridge, which have been in
+controversy, if he will show himself a friend at such a point.--And now,
+my lord, let us compute our possible numbers, and those of the enemy,
+that human blood be not spilled in vain--Let us therefore calculate----"
+
+"My brain is dizzied with the emergency," said the poor Abbot--"I am
+not, I think, more a coward than others, so far as my own person is
+concerned; but speak to me of marching and collecting soldiers, and
+calculating forces, and you may as well tell of it to the youngest
+novice of a nunnery. But my resolution is taken.--Brethren," he said,
+rising up, and coming forward with that dignity which his comely person
+enabled him to assume, "hear for the last time the voice of your Abbot
+Boniface. I have done for you the best that I could; in quieter times
+I had perhaps done better, for it was for quiet that I sought the
+cloister, which has been to me a place of turmoil, as much as if I had
+sate in the receipt of custom, or ridden forth as leader of an armed
+host. But now matters turn worse and worse, and I, as I grow old, am
+less able to struggle with them. Also, it becomes me not to hold a
+place, whereof the duties, through my default or misfortune, may be but
+imperfectly filled by me. Wherefore I have resolved to demit this mine
+high office, so that the order of these matters may presently devolve
+upon Father Eustatius here present, our well-beloved Sub-Prior; and
+I now rejoice that he hath not been provided according to his merits
+elsewhere, seeing that I well hope he will succeed to the mitre and
+staff which it is my present purpose to lay down."
+
+"In the name of Our Lady, do nothing hastily, my lord!" said Father
+Nicholas--"I do remember that when the worthy Abbot Ingelram, being in
+his ninetieth year--for I warrant you he could remember when Benedict
+the Thirteenth was deposed--and being ill at ease and bed-rid, the
+brethren rounded in his ear that he were better resign his office. And
+what said he, being a pleasant man? marry, that while he could crook his
+little finger he would keep hold of the crosier with it."
+
+The Sacristan also strongly remonstrated against the resolution of
+his Superior, and set down the insufficiency he pleaded to the native
+modesty of his disposition. The Abbot listened in downcast silence; even
+flattery could not win his ear.
+
+Father Eustace took a nobler tone with his disconcerted and dejected
+Superior. "My Lord Abbot," he said, "if I have been silent concerning
+the virtues with which you have governed this house, do not think that I
+am unaware of them. I know that no man ever brought to your high office
+a more sincere wish to do well to all mankind; and if your rule has
+not been marked with the bold lines which sometimes distinguished your
+spiritual predecessors, their faults have equally been strangers to your
+character."
+
+"I did not believe," said the Abbot, turning his looks to Father Eustace
+with some surprise, "that you, father, of all men, would have done me
+this justice."
+
+"In your absence," said the Sub-Prior, "I have even done it more
+fully. Do not lose the good opinion which all men entertain of you, by
+renouncing your office when your care is most needed."
+
+"But, my brother," said the Abbot, "I leave a more able in my place."
+
+"That you do not," said Eustace; "because it is not necessary you should
+resign, in order to possess the use of whatever experience or talent I
+may be accounted master of. I have been long enough in this profession
+to know that the individual qualities which any of us may have, are not
+his own, but the property of the Community, and only so far useful when
+they promote the general advantage. If you care not in person, my lord,
+to deal with this troublesome matter, let me implore you to go instantly
+to Edinburgh, and make what friends you can in our behalf, while I in
+your absence will, as Sub-Prior, do my duty in defence of the Halidome.
+If I succeed, may the honour and praise be yours, and if I fail, let the
+disgrace and shame be mine own."
+
+The Abbot mused for a space, and then replied,--"No, Father Eustatius,
+you shall not conquer me by your generosity. In times like these, this
+house must have a stronger pilotage than my weak hands afford; and he
+who steers the vessel must be chief of the crew. Shame were it to accept
+the praise of other men's labours; and, in my poor mind, all the praise
+which can be bestowed on him who undertakes a task so perilous and
+perplexing, is a meed beneath his merits. Misfortune to him would
+deprive him of an iota of it! Assume, therefore, your authority
+to-night, and proceed in the preparations you judge necessary. Let the
+Chapter be summoned to-morrow after we have heard mass, and all shall be
+ordered as I have told you. Benedicite, my brethren!--peace be with you!
+May the new Abbot-expectant sleep as sound as he who is about to resign
+his mitre."
+
+They retired, affected even to tears. The good Abbot had shown a point
+of his character to which they were strangers. Even Father Eustace
+had held his spiritual Superior hitherto as a good-humoured, indolent,
+self-indulgent man, whose chief merit was the absence of gross faults;
+so that this sacrifice of power to a sense of duty, even if a little
+alloyed by the meaner motives of fear and apprehended difficulties,
+raised him considerably in the Sub-Prior's estimation. He even felt an
+aversion to profit by the resignation of the Abbot Boniface, and in a
+manner to rise on his ruins; but this sentiment did not long contend
+with those which led him to recollect higher considerations. It could
+not be denied that Boniface was entirely unfit for his situation in the
+present crisis; and the Sub-Prior felt that he himself, acting merely
+as a delegate, could not well take the decisive measures which the time
+required; the weal of the Community therefore demanded his elevation.
+If, besides, there crept in a feeling of a high dignity obtained, and
+the native exultation of a haughty spirit called to contend with
+the imminent dangers attached to a post of such distinction, these
+sentiments were so cunningly blended and amalgamated with others of
+a more disinterested nature, that, as the Sub-Prior himself was
+unconscious of their agency, we, who have a regard for him, are not
+solicitous to detect it.
+
+The Abbot elect carried himself with more dignity than formerly, when
+giving such directions as the pressing circumstances of the times
+required; and those who approached him could perceive an unusual
+kindling of his falcon eye, and an unusual flush upon his pale and
+faded cheek. With briefness and precision he wrote and dictated various
+letters to different barons, acquainting them with the meditated
+invasion of the Halidome by the English, and conjuring them to lend aid
+and assistance as in a common cause. The temptation of advantage was
+held out to those whom he judged less sensible of the cause of honour,
+and all were urged by the motives of patriotism and ancient animosity to
+the English. The time had been when no such exhortations would have been
+necessary. But so essential was Elizabeth's aid to the reformed party
+in Scotland, and so strong was that party almost every where, that
+there was reason to believe a great many would observe neutrality on the
+present occasion, even if they did not go the length of uniting with the
+English against the Catholics.
+
+When Father Eustace considered the number of the immediate vassals of
+the church whose aid he might legally command, his heart sunk at the
+thoughts of ranking them under the banner of the fierce and profligate
+Julian Avenel.
+
+"Were the young enthusiast Halbert Glendinning to be found," thought
+Father Eustace in his anxiety, "I would have risked the battle under his
+leading, young as he is, and with better hope of God's blessing. But the
+bailiff is now too infirm, nor know I a chief of name whom I might trust
+in this important matter better than this Avenel."--He touched a bell
+which stood on the table, and commanded Christie of the Clinthill to be
+brought before him.--"Thou owest me a life," said he to that person on
+his entrance, "and I may do thee another good turn if thou be'st sincere
+with me."
+
+Christie had already drained two standing-cups of wine, which would, on
+another occasion, have added to the insolence of his familiarity. But at
+present there was something in the augmented dignity of manner of Father
+Eustace, which imposed a restraint on him. Yet his answers partook of
+his usual character of undaunted assurance. He professed himself willing
+to return a true answer to all inquiries.
+
+"Has the Baron (so styled) of Avenel any friendship with Sir John
+Foster, Warden of the West Marches of England?"
+
+"Such friendship as is between the wild-cat and the terrier," replied
+the rider.
+
+"Will he do battle with him should they meet?"
+
+"As surely," answered Christie, "as ever cock fought on
+Shrovetide-even."
+
+"And would he fight with Foster in the Church's quarrel?"
+
+"On any quarrel, or upon no quarrel whatever," replied the jackman.
+
+"We will then write to him, letting him know, that if upon occasion of
+an apprehended incursion by Sir John Foster, he will join his force with
+ours, he shall lead our men, and be gratified for doing so to the extent
+of his wish.--Yet one word more--Thou didst say thou couldst find out
+where the English knight Piercie Shafton has this day fled to?"
+
+"That I can, and bring him back too, by fair means or force, as best
+likes your reverence."
+
+"No force must be used upon him. Within what time wilt thou find him
+out?"
+
+"Within thirty hours, so he have not crossed the Lothian firth--If it
+is to do you a pleasure, I will set off directly, and wind him as a
+sleuth-dog tracks the moss-trooper," answered Christie.
+
+"Bring him hither then, and thou wilt deserve good at our hands, which I
+may soon have free means of bestowing on thee."
+
+"Thanks to your reverence, I put myself in your reverence's hands. We of
+the spear and snaffle walk something recklessly through life; but if a
+man were worse than he is, your reverence knows he must live, and that's
+not to be done without shifting, I trow."
+
+"Peace, sir, and begone on thine errand--thou shalt have a letter from
+us to Sir Piercie."
+
+Christie made two steps towards the door; then turning back and
+hesitating, like one who would make an impertinent pleasantry if he
+dared, he asked what he was to do with the wench Mysie Happer whom the
+Southron knight had carried off with him.
+
+"Am I to bring her hither, please your reverence?"
+
+"Hither, you malapert knave?" said the churchman; "remember you to whom
+you speak?"
+
+"No offence meant," replied Christie; "but if such is not your will, I
+would carry her to Avenel Castle, where a well-favoured wench was never
+unwelcome.
+
+"Bring the unfortunate girl to her father's and break no scurril jests
+here," said the Sub-Prior--"See that thou guide her in all safety and
+honour."
+
+"In safety, surely," said the rider, "and in such honour as her outbreak
+has left her.--I bid your reverence farewell, I must be on horse before
+cock-crow."
+
+"What, in the dark!--how knowest thou which way to go?"
+
+"I tracked the knight's horse-tread as far as near to the ford, as we
+rode along together," said Christie, "and I observed the track turn
+to the north-ward. He is for Edinburgh, I will warrant you--so soon
+as daylight comes I will be on the road again. It is a kenspeckle
+hoof-mark, for the shoe was made by old Eckie of Cannobie--I would swear
+to the curve of the caulker." So saying, he departed.
+
+"Hateful necessity," said Father Eustace, looking after him, "that
+obliges us to use such implements as these! But assailed as we are
+on all sides, and by all conditions of men, what alternative is left
+us?--But now let me to my most needful task."
+
+The Abbot elect accordingly sate down to write letters, arrange orders,
+and take upon him the whole charge of an institution which tottered to
+its fall, with the same spirit of proud and devoted fortitude wherewith
+the commander of a fortress, reduced nearly to the last extremity,
+calculates what means remain to him to protract the fatal hour of
+successful storm. In the meanwhile Abbot Boniface, having given a few
+natural sighs to the downfall of the pre-eminence he had so long enjoyed
+amongst his brethren, fell fast asleep, leaving the whole cares and
+toils of office to his assistant and [Chapter ending is missing in the
+original]
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Fifth.
+
+
+  And when he came to broken briggs,
+    He slacked his bow and swam;
+  And when he came to grass growing,
+    Set down his feet and ran.
+                         GIL MORRICE.
+
+We return to Halbert Glendinning, who, as our readers may remember, took
+the high road to Edinburgh. His intercourse with the preacher, Henry
+Warden, from whom he received a letter at the moment of his deliverance,
+had been so brief, that he had not even learned the name of the nobleman
+to whose care he was recommended. Something like a name had been spoken
+indeed, but he had only comprehended that he was to meet the chief
+advancing towards the south, at the head of a party of horse. When day
+dawned on his journey he was in the same uncertainty. A better scholar
+would have been informed by the address of the letter, but Halbert
+had not so far profited by Father Eustace's lessons as to be able
+to decipher it. His mother-wit taught him that he must not, in such
+uncertain times, be too hasty in asking information of any one; and
+when, after a long day's journey, night surprised him near a little
+village, he began to be dubious and anxious concerning the issue of his
+journey.
+
+In a poor country, hospitality is generally exercised freely, and
+Halbert, when he requested a night's quarters, did nothing either
+degrading or extraordinary. The old woman, to whom he made this request,
+granted it the more readily, that she thought she saw some resemblance
+between Halbert and her son Saunders, who had been killed in one of
+the frays so common in the time. It is true, Saunders was a short
+square-made fellow, with red hair and a freckled face, and somewhat
+bandy-legged, whereas the stranger was of a brown complexion, tall,
+and remarkably well-made. Nevertheless, the widow was clear that there
+existed a general resemblance betwixt her guest and Saunders, and kindly
+pressed him to share of her evening cheer. A pedlar, a man of about
+forty years old, was also her guest, who talked with great feeling of
+the misery of pursuing such a profession as his in the time of war and
+tumult.
+
+"We think much of knights and soldiers," said he; "but the pedder-coffe
+who travels the land has need of more courage than them all. I am sure
+he maun face mair risk, God help him. Here have I come this length,
+trusting the godly Earl of Murray would be on his march to the Borders,
+for he was to have guestened with the Baron of Avenel; and instead of
+that comes news that he has gone westlandways about some tuilzie in
+Ayrshire. And what to do I wot not; for if I go to the south without a
+safeguard, the next bonny rider I meet might ease me of sack and pack,
+and maybe of my life to boot; and then, if I try to strike across the
+moors, I may be as ill off before I can join myself to that good Lord's
+company."
+
+No one was quicker at catching a hint than Halbert Glendinning. He said
+he himself had a desire to go westward. The pedlar looked at him with
+a very doubtful air, when the old dame, who perhaps thought her young
+guest resembled the umquhile Saunders, not only in his looks, but in a
+certain pretty turn to sleight-of-hand, which the defunct was supposed
+to have possessed, tipped him the wink, and assured the pedlar he need
+have no doubt that her young cousin was a true man.
+
+"Cousin!" said the pedlar, "I thought you said this youth had been a
+stranger."
+
+"Ill hearing makes ill rehearsing," said the landlady; "he is a stranger
+to me by eye-sight, but that does not make him a stranger to me by
+blood, more especially seeing his likeness to my son Saunders, poor
+bairn."
+
+The pedlar's scruples and jealousies being thus removed, or at least
+silenced, the travellers agreed that they would proceed in company
+together the next morning by daybreak, the pedlar acting as a guide to
+Glendinning, and the youth as a guard to the pedlar, until they should
+fall in with Murray's detachment of horse. It would appear that the
+lady never doubted what was to be the event of this compact, for, taking
+Glendinning aside, she charged him, "to be moderate with the puir body,
+but at all events, not to forget to take a piece of black say, to make
+the auld wife a new rokelay." Halbert laughed and took his leave.
+
+It did not a little appal the pedlar, when, in the midst of a black
+heath, the young man told him the nature of the commission with which
+their hostess had charged him. He took heart, however, upon seeing
+the open, frank, and friendly demeanor of the youth, and vented his
+exclamations on the ungrateful old traitress. "I gave her," he said,
+"yesterday-e'en nae farther gane, a yard of that very black say, to make
+her a couvre-chef; but I see it is ill done to teach the cat the way to
+the kirn."
+
+Thus set at ease on the intentions of his companion (for in those happy
+days the worst was always to be expected from a stranger), the pedlar
+acted as Halbert's guide over moss and moor, over hill and many a
+dale, in such a direction as might best lead them towards the route of
+Murray's party. At length they arrived upon the side of an eminence,
+which commanded a distant prospect over a tract of savage and desolate
+moorland, marshy and waste--an alternate change of shingly hill and
+level morass, only varied by blue stagnant pools of water. A road
+scarcely marked winded like a serpent through the wilderness, and the
+pedlar, pointing to it, said--"The road from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Here
+we must wait, and if Murray and his train be not already passed by, we
+shall soon see trace of them, unless some new purpose shall have altered
+their resolution; for in these blessed days no man, were he the nearest
+the throne, as the Earl of Murray may be, knows when he lays his head on
+his pillow at night where it is to lie upon the following even."
+
+They paused accordingly and sat down, the pedlar cautiously using for a
+seat the box which contained his treasures, and not concealing from his
+companion that he wore under his cloak a pistolet hanging at his belt in
+case of need. He was courteous, however, and offered Halbert a share of
+the provisions which he carried about him for refreshment. They were of
+the coarsest kind--oat-bread baked in cakes, oatmeal slaked with cold
+water, an onion or two, and a morsel of smoked ham completed the feast.
+But such as it was, no Scotsman of the time, had his rank been much
+higher than that of Glendinning, would have refused to share in it,
+especially as the pedlar produced, with a mysterious air, a tup's horn,
+which he carried slung from his shoulders, and which, when its contents
+were examined, produced to each party a clam-shell-full of excellent
+usquebaugh--a liquor strange to Halbert, for the strong waters known in
+the south of Scotland came from France, and in fact such were but rarely
+used. The pedlar recommended it as excellent, said he had procured it in
+his last visit to the braes of Doune, where he had securely traded under
+the safe-conduct of the Laird of Buchanan. He also set an example
+to Halbert, by devoutly emptying the cup "to the speedy downfall of
+Anti-Christ."
+
+Their conviviality was scarce ended, ere a rising dust was seen on the
+road of which they commanded the prospect, and half a score of horsemen
+were dimly descried advancing at considerable speed, their casques
+glancing, and the points of their spears twinkling as they caught a
+glimpse of the sun.
+
+"These," said the pedlar, "must be the out-scourers of Murray's party;
+let us lie down in the peat-hag, and keep ourselves out of sight."
+
+"And why so?" said Halbert; "let us rather go down and make a signal to
+them."
+
+"God forbid!" replied the pedlar; "do you ken so ill the customs of our
+Scottish nation? That plump of spears that are spurring on so fast are
+doubtless commanded by some wild kinsman of Morton, or some such daring
+fear-nothing as neither regards God nor man. It is their business, if
+they meet with any enemies, to pick quarrels and clear the way of them;
+and the chief knows nothing of what happens, coming up with his more
+discreet and moderate friends, it may be a full mile in the rear. Were
+we to go near these lads of the laird's belt, your letter would do you
+little good, and my pack would do me muckle black ill; they would tirl
+every steek of claithes from our back, fling us into a moss-hag with a
+stone at our heels, naked as the hour that brought us into this cumbered
+and sinful world, and neither Murray nor any other man ever the wiser.
+But if he did come to ken of it, what might he help it?--it would be
+accounted a mere mistake, and there were all the moan made. O credit
+me, youth, that when men draw cold steel on each other in their native
+country, they neither can nor may dwell deeply on the offences of those
+whose swords are useful to them."
+
+They suffered, therefore, the vanguard, as it might be termed, of the
+Earl of Murray's host to pass forward; and it was not long until a
+denser cloud of dust began to arise to the northward.
+
+"Now," said the pedlar, "let us hurry down the hill; for to tell the
+truth," said he, dragging Halbert along earnestly, "a Scottish noble's
+march is like a serpent--the head is furnished with fangs, and the tail
+hath its sting; the only harmless point of access is the main body."
+
+"I will hasten as fast as you," said the youth; "but tell me why the
+rearward of such an army should be as dangerous as the van?"
+
+"Because, as the vanguard consists of their picked wild desperates,
+resolute for mischief, such as neither fear God nor regard their
+fellow-creatures, but understand themselves bound to hurry from the road
+whatever is displeasing to themselves, so the rear-guard consists of
+misproud serving-men, who, being in charge of the baggage, take care to
+amend by their exactions upon travelling-merchants and others, their own
+thefts on their master's property. You will hear the advanced _enfans
+perdus_, as the French call them, and so they are indeed, namely,
+children of the fall, singing unclean and fulsome ballads of sin and
+harlotrie. And then will come on the middle-ward, when you will hear the
+canticles and psalms sung by the reforming nobles, and the gentry, and
+honest and pious clergy, by whom they are accompanied. And last of all,
+you will find in the rear a legend of godless lackies, palfreniers, and
+horse-boys, talking of nothing but dicing, drinking, and drabbing."
+
+As the pedlar spoke, they had reached the side of the high-road, and
+Murray's main body was in sight, consisting of about three hundred
+horse, marching with great regularity, and in a closely compacted body.
+Some of the troopers wore the liveries of their masters, but this
+was not common. Most of them were dressed in such colours as chance
+dictated. But the majority, being clad in blue cloth, and the whole
+armed with cuirass and back-plate, with sleeves of mail, gauntlets,
+and poldroons, and either mailed hose or strong jack-boots, they had
+something of a uniform appearance.
+
+Many of the leaders were clad in complete armour, and all in a certain
+half-military dress, which no man of quality in those disturbed times
+ever felt himself sufficiently safe to abandon.
+
+The foremost of this party immediately rode up to the pedlar and to
+Halbert Glendinning, and demanded of them who they were. The pedlar told
+his story, the young Glendinning exhibited his letter, which a gentleman
+carried to Murray. In an instant after, the word "Halt!" was given
+through the squadron, and at once the onward heavy tramp, which seemed
+the most distinctive attribute of the body, ceased, and was heard no
+more. The command was announced that the troop should halt here for an
+hour to refresh themselves and their horses. The pedlar was assured of
+safe protection, and accommodated with the use of a baggage horse.
+But at the same time he was ordered into the rear; a command which he
+reluctantly obeyed, and not without wringing pathetically the hand of
+Halbert as he separated from him.
+
+The young heir of Glendearg was in the meanwhile conducted to a plot of
+ground more raised, and therefore drier than the rest of the moor. Here
+a carpet was flung on the ground by way of table-cloth, and around it
+sat the leaders of the party, partaking of an entertainment as coarse,
+with relation to their rank, as that which Glendinning had so lately
+shared. Murray himself rose as he came forward, and advanced a step to
+meet him.
+
+This celebrated person had in his appearance, as well as in his mind,
+much of the admirable qualities of James V. his father. Had not the
+stain of illegitimacy rested upon his birth, he would have filled the
+Scottish throne with as much honour as any of the Stewart race. But
+History, while she acknowledges his high talents, and much that was
+princely, nay, royal, in his conduct, cannot forget that ambition led
+him farther than honour or loyalty warranted. Brave amongst the bravest,
+fair in presence and in favour, skilful to manage the most intricate
+affairs, to attach to himself those who were doubtful, to stun and
+overwhelm, by the suddenness and intrepidity of his enterprises, those
+who were resolute in resistance, he attained, and as to personal merit
+certainly deserved, the highest place in the kingdom. But he abused,
+under the influence of strong temptation, the opportunities which his
+sister Mary's misfortunes and imprudence threw in his way; he supplanted
+his sovereign and benefactress in her power, and his history affords
+us one of those mixed characters, in which principle was so often
+sacrificed to policy, that we must condemn the statesman while we pity
+and regret the individual. Many events in his life gave likelihood to
+the charge that he himself aimed at the crown; and it is too true, that
+he countenanced the fatal expedient of establishing an English, that is
+a foreign and a hostile interest, in the councils of Scotland. But his
+death may be received as an atonement for his offences, and may serve
+to show how much more safe is the person of a real patriot, than that of
+the mere head of a faction, who is accounted answerable for the offences
+of his meanest attendants.
+
+When Murray approached, the young rustic was naturally abashed at the
+dignity of his presence. The commanding form and the countenance to
+which high and important thoughts were familiar, the features which bore
+the resemblance of Scotland's long line of kings, were well calculated
+to impress awe and reverence. His dress had little to distinguish
+him from the high-born nobles and barons by whom he was attended. A
+buff-coat, richly embroidered with silken lace, supplied the place of
+armour; and a massive gold chain, with its medal, hung round his neck.
+His black velvet bonnet was decorated with a string of large and fair
+pearls, and with a small tufted feather; a long heavy sword was girt to
+his side, as the familiar companion of his hand. He wore gilded spurs on
+his boots, and these completed his equipment.
+
+"This letter," he said, "is from the godly preacher of the word, Henry
+Warden, young man? is it not so?" Halbert answered in the affirmative.
+"And he writes to us, it would seem, in some strait, and refers us to
+you for the circumstances. Let us know, I pray you, how things stand
+with him."
+
+In some perturbation Halbert Glendinning gave an account of the
+circumstances which had accompanied the preacher's imprisonment. When
+he came to the discussion of the _handfasting_ engagement, he was struck
+with the ominous and displeased expression of Murray's brows, and,
+contrary to all prudential and politic rule, seeing something was wrong,
+yet not well aware what that something was, had almost stopped short in
+his narrative.
+
+"What ails the fool?" said the Earl, drawing his dark-red eyebrows
+together, while the same dusky glow kindled on his brow--"Hast thou not
+learned to tell a true tale without stammering?"
+
+"So please you," answered Halbert, with considerable address, "I have
+never before spoken in such a presence."
+
+"He seems a modest youth," said Murray, turning to his next attendant,
+"and yet one who in a good cause will neither fear friend nor
+foe.--Speak on, friend, and speak freely."
+
+Halbert then gave an account of the quarrel betwixt Julian Avenel
+and the preacher, which the Earl, biting his lip the while, compelled
+himself to listen to as a thing of indifference. At first he appeared
+even to take the part of the Baron.
+
+"Henry Warden," he said, "is too hot in his zeal. The law both of God
+and man maketh allowance for certain alliances, though not strictly
+formal, and the issue of such may succeed."
+
+This general declaration he expressed, accompanying it with a glance
+around upon the few followers who were present at this interview. The
+most of them answered--"There is no contravening that;" but one or
+two looked on the ground, and were silent. Murray then turned again to
+Glendinning, commanding him to say what next chanced, and not to omit
+any particular. When he mentioned the manner in which Julian had cast
+from him his concubine, Murray drew a deep breath, set his teeth hard,
+and laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger. Casting his eyes once more
+around the circle, which was now augmented by one or two of the reformed
+preachers, he seemed to devour his rage in silence, and again commanded
+Halbert to proceed. When he came to describe how Warden had been dragged
+to a dungeon, the Earl seemed to have found the point at which he might
+give vent to his own resentment, secure of the sympathy and approbation
+of all who were present. "Judge you," he said, looking to those around
+him, "judge you, my peers, and noble gentlemen of Scotland, betwixt me
+and this Julian Avenel--he hath broken his own word, and hath violated
+my safe-conduct--and judge you also, my reverend brethren, he hath put
+his hand forth upon a preacher of the gospel, and perchance may sell his
+blood to the worshippers of Anti-Christ!"
+
+"Let him die the death of a traitor," said the secular chiefs, "and let
+his tongue be struck through with the hangman's fiery iron to avenge his
+perjury!"
+
+"Let him go down to his place with Baal's priests," said the preachers,
+"and be his ashes cast into Tophet!"
+
+Murray heard them with the smile of expected revenge; yet it is probable
+that the brutal treatment of the female, whose circumstances somewhat
+resembled those of the Earl's own mother, had its share in the grim
+smile which curled his sun-burnt cheek and its haughty lip. To Halbert
+Glendinning, when his narrative was finished, he spoke with great
+kindness.
+
+"He is a bold and gallant youth," said he to those around, "and formed
+of the stuff which becomes a bustling time. There are periods when men's
+spirits shine bravely through them. I will know something more of him."
+
+He questioned him more particularly concerning the Baron of Avenel's
+probable forces--the strength of his castle--the dispositions of his
+next heir, and this brought necessarily forward the sad history of his
+brother's daughter, Mary Avenel, which was told with an embarrassment
+that did not escape Murray.
+
+"Ha! Julian Avenel," he said, "and do you provoke my resentment, when
+you have so much more reason to deprecate my justice! I knew Walter
+Avenel, a true Scotsman and a good soldier. Our sister, the Queen, must
+right his daughter; and were her land restored, she would be a fitting
+bride to some brave man who may better merit our favour than the traitor
+Julian."--Then looking at Halbert, he said, "Art thou of gentle blood,
+young man?"
+
+Halbert, with a faltering and uncertain voice, began to speak of his
+distant pretensions to claim a descent from the ancient Glendonwynes of
+Galloway, when Murray interrupted him with a smile.
+
+"Nay--nay--leave pedigrees to bards and heralds. In our days, each,
+man is the son of his own deeds. The glorious light of reformation hath
+shone alike on prince and peasant; and peasant as well as prince may be
+illustrated by fighting in its defence. It is a stirring world, where
+all may advance themselves who have stout hearts and strong arms. Tell
+me frankly why thou hast left thy father's house."
+
+Halbert Glendinning made a frank confession of his duel with Piercie
+Shafton, and mentioned his supposed death.
+
+"By my hand," said Murray, "thou art a bold sparrow-hawk, to match thee
+so early with such a kite as Piercie Shafton. Queen Elizabeth would give
+her glove filled with gold crowns to know that meddling coxcomb to be
+under the sod.--Would she not, Morton?"
+
+"Ay, by my word, and esteem her glove a better gift than the crowns,"
+replied Morton, "which few Border lads like this fellow will esteem just
+valuation."
+
+"But what shall we do with this young homicide?" said Murray; "what will
+our preachers say?"
+
+"Tell them of Moses and of Benaiah," said Morton; "it is but the smiting
+of an Egyptian when all is said out."
+
+"Let it be so," said Murray, laughing; "but we will bury the tale,
+as the prophet did the body, in the sand. I will take care of this
+swankie.--Be near to us, Glendinning, since that is thy name. We retain
+thee as a squire of our household. The master of our horse will see thee
+fully equipped and armed."
+
+During the expedition which he was now engaged in, Murray found several
+opportunities of putting Glendinning's courage and presence of mind to
+the test, and he began to rise so rapidly in his esteem, that those who
+knew the Earl considered the youth's fortune as certain. One step only
+was wanting to raise him to a still higher degree of confidence and
+favour--it was the abjuration of the Popish religion. The ministers who
+attended upon Murray and formed his chief support amongst the people,
+found an easy convert in Halbert Glendinning, who, from his earliest
+days, had never felt much devotion towards the Catholic faith, and who
+listened eagerly to more reasonable views of religion. By thus
+adopting the faith of his master, he rose higher in his favour, and was
+constantly about his person during his prolonged stay in the west of
+Scotland, which the intractability of those whom the Earl had to deal
+with, protracted from day to day, and week to week.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Sixth.
+
+
+  Faint the din of battle bray'd
+    Distant down the hollow wind;
+  War and terror fled before,
+    Wounds and death were left behind.
+                      PENROSE.
+
+The autumn of the year was well advanced, when the Earl of Morton, one
+morning, rather unexpectedly, entered the antechamber of Murray, in
+which Halbert Glendinning was in waiting.
+
+"Call your master, Halbert," said the Earl; "I have news for him from
+Teviotdale; and for you too, Glendinning.--News! news! my Lord of
+Murray!" he exclaimed at the door of the Earl's bedroom; "come forth
+instantly." The Earl appeared, and greeted his ally, demanding eagerly
+his tidings.
+
+"I have had a sure friend with me from the south," said Morton; "he has
+been at Saint Mary's Monastery, and brings important tidings." "Of
+what complexion?" said Murray, "and can you trust the bearer?" "He is
+faithful, on my life," said Morton; "I wish all around your Lordship may
+prove equally so."
+
+"At what, and whom, do you point?" demanded Murray.
+
+"Here is the Egyptian of trusty Halbert Glendinning, our Southland
+Moses, come alive again, and flourishing, gay and bright as ever, in
+that Teviotdale Goshen, the Halidome of Kennaquhair."
+
+"What mean you, my lord?" said Murray.
+
+"Only that your new henchman has put a false tale upon you. Piercie
+Shafton is alive and well; by the same token that the gull is thought to
+be detained there by love to a miller's daughter, who roamed the country
+with him in disguise."
+
+"Glendinning," said Murray, bending his brow into his darkest frown,
+"thou hast not, I trust, dared to bring me a lie in thy mouth, in order
+to win my confidence?"
+
+"My lord," said Halbert, "I am incapable of a lie. I should choke on one
+were my life to require that I pronounced it. I say, that this sword of
+my father was through the body--the point came out behind his back--the
+hilt pressed upon his breast-bone. And I will plunge it as deep in the
+body of any one who shall dare to charge me with falsehood."
+
+"How, fellow!" said Morton, "wouldst thou beard a nobleman?"
+
+"Be silent, Halbert," said Murray, "and you, my Lord of Morton, forbear
+him. I see truth written on his brow."
+
+"I wish the inside of the manuscript may correspond with the
+superscription," replied his more suspicious ally. "Look to it, my lord,
+you will one day lose your life by too much confidence."
+
+"And you will lose your friends by being too readily suspicious,"
+answered Murray. "Enough of this--let me hear thy tidings."
+
+"Sir John Foster," said Morton, "is about to send a party into Scotland
+to waste the Halidome."
+
+"How! without waiting my presence and permission?" said Murray--"he is
+mad--will he come as an enemy into the Queen's country?"
+
+"He has Elizabeth's express orders," answered Morton, "and they are not
+to be trifled with. Indeed, his march has been more than once projected
+and laid aside during the time we have been here, and has caused much
+alarm at Kennaquhair. Boniface, the old Abbot, has resigned, and whom
+think you they have chosen in his place?"
+
+"No one surely," said Murray; "they would presume to hold no election
+until the Queen's pleasure and mine were known?"
+
+Morton shrugged his shoulders--"They have chosen the pupil of
+old Cardinal Beatoun, that wily determined champion of Rome, the
+bosom-friend of our busy Primate of Saint Andrews. Eustace, late the
+Sub-Prior of Kennaquhair, is now its Abbot, and, like a second Pope
+Julius, is levying men and making musters to fight with Foster if he
+comes forward."
+
+"We must prevent that meeting," said Murray, hastily; "whichever party
+wins the day, it were a fatal encounter for us--Who commands the troop
+of the Abbot?"
+
+"Our faithful old friend, Julian Avenel, nothing less," answered Morton.
+
+"Glendinning," said Murray, "sound trumpets to horse directly, and let
+all who love us get on horseback without delay--Yes, my lord, this were
+indeed a fatal dilemma. If we take part with our English friends, the
+country will cry shame on us--the very old wives will attack us with
+their rocks and spindles--the very stones of the street will rise up
+against us--we cannot set our face to such a deed of infamy. And my
+sister, whose confidence I already have such difficulty in preserving,
+will altogether withdraw it from me. Then, were we to oppose the English
+Warden, Elizabeth would call it a protecting of her enemies and what
+not, and we should lose her."
+
+"The she-dragon," said Morton, "is the best card in our pack; and yet
+I would not willingly stand still and see English blades carve Scots
+flesh--What say you to loitering by the way, marching far and easy for
+fear of spoiling our horses? They might then fight dog fight bull, fight
+Abbot fight archer, and no one could blame us for what chanced when we
+were not present."
+
+"All would blame us, James Douglas," replied Murray; "we should lose
+both sides--we had better advance with the utmost celerity, and do what
+we can to keep the peace betwixt them.--I would the nag that brought
+Piercie Shafton hither had broken his neck over the highest heuch in
+Northumberland!--He is a proper coxcomb to make all this bustle about,
+and to occasion perhaps a national war!"
+
+"Had we known in time," said Douglas, "we might have had him privily
+waited upon as he entered the Borders; there are strapping lads enough
+would have rid us of him for the lucre of his spur-whang. [Footnote:
+_Spur-whang_--Spur-leather.] But to the saddle, James Stewart, since so
+the phrase goes. I hear your trumpets. Bound to horse and away--we shall
+soon see which nag is best breathed."
+
+Followed by a train of about three hundred well-mounted men-at-arms,
+these two powerful barons directed their course to Dumfries, and from
+thence eastward to Teviotdale, marching at a rate which, as Morton had
+foretold, soon disabled a good many of their horses, so that when
+they approached the scene of expected action, there were not above
+two hundred of their train remaining in a body, and of these most were
+mounted on steeds which had been sorely jaded.
+
+They had hitherto been amused and agitated by various reports concerning
+the advance of the English soldiers, and the degree of resistance which
+the Abbot was able to oppose to them. But when they were six or seven
+miles from Saint Mary's of Kennaquhair, a gentleman of the country, whom
+Murray had summoned to attend him, and on whose intelligence he knew he
+could rely, arrived at the head of two or three servants, "bloody with
+spurring, fiery red with haste." According to his report, Sir John
+Foster, after several times announcing, and as often delaying, his
+intended incursion, had at last been so stung with the news that Piercie
+Shafton was openly residing within the Halidome, that he determined to
+execute the commands of his mistress, which directed him, at every risk,
+to make himself master of the Euphuist's person. The Abbot's unceasing
+exertions had collected a body of men almost equal in number to those of
+the English Warden, but less practised in arms. They were united under
+the command of Julian Avenel, and it was apprehended they would join
+battle upon the banks of a small stream which forms the verge of the
+Halidome.
+
+"Who knows the place?" said Murray.
+
+"I do, my lord," answered Glendinning.
+
+"'Tis well," said the Earl; "take a score of the best-mounted
+horse--make what haste thou canst, and announce to them that I am coming
+up instantly with a strong power, and will cut to pieces, without mercy,
+whichever party strikes the first blow.--Davidson," said he to the
+gentleman who brought the intelligence, "thou shalt be my guide.--Hie
+thee on, Glendinning--Say to Foster, I conjure him, as he respects his
+mistress's service, that he will leave the matter in my hands. Say to
+the Abbot, I will burn the Monastery over his head, if he strikes a
+stroke till I come--Tell the dog, Julian Avenel, that he hath already
+one deep score to settle with me--I will set his head on the top of the
+highest pinnacle of Saint Mary's, if he presume to open another. Make
+haste, and spare not the spur for fear of spoiling horse-flesh."
+
+"Your bidding shall be obeyed, my lord," said Glendinning; and choosing
+those whose horses were in best plight to be his attendants, he went off
+as fast as the jaded state of their cavalry permitted. Hill and hollow
+vanished from under the feet of the chargers.
+
+They had not ridden half the way, when they met stragglers coming off
+from the field, whose appearance announced that the conflict was begun.
+Two supported in their arms a third, their elder brother, who was
+pierced with an arrow through the body. Halbert, who knew them to belong
+to the Halidome, called them by their names, and questioned them of the
+state of the affray; but just then, in spite of their efforts to retain
+him in the saddle, their brother dropped from the horse, and they
+dismounted in haste to receive his last breath. From men thus engaged,
+no information was to be obtained. Glendinning, therefore, pushed
+on with his little troop, the more anxiously, as he perceived other
+stragglers, bearing Saint Andrew's cross upon their caps and corslets,
+flying apparently from the field of battle. Most of these, when they
+were aware of a body of horsemen approaching on the road, held to the
+one hand or the other, at such a distance as precluded coming to speech
+of them. Others, whose fear was more intense, kept the onward road,
+galloping wildly as fast as their horses could carry them, and when
+questioned, only glared without reply on those who spoke to them, and
+rode on without drawing bridle. Several of these were also known to
+Halbert, who had therefore no doubt, from the circumstances in which
+he met them, that the men of the Halidome were defeated. He became now
+unspeakably anxious concerning the fate of his brother, who, he could
+not doubt, must have been engaged in the affray. He therefore increased
+the speed of his horse, so that not above five or six of his followers
+could keep up with him. At length he reached a little hill, at the
+descent of which, surrounded by a semi-circular sweep of a small stream,
+lay the plain which had been the scene of the skirmish.
+
+It was a melancholy spectacle. War and terror, to use the expression
+of the poet, had rushed on to the field, and left only wounds and death
+behind them. The battle had been stoutly contested, as was almost always
+the case with these Border skirmishes, where ancient hatred, and mutual
+injuries, made men stubborn in maintaining the cause of their conflict.
+Towards the middle of the plain, there lay the bodies of several men who
+had fallen in the very act of grappling with the enemy; and there
+were seen countenances which still bore the stern expression of
+unextinguishable hate and defiance, hands which clasped the hilt of the
+broken falchion, or strove in vain to pluck the deadly arrow from the
+wound. Some were wounded, and, cowed of the courage they had lately
+shown, were begging aid, and craving water, in a tone of melancholy
+depression, while others tried to teach the faltering tongue to
+pronounce some half-forgotten prayer, which, even when first learned,
+they had but half understood. Halbert, uncertain what course he was next
+to pursue, rode through the plain to see if, among the dead or wounded,
+he could discover any traces of his brother Edward. He experienced no
+interruption from the English. A distant cloud of dust announced that
+they were still pursuing the scattered fugitives, and he guessed, that
+to approach them with his followers, until they were again under some
+command, would be to throw away his own life, and that of his men, whom
+the victors would instantly confound with the Scots, against whom they
+had been successful. He resolved, therefore, to pause until Murray came
+up with his forces, to which he was the more readily moved, as he heard
+the trumpets of the English Warden sounding the retreat, and recalling
+from the pursuit. He drew his men together, and made a stand in an
+advantageous spot of ground, which had been occupied by the Scots in the
+beginning of the action, and most fiercely disputed while the skirmish
+lasted.
+
+While he stood here, Halbert's ear was assailed by the feeble moan of
+a woman, which he had not expected to hear amid that scene, until
+the retreat of the foes had permitted the relations of the slain to
+approach, for the purpose of paying them the last duties. He looked with
+anxiety, and at length observed, that by the body of a knignt in bright
+armour, whose crest, though soiled and broken, still showed the marks
+of rank and birth, there sat a female wrapped in a horseman's cloak, and
+holding something pressed against her bosom, which he soon discovered to
+be a child. He glanced towards the English. They advanced not, and the
+continued and prolonged sound of their trumpets, with the shouts of
+the leaders, announced that their powers would not be instantly
+re-assembled. He had, therefore, a moment to look after this unfortunate
+woman. He gave his horse to a spearman as he dismounted, and,
+approaching the unhappy female, asked her, in the most soothing tone he
+could assume, whether he could assist her in her distress. The mourner
+made him no direct answer; but endeavouring, with a trembling and
+unskilful hand, to undo the springs of the visor and gorget, said, in
+a tone of impatient grief, "Oh, he would recover instantly could I but
+give him air--land and living, life and honour, would I give for the
+power of undoing these cruel iron platings that suffocate him!" He that
+would soothe sorrow must not argue on the vanity of the most deceitful
+hopes. The body lay as that of one whose last draught of vital air had
+been drawn, and who must never more have concern with the nether sky.
+But Halbert Glendinning failed not to raise the visor and cast loose
+the gorget, when, to his great surprise, he recognized the pale face of
+Julian Avenel. His last fight was over, the fierce and turbid spirit had
+departed in the strife in which it had so long delighted.
+
+"Alas! he is gone," said Halbert, speaking to the young woman, in whom
+he had now no difficulty of knowing the unhappy Catherine.
+
+"Oh, no, no, no!" she reiterated, "do not say so--he is not dead--he is
+but in a swoon. I have lain as long in one myself--and then his voice
+would arouse me, when he spoke kindly, and said, Catherine, look up
+for my sake--And look up, Julian, for mine!" she said, addressing the
+senseless corpse; "I know you do but counterfeit to frighten me, but I
+am not frightened," she added, with an hysterical attempt to laugh; and
+then instantly changing her tone, entreated him to "speak, were it but
+to curse my folly. Oh, the rudest word you ever said to me would now
+sound like the dearest you wasted on me before I gave you all. Lift him
+up," she said, "lift him up, for God's sake!--have you no compassion? He
+promised to wed me if I bore him a boy, and this child is so like to
+its father!--How shall he keep his word, if you do not help me to awaken
+him?--Christie of the Clinthill, Rowley, Hutcheon! ye were constant at
+his feast, but ye fled from him at the fray, false villains as ye are!"
+
+"Not I, by Heaven!" said a dying man, who made some shift to raise
+himself on his elbow, and discovered to Halbert the well-known features
+of Christie; "I fled not a foot, and a man can but fight while his
+breath lasts--mine is going fast.--So, youngster," said he, looking at
+Glendinning, and seeing his military dress, "thou hast ta'en the basnet
+at last? it is a better cap to live in than die in. I would chance had
+sent thy brother here instead--there was good in him--but thou art as
+wild, and wilt soon be as wicked as myself."
+
+"God forbid!" said Halbert, hastily.
+
+"Marry, and amen, with all my heart," said the wounded man, "there will
+be company enow without thee where I am going. But God be praised I had
+no hand in that wickedness," said he, looking to poor Catherine; and
+with some exclamation in his mouth, that sounded betwixt a prayer and
+a curse, the soul of Christie of the Clinthill took wing to the last
+account.
+
+Deeply wrapt in the painful interest which these shocking events had
+excited, Glendinning forgot for a moment his own situation and duties,
+and was first recalled to them by a trampling of horse, and the cry of
+Saint George for England, which the English soldiers still continued
+to use. His handful of men, for most of the stragglers had waited for
+Murray's coming up, remained on horseback, holding their lances upright,
+having no command either to submit or resist.
+
+"There stands our Captain," said one of them, as a strong party of
+English came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop.
+
+"Your Captain! with his sword sheathed, and on foot in the presence of
+his enemy? a raw soldier, I warrant him," said the English leader. "So!
+ho! young man, is your dream out, and will you now answer me if you will
+fight or fly?"
+
+"Neither," answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity.
+
+"Then throw down thy sword and yield thee," answered the Englishman.
+
+"Not till I can help myself no otherwise," said Halbert, with the same
+moderation of tone and manner.
+
+"Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe service?"
+demanded the English Captain.
+
+"To the noble Earl of Murray."
+
+"Then thou servest," said the Southron, "the most disloyal nobleman who
+breathes--false both to England and Scotland."
+
+"Thou liest," said Glendinning, regardless of all consequences.
+
+"Ha! art thou so hot how, and wert so cold but a minute since? I lie, do
+I? Wilt thou do battle with me on that quarrel?"
+
+"With one to one--one to two--or two to five, as you list," said Halbert
+Glendinning; "grant me but a fair field."
+
+"That thou shalt have.--Stand back, my mates," said the brave
+Englishman. "If I fall, give him fair play, and let him go off free with
+his people."
+
+"Long life to the noble Captain!" cried the soldiers, as impatient to
+see the duel, as if it had been a bull-baiting.
+
+"He will have a short life of it, though," said the sergeant, "if he,
+an old man of sixty, is to fight, for any reason, or for no reason, with
+every man he meets, and especially the young fellows he might be father
+to.--And here comes the Warden besides to see the sword-play."
+
+In fact, Sir John Foster came up with a considerable body of his
+horsemen, just as his Captain, whose age rendered him unequal to the
+combat with so strong and active a youth as Glendinning, was deprived of
+his sword.
+
+"Take it up for shame, old Stawarth Bolton," said the English Warden;
+"and thou, young man, tell me who and what thou art?"
+
+"A follower of the Earl of Murray, who bore his will to your honour,"
+answered Glendinning,--"but here he comes to say it himself; I see the
+van of his horsemen come over the hills."
+
+"Get into order, my masters," said Sir John Foster to his followers;
+"you that have broken your spears, draw your swords. We are something
+unprovided for a second field, but if yonder dark cloud on the hill edge
+bring us foul weather, we must bear as bravely as our broken cloaks
+will bide it. Meanwhile, Stawarth, we have got the deer we have hunted
+for--here is Piercie Shafton hard and fast betwixt two troopers."
+
+"Who, that lad?" said Bolton; "he is no more Piercie Shafton than I am.
+He hath his gay cloak indeed--but Piercie Shafton is a round dozen of
+years older than that slip of roguery. I have known him since he was
+thus high. Did you never see him in the tilt-yard or in the presence?"
+
+"To the devil with such vanities!" said Sir John Foster; "when had I
+leisure for them or any thing else? During my whole life has she kept me
+to this hangman's office, chasing thieves one day and traitors another,
+in daily fear of my life; the lance never hung up in the hall, the foot
+never out of the stirrup, the saddles never off my nags' backs; and
+now, because I have been mistaken in the person of a man I never saw,
+I warrant me, the next letters from the Privy Council will rate me as I
+were a dog--a man were better dead than thus slaved and harassed."
+
+A trumpet interrupted Foster's complaints, and a Scottish pursuivant who
+attended, declared "that the noble Earl of Murray desired, in all honour
+and safety, a personal conference with Sir John Foster, midway between
+their parties, with six of company in each, and ten free minutes to come
+and go."
+
+"And now," said the Englishman, "comes another plague. I must go speak
+with yonder false Scot, and he knows how to frame his devices, to cast
+dust in the eyes of a plain man, as well as ever a knave in the north.
+I am no match for him in words, and for hard blows we are but too ill
+provided.--Pursuivant, we grant the conference--and you, Sir Swordsman,"
+(speaking to young Glendinning,) "draw off with your troopers to your
+own party--march--attend your Earl's trumpet.--Stawarth Bolton, put
+our troop in order, and be ready to move forward at the wagging of a
+finger.--Get you gone to your own friends, I tell you, Sir Squire, and
+loiter not here."
+
+Notwithstanding this peremptory order, Halbert Glendinning could not
+help stopping to cast a look upon the unfortunate Catherine, who lay
+insensible of the danger and of the trampling of so many horses around
+her, insensible, as the second glance assured him, of all and forever.
+Glendinning almost rejoiced when he saw that the last misery of life
+was over, and that the hoofs of the war-horses, amongst which he was
+compelled to leave her, could only injure and deface a senseless
+corpse. He caught the infant from her arms, half ashamed of the shout
+of laughter which rose on all sides, at seeing an armed man in such a
+situation assume such an unwonted and inconvenient burden.
+
+"Shoulder your infant!" cried a harquebusier.
+
+"Port your infant!" said a pikeman.
+
+"Peace, ye brutes," said Stawarth Bolton, "and respect humanity in
+others if you have none yourselves. I pardon the lad having done some
+discredit to my gray hairs, when I see him take care of that helpless
+creature, which ye would have trampled upon as if ye had been littered
+of bitch-wolves, not born of women."
+
+While this passed, the leaders on either side met in the neutral space
+betwixt the forces of either, and the Earl accosted the English Warden:
+
+"Is this fair or honest usage, Sir John, or for whom do you hold the
+Earl of Morton and myself, that you ride in Scotland with arrayed
+banner, fight, slay, and make prisoners at your own pleasure? Is it well
+done, think you, to spoil our land and shed our blood, after the many
+proofs we have given to your mistress of our devotion due to her will,
+saving always the allegiance due to our own sovereign?"
+
+"My Lord of Murray," answered Foster, "all the world knows you to be a
+man of quick ingine and deep wisdom, and these several weeks you have
+held me in hand with promising to arrest my sovereign mistress's rebel,
+this Piercie Shafton of Wilverton, and you have never kept your word,
+alleging turmoils in the west, and I wot not what other causes of
+hinderance. Now, since he has had the insolence to return hither, and
+live openly within ten miles of England, I could no longer, in plain
+duty to my mistress and queen, tarry upon your successive delays, and
+therefore I have used her force to take her rebel, by the strong hand,
+wherever I can find him."
+
+"And is Piercie Shafton in your hands, then?" said the Earl of Murray.
+"Be aware that I may not, without my own great shame, suffer you to
+remove him hence without doing battle."
+
+"Will you, Lord Earl, after all the advantages you have received at the
+hands of the Queen of England, do battle in the cause of her rebel?"
+said Sir John Foster.
+
+"Not so, Sir John," answered the Earl, "but I will fight to the death in
+defence of the liberties of our free kingdom of Scotland."
+
+"By my faith," said Sir John Foster, "I am well content--my sword is not
+blunted with all it has done yet this day."
+
+"By my honour, Sir John," said Sir George Heron of Chipchase, "there is
+but little reason we should fight these Scottish Lords e'en now, for I
+hold opinion with old Stawarth Bolton, and believe yonder prisoner to be
+no more Piercie Shafton than he is the Earl of Northumberland; and you
+were but ill advised to break the peace betwixt the countries for a
+prisoner of less consequence than that gay mischief-maker."
+
+"Sir George," replied Foster, "I have often heard you herons are afraid
+of hawks--Nay, lay not hand on sword, man--I did but jest; and for this
+prisoner, let him be brought up hither, that we may see who or what
+he is--always under assurance, my Lords," he continued, addressing the
+Scots.
+
+"Upon our word and honour," said Morton, "we will offer no violence."
+
+The laugh turned against Sir John Foster considerably, when the
+prisoner, being brought up, proved not only a different person from Sir
+Piercie Shafton, but a female in man's attire.
+
+"Pluck the mantle from the quean's face, and cast her to the
+horse-boys," said Foster; "she has kept such company ere now, I
+warrant."
+
+Even Murray was moved to laughter, no common thing with him, at the
+disappointment of the English Warden; but he would not permit any
+violence to be offered to the fair Molinara, who had thus a second time
+rescued Sir Piercie Shafton at her own personal risk.
+
+"You have already done more mischief than you can well answer," said the
+Earl to the English Warden, "and it were dishonour to me should I permit
+you to harm a hair of this young woman's head."
+
+"My lord," said Morton, "if Sir John will ride apart with me but for
+one moment, I will show him such reasons as shall make him content to
+depart, and to refer this unhappy day's work to the judgment of the
+Commissioners nominated to try offences on the Border."
+
+He then led Sir John Foster aside, and spoke to him in this
+manner:--"Sir John Foster, I much marvel that a man who knows your Queen
+Elizabeth as you do, should not know that, if you hope any thing from
+her, it must be for doing her useful service, not for involving her in
+quarrels with her neighbours without any advantage. Sir Knight, I will
+speak frankly what I know to be true. Had you seized the true Piercie
+Shafton by this ill-advised inroad; and had your deed threatened, as
+most likely it might, a breach betwixt the countries, your politic
+princess and her politic council would rather have disgraced Sir John
+Foster than entered into war in his behalf. But now that you have
+stricken short of your aim, you may rely on it you will have little
+thanks for carrying the matter farther. I will work thus far on the Earl
+of Murray, that he will undertake to dismiss Sir Piercie Shafton from
+the realm of Scotland.--Be well advised, and let the matter now pass
+off--you will gain nothing by farther violence, for if we fight, you as
+the fewer and the weaker through your former action, will needs have the
+worse."
+
+Sir John Foster listened with his head declining on his breast-plate.
+
+"It is a cursed chance," he said, "and I shall have little thanks for my
+day's work."
+
+He then rode up to Murray, and said, that, in deference to his
+Lordship's presence and that of my Lord of Morton, he had come to the
+resolution of withdrawing himself, with his power, without farther
+proceedings.
+
+"Stop there, Sir John Foster," said Murray; "I cannot permit you
+to retire in safety, unless you leave some one who may be surety to
+Scotland, that the injuries you have at present done us may be fully
+accounted for--you will reflect, that by permitting your retreat, I
+become accountable to my Sovereign, who will demand a reckoning of me
+for the blood of her subjects, if I suffer those who shed it to depart
+so easily."
+
+"It shall never be told in England," said the Warden, "that John Foster
+gave pledges like a subdued man, and that on the very field on which he
+stands victorious.--But," he added, after a moment's pause, "if Stawarth
+Bolton wills to abide with you on his own free choice, I will say
+nothing against it; and, as I bethink me, it were better he should stay
+to see the dismissal of this same Piercie Shafton."
+
+"I receive him as your hostage, nevertheless, and shall treat him as
+such," said the Earl of Murray. But Foster, turning away as if to give
+directions to Bolton and his men, affected not to hear this observation.
+
+"There rides a faithful servant of his most beautiful and Sovereign
+Lady," said Murray aside to Morton. "Happy man! he knows not whether the
+execution of her commands may not cost him his head; and yet he is most
+certain that to leave them unexecuted will bring disgrace and death
+without reprieve. Happy are they who are not only subjected to the
+caprices of Dame Fortune, but held bound to account and be responsible
+for them, and that to a sovereign as moody and fickle as her humorous
+ladyship herself!"
+
+"We also have a female Sovereign, my lord," said Morton.
+
+"We have so, Douglas," said the Earl,--with a suppressed sigh; "but it
+remains to be seen how long a female hand can hold the reins of power
+in a realm so wild as ours. We will now go on to Saint Mary's, and see
+ourselves after the state of that House.--Glendinning, look to that
+woman, and protect her.--What the fiend, man, hast thou got in thine
+arms?--an infant as I live!--where couldst thou find such a charge, at
+such a place and moment?"
+
+Halbert Glendinning briefly told the story. The Earl rode forward to the
+place where the body of Julian Avenel lay, with his unhappy companion's
+arms wrapped around him like the trunk of an uprooted oak borne down by
+the tempest with all its ivy garlands. Both were cold dead. Murray was
+touched in an unwonted degree, remembering, perhaps, his own birth.
+"What have they to answer for, Douglas," he said, "who thus abuse the
+sweetest gifts of affection?"
+
+The Earl of Morton, unhappy in his marriage, was a libertine in his
+amours.
+
+"You must ask that question of Henry Warden, my lord, or of John Knox--I
+am but a wild counsellor in women's matters."
+
+"Forward to Saint Mary's," said the Earl; "pass the word
+on--Glendinning, give the infant to this same female cavalier, and let
+it be taken charge of. Let no dishonour be done to the dead bodies,
+and call on the country to bury or remove them.--Forward, I say, my
+masters!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter the Thirty-Seventh.
+
+
+  Gone to be married?--Gone to swear a peace!
+
+KING JOHN
+
+The news of the lost battle, so quickly carried by the fugitives to
+the village and convent, had spread the greatest alarm among the
+inhabitants. The Sacristan and other monks counselled flight; the
+Treasurer recommended that the church plate should be offered as a
+tribute to bribe the English officer; the Abbot alone was unmoved and
+undaunted.
+
+"My brethren," he said, "since God has not given our people victory
+in the combat, it must be because he requires of us, his spiritual
+soldiers, to fight the good fight of martyrdom, a conflict in which
+nothing but our own faint-hearted cowardice can make us fail of
+victory. Let us assume, then, the armour of faith, and prepare, if it
+be necessary, to die under the ruin of these shrines, to the service
+of which we have devoted ourselves. Highly honoured are we all in this
+distinguished summons, from our dear brother Nicholas, whose gray hairs
+have been preserved until they should be surrounded by the crown of
+martyrdom, down to my beloved son Edward, who, arriving at the vineyard
+at the latest hour of the day, is yet permitted to share its toils
+with those who have laboured from the morning. Be of good courage, my
+children. I dare not, like my sainted predecessors, promise to you that
+you shall be preserved by miracle--I and you are alike unworthy of that
+especial interposition, which, in earlier times, turned the sword of
+sacrilege against the bosom of tyrants by whom it was wielded, daunted
+the hardened hearts of heretics with prodigies, and called down hosts of
+angels to defend the shrine of God and of the Virgin. Yet, by heavenly
+aid, you shall this day see that your Father and Abbot will not disgrace
+the mitre which sits upon his brow. Go to your cells, my children, and
+exercise your private devotions. Array yourselves also in alb and cope,
+as for our most solemn festivals, and be ready, when the tolling of the
+largest bell announces the approach of the enemy, to march forth to
+meet them in solemn procession. Let the church be opened to afford such
+refuge as may be to those of our vassals, who, from their exertion in
+this day's unhappy battle, or the cause, are particularly apprehensive
+of the rage of the enemy. Tell Sir Piercie Shafton, if he has escaped
+the fight--"
+
+"I am here, most venerable Abbot," replied Sir Piercie; "and if it so
+seemeth meet to you, I will presently assemble such of the men as have
+escaped this escaramouche, and will renew the resistance, even unto
+the death. Certes, you will learn from all, that I did my part in this
+unhappy matter. Had it pleased Julian Avenel to have attended to my
+counsel, specially in somewhat withdrawing of his main battle, even as
+you may have marked the heron eschew the stoop of the falcon, receiving
+him rather upon his beak than upon his wing, affairs, as I do conceive,
+might have had a different face, and we might then, in a more bellacose
+manner, have maintained that affray. Nevertheless, I would not be
+understood to speak any thing in disregard of Julian Avenel, whom I saw
+fall fighting manfully with his face to his enemy, which hath banished
+from my memory the unseemly term of 'meddling coxcomb,' with which it
+pleased him something rashly to qualify my advice, and for which, had
+it pleased Heaven and the saints to have prolonged the life of that
+excellent person, I had it bound upon my soul to have put him to death
+with my own hand."
+
+"Sir Piercie," said the Abbot, at length interrupting him, "our time
+allows brief leisure to speak what might have been."
+
+"You are right, most venerable Lord and Father," replied the
+incorrigible Euphuist; "the preterite, as grammarians have it, concerns
+frail mortality less than the future mood, and indeed our cogitations
+respect chiefly the present. In a word, I am willing to head all who
+will follow me, and offer such opposition as manhood and mortality may
+permit, to the advance of the English, though they be my own countrymen;
+and be assured, Piercie Shafton will measure his length, being five feet
+ten inches, on the ground as he stands, rather than give two yards in
+retreat, according to the usual motion in which we retrograde."
+
+"I thank you, Sir Knight," said the Abbot, "and I doubt not that you
+would make your words good; but it is not the will of Heaven that carnal
+weapons should rescue us. We are called to endure, not to resist, and
+may not waste the blood of our innocent commons in vain--Fruitless
+opposition becomes not men of our profession; they have my commands to
+resign the sword and the spear,--God and Our Lady have not blessed our
+banner."
+
+"Bethink you, reverend lord," said Piercie Shafton, very eagerly, "ere
+you resign the defence that is in your power--there are many posts near
+the entry of this village, where brave men might live or die to the
+advantage; and I have this additional motive to make defence,--the
+safety, namely, of a fair friend, who, I hope, hath escaped the hands of
+the heretics."
+
+"I understand you, Sir Piercie," said the Abbot--"you mean the daughter
+of our Convent's miller?"
+
+"Reverend my lord," said Sir Piercie, not without hesitation, "the fair
+Mysinda is, as may be in some sort alleged, the daughter of one who
+mechanically prepareth corn to be manipulated into bread, without which
+we could not exist, and which is therefore an employment in itself
+honourable, nay necessary. Nevertheless, if the purest sentiments of a
+generous mind, streaming forth like the rays of the sun reflected by
+a diamond, may ennoble one, who is in some sort the daughter of a
+molendinary mechanic----"
+
+"I have no time for all this, Sir Knight," said the Abbot; "be it enough
+to answer, that with our will we war no longer with carnal weapons. We
+of the spirituality will teach you of the temporality how to die in cold
+blood, our hands not clenched for resistance, but folded for prayer--our
+minds not filled with jealous hatred, but with Christian meekness and
+forgiveness--our ears not deafened, nor our senses confused, by the
+sound of clamorous instruments of war; but, on the contrary, our voices
+composed to Halleluiah, Kyrie-Eleison, and Salve Regina, and our blood
+temperate and cold, as those who think upon reconciling themselves with
+God, not of avenging themselves of their fellow-mortals."
+
+"Lord Abbot," said Sir Piercie, "this is nothing to the fate of my
+Molinara, whom I beseech you to observe, I will not abandon, while
+golden hilt and steel blade bide together on my falchion. I commanded
+her not to follow us to the field, and yet methought I saw her in her
+page's attire amongst the rear of the combatants."
+
+"You must seek elsewhere for the person in whose fate you are so
+deeply interested," said the Abbot; "and at present I will pray of your
+knighthood to inquire concerning her at the church, in which all our
+more defenceless vassals have taken refuge. It is my advice to you, that
+you also abide by the horns of the altar; and, Sir Piercie Shafton,"
+he added, "be of one thing secure, that if you come to harm, it will
+involve the whole of this brotherhood; for never, I trust, will the
+meanest of us buy safety at the expense of surrendering a friend or a
+guest. Leave us, my son, and may God be your aid!"
+
+When Sir Piercie Shafton had departed, and the Abbot was about to betake
+himself to his own cell, he was surprised by an unknown person anxiously
+requiring a conference, who, being admitted, proved to be no other
+than Henry Warden. The Abbot started as he entered, and exclaimed,
+angrily,--"Ha! are the few hours that fate allows him who may last wear
+the mitre of this house, not to be excused from the intrusion of heresy?
+Dost thou come," he said, "to enjoy the hopes which fete holds out to
+thy demented and accursed sect, to see the bosom of destruction sweep
+away the pride of old religion--to deface our shrines,--to mutilate and
+lay waste the bodies of our benefactors, as well as their sepulchres--to
+destroy the pinnacles and carved work of God's house, and Our Lady's?"
+
+"Peace, William Allan!" said the Protestant preacher, with dignified
+composure; "for none of these purposes do I come. I would have these
+stately shrines deprived of the idols which, no longer simply regarded
+as the effigies of the good and of the wise, have become the objects of
+foul idolatry. I would otherwise have its ornaments subsist, unless as
+they are, or may be, a snare to the souls of men; and especially do
+I condemn those ravages which have been made by the heady fury of the
+people, stung into zeal against will-worship by bloody persecution.
+Against such wanton devastations I lift my testimony."
+
+"Idle distinguisher that thou art!" said the Abbot Eustace, interrupting
+him; "what signifies the pretext under which thou dost despoil the house
+of God? and why at this present emergence will thou insult the master of
+it by thy ill-omened presence?"
+
+"Thou art unjust, William Allan," said Warden; "but I am not the less
+settled in my resolution. Thou hast protected me some time since at the
+hazard of thy rank, and what I know thou holdest still dearer, at the
+risk of thy reputation with thine own sect. Our party is now uppermost,
+and, believe me, I have come down the valley, in which thou didst
+quarter me for sequestration's sake, simply with the wish to keep my
+engagements to thee."
+
+"Ay," answered the Abbot, "and it may be, that my listening to that
+worldly and infirm compassion which pleaded with me for thy life, is now
+avenged by this impending judgment. Heaven hath smitten, it may be, the
+erring shepherd, and scattered the flock."
+
+"Think better of the Divine judgments," said Warden. "Not for thy sins,
+which are those of thy blended education and circumstances; not
+for thine own sins, William Allan, art thou stricken, but for the
+accumulated guilt which thy mis-named Church hath accumulated on her
+head, and those of her votaries, by the errors and corruption of ages."
+
+"Now, by my sure belief in the Rock of Peter," said the Abbot, "thou
+dost rekindle the last spark of human indignation for which my bosom
+has fuel--I thought I might not again have felt the impulse of earthly
+passion, and it is thy voice which once more calls me to the expression
+of human anger! yes, it is thy voice that comest to insult me in my hour
+of sorrow, with these blasphemous accusations of that church which hath
+kept the light of Christianity alive from the times of the Apostles till
+now."
+
+"From the times of the Apostles?" said the preacher, eagerly. "_Negatur,
+Gulielme Allan_--the primitive church differed as much from that of
+Rome, as did light from darkness, which, did time permit, I should
+speedily prove. And worse dost thou judge, in saying, I come to insult
+thee in thy hour of affliction, being here, God wot, with the Christian
+wish of fulfilling an engagement I had made to my host, and of rendering
+myself to thy will while it had yet power to exercise aught upon me,
+and if it might so be, to mitigate in thy behalf the rage of the victors
+whom God hath sent as a scourge to thy obstinacy."
+
+"I will none of thy intercession," said the Abbot, sternly; "the dignity
+to which the church has exalted me, never should have swelled my bosom
+more proudly in the time of the highest prosperity, than it doth at this
+crisis--I ask nothing of thee, but the assurance that my lenity to thee
+hath been the means of perverting no soul to Satan, that I have not
+given to the wolf any of the stray lambs whom the Great Shepherd of
+souls had intrusted to my charge."
+
+"William Allan," answered the Protestant, "I will be sincere with thee.
+What I promised I have kept--I have withheld my voice from speaking even
+good things. But it has pleased Heaven to call the maiden Mary Avenel
+to a better sense of faith than thou and all the disciples of Rome can
+teach. Her I have aided with my humble power--I have extricated her from
+the machinations of evil spirits to which she and her house were exposed
+during the blindness of their Romish superstition, and, praise be to
+my Master, I have not reason to fear she will again be caught in thy
+snares."
+
+"Wretched man!" said the Abbot, unable to suppress his rising
+indignation, "is it to the Abbot of St. Mary's that you boast having
+misled the soul of a dweller in Our Lady's Halidome into the paths of
+foul error and damning heresy?--Thou dost urge me, Wellwood, beyond what
+it becomes me to bear, and movest me to employ the few moments of power
+I may yet possess, in removing from the face of the earth one whose
+qualities, given by God, have been so utterly perverted as thine to the
+service of Satan."
+
+"Do thy pleasure," said the preacher; "thy vain wrath shall not prevent
+my doing my duty to advantage thee, where it may be done without
+neglecting my higher call. I go to the Earl of Murray."
+
+Their conference, which was advancing fast into bitter disputation, was
+here interrupted by the deep and sullen toll of the largest and heaviest
+bell of the Convent, a sound famous in the chronicles of the Community,
+for dispelling of tempests, and putting to flight demons, but which now
+only announced danger, without affording any means of warding against
+it. Hastily repeating his orders, that all the brethren should attend
+in the choir, arrayed for solemn procession, the Abbot ascended to the
+battlements of the lofty Monastery, by his own private staircase,
+and there met the Sacristan, who had been in the act of directing the
+tolling of the huge bell, which fell under his charge.
+
+"It is the last time I shall discharge mine office, most venerable
+Father and Lord," said he to the Abbot, "for yonder come the
+Philistines; but I would not that the large bell of Saint Mary's should
+sound for the last time, otherwise than in true and full tone--I have
+been a sinful man for one of our holy profession," added he, looking
+upward, "yet may I presume to say, not a bell hath sounded out of tune
+from the tower of the house, while Father Philip had the superintendence
+of the chime and the belfry."
+
+The Abbot, without reply, cast his eyes towards the path, which, winding
+around the mountain, descends upon Kennaquhair, from the south-east.
+He beheld at a distance a cloud of dust, and heard the neighing of many
+horses, while the occasional sparkle of the long line of spears, as they
+came downwards into the valley, announced that the band came thither in
+arms.
+
+"Shame on my weakness!" said Abbot Eustace, dashing the tears from his
+eyes; "my sight is too much dimmed to observe their motions--look, my
+son Edward," for his favourite novice had again joined him, "and tell me
+what ensigns they bear."
+
+"They are Scottish men, when all is done!" exclaimed Edward--"I see the
+white crosses--it may be the Western Borderers, or Fernieherst and his
+clan."
+
+"Look at the banner," said the Abbot; "tell me, what are the
+blazonries?"
+
+"The arms of Scotland," said Edward, "the lion and its tressure,
+quartered, as I think, with three cushions--Can it be the royal
+standard?"
+
+"Alas! no," said the Abbot, "it is that of the Earl of Murray. He hath
+assumed with his new conquest the badge of the valiant Randolph, and
+hath dropt from his hereditary coat the bend which indicates his own
+base birth--would to God he may not have blotted it also from his
+memory, and aim as well at possessing the name, as the power, of a
+king."
+
+"At least, my father," said Edward, "he will secure us from the violence
+of the Southron."
+
+"Ay, my son, as the shepherd secures a silly lamb from the wolf, which
+he destines in due time to his own banquet. Oh my son, evil days are on
+us! A breach has been made in the walls of our sanctuary--thy
+brother hath fallen from the faith. Such news brought my last secret
+intelligence--Murray hath already spoken of rewarding his services with
+the hand of Mary Avenel."
+
+"Of Mary Avenel!" said the novice, tottering towards and grasping hold
+of one of the carved pinnacles which adorned the proud battlement.
+
+"Ay, of Mary Avenel, my son, who has also abjured the faith of her
+fathers. Weep not, my Edward, weep not, my beloved son! or weep for
+their apostasy, and not for their union--Bless God, who hath called thee
+to himself, out of the tents of wickedness; but for the grace of Our
+Lady and Saint Benedict, thou also hadst been a castaway."
+
+"I endeavour, my father," said Edward, "I endeavour to forget; but what
+I would now blot from my memory has been the thought of all my former
+life--Murray dare not forward a match so unequal in birth."
+
+"He dares do what suits his purpose--The Castle of Avenel is strong, and
+needs a good castellan, devoted to his service; as for the difference
+of their birth, he will mind it no more than he would mind defacing the
+natural regularity of the ground, were it necessary he should erect upon
+it military lines and intrenchments. But do not droop for that--awaken
+thy soul within thee, my son. Think you part with a vain vision, an idle
+dream, nursed in solitude and inaction.--I weep not, yet what am I
+now like to lose?--Look at these towers, where saints dwelt, and where
+heroes have been buried--Think that I, so briefly called to preside
+over the pious flock, which has dwelt here since the first light of
+Christianity, may be this day written down the last father of this holy
+community--Come, let us descend, and meet our fate. I see them approach
+near to the village."
+
+The Abbot descended, the novice cast a glance around him; yet the sense
+of the danger impending over the stately structure, with which he was
+now united, was unable to banish the recollection of Mary Ayenel.--"His
+brother's bride!" he pulled the cowl over his face, and followed his
+Superior.
+
+The whole bells of the Abbey now added their peal to the death-toll of
+the largest which had so long sounded. The monks wept and prayed as they
+got themselves into the order of their procession for the last time, as
+seemed but too probable.
+
+"It is well our Father Boniface hath retired to the inland," said Father
+Philip; "he could never have put over this day--it would have broken his
+heart!"
+
+"God be with the soul of Abbot Ingelram!" said old Father Nicholas,
+"there were no such doings in his days.--They say we are to be put forth
+of the cloisters; and how I am to live any where else than where I have
+lived for these seventy years, I wot not--the best is, that I have not
+long to live any where."
+
+A few moments after this the great gate of the Abbey was flung open,
+and the procession moved slowly forward from beneath its huge and
+richly-adorned gateway. Cross and banner, pix and chalice, shrines
+containing relics, and censers steaming with incense, preceded and were
+intermingled with the long and solemn array of the brotherhood, in their
+long black gowns and cowls, with their white scapularies hanging over
+them, the various officers of the convent each displaying his proper
+badge of office. In the centre of the procession came the Abbot,
+surrounded and supported by his chief assistants. He was dressed in his
+habit of high solemnity, and appeared as much unconcerned as if he had
+been taking his usual part in some ordinary ceremony. After him came
+the inferior persons of the convent; the novices in their albs or white
+dresses, and the lay brethren distinguished by their beards, which were
+seldom worn by the Fathers. Women and children, mixed with a few men,
+came in the rear, bewailing the apprehended desolation of their ancient
+sanctuary. They moved, however, in order, and restrained the marks of
+their sorrow to a low wailing sound, which rather mingled with than
+interrupted the measured chant of the monks.
+
+In this order the procession entered the market-place of the village of
+Kennaquhair, which was then, as now, distinguished by an ancient cross
+of curious workmanship, the gift of some former monarch of Scotland.
+Close by the cross, of much greater antiquity, and scarcely less
+honoured, was an immensely large oak-tree, which perhaps had witnessed
+the worship of the Druids, ere the stately Monastery to which it
+adjoined had raised its spires in honour of the Christian faith. Like
+the Bentang-tree of the African villages, or the Plaistow-oak mentioned
+in White's Natural History of Selborne, this tree was the rendezvous of
+the villagers, and regarded with peculiar veneration; a feeling common
+to most nations, and which perhaps may be traced up to the remote period
+when the patriarch feasted the angels under the oak at Mamre. [Footnote:
+It is scarcely necessary to say, that in Melrose, the prototype of
+Kennaquhair, no such oak ever existed.]
+
+The monks formed themselves each in their due place around the cross,
+while under the ruins of the aged tree crowded the old and the feeble,
+with others who felt the common alarm. When they had thus arranged
+themselves, there was a deep and solemn pause. The monks stilled their
+chant, the lay populace hushed their lamentations, and all awaited in
+terror and silence the arrival of those heretical forces, whom they had
+been so long taught to regard with fear and trembling.
+
+A distant trampling was at length heard, and the glance of spears was
+seen to shine through the trees above the village. The sounds increased,
+and became more thick, one close continuous rushing sound, in which the
+tread of hoofs was mingled with the ringing of armour. The horsemen soon
+appeared at the principal entrance which leads into the irregular square
+or market-place which forms the centre of the village. They entered two
+by two, slowly, and in the greatest order. The van continued to move on,
+riding round the open spaoe, until they had attained the utmost point,
+and then turning their horses' heads to the street, stood fast; their
+companions followed in the same order, until the whole market-place was
+closely surrounded with soldiers; and the files who followed, making the
+same manoeuvre, formed an inner line within those who had first arrived,
+until the place was begirt with a quadruple file of horsemen closely
+drawn up. There was now a pause, of which the Abbot availed himself,
+by commanding the brotherhood to raise the solemn chant _De profundis
+clamavi_. He looked around the armed ranks, to see what impression the
+solemn sounds made on them. All were silent, but the brows of some
+had an expression of contempt, and almost all the rest bore a look of
+indifference; their course had been too long decided to permit past
+feelings of enthusiasm to be anew awakened by a procession or by a hymn.
+
+
+"Their hearts are hardened," said the Abbot to himself in dejection, but
+not in despair; "it remains to see whether those of their leaders are
+equally obdurate."
+
+The leaders, in the meanwhile, were advancing slowly, and Murray, with
+Morton, rode in deep conversation before a chosen band of their most
+distinguished followers, amongst whom came Halbert Glendinning. But the
+preacher Henry Warden, who, upon leaving the Monastery, had instantly
+joined them, was the only person admitted to their conference.
+
+"You are determined, then," said Morton to Murray, "to give the heiress
+of Avenel, with all her pretensions, to this nameless and obscure young
+man?"
+
+"Hath not Warden told you," said Murray, "that they have been bred
+together, and are lovers from their youth upward?"
+
+"And that they are both," said Warden, "by means which may be almost
+termed miraculous, rescued from the delusions of Rome, and brought
+within the pale of the true church. My residence at Glendearg hath made
+me well acquainted with these things. Ill would it beseem my habit and
+my calling, to thrust myself into match-making and giving in marriage,
+but worse were it in me to see your lordships do needless wrong to
+the feelings which are proper to our nature, and which, being indulged
+honestly and under the restraints of religion, become a pledge of
+domestic quiet here, and future happiness in a better world. I say, that
+you will do ill to rend those ties asunder, and to give this maiden to
+the kinsman of Lord Morton, though Lord Morton's kinsman he be."
+
+"These are fair reasons, my Lord of Murray," said Morton, "why you
+should refuse me so simple a boon as to bestow this silly damsel upon
+young Bennygask. Speak out plainly, my lord; say you would rather see
+the Castle of Avenel in the hands of one who owes his name and existence
+solely to your favour, than in the power of a Douglas, and of my
+kinsman."
+
+"My Lord of Morton," said Murray, "I have done nothing in this matter
+which should aggrieve you. This young man Glendinning has done me good
+service, and may do me more. My promise was in some degree passed to
+him, and that while Julian Avenel was alive, when aught beside the
+maiden's lily hand would have been hard to come by; whereas, you never
+thought of such an alliance for your kinsman, till you saw Julian lie
+dead yonder on the field, and knew his land to be a waif free to the
+first who could seize it. Come, come, my lord, you do less than justice
+to your gallant kinsman, in wishing him a bride bred up under the
+milk-pail; for this girl is a peasant wench in all but the accident
+of birth. I thought you had more deep respect for the honour of the
+Douglasses."
+
+"The honour of the Douglasses is safe in my keeping," answered Morton,
+haughtily; "that of other ancient families may suffer as well as the
+name of Avenel, if rustics are to be matched with the blood of our
+ancient barons."
+
+"This is but idle talking," answered Lord Murray; "in times like these,
+we must look to men and not to pedigrees. Hay was but a rustic before
+the battle of Loncarty--the bloody yoke actually dragged the plough ere
+it was emblazoned on a crest by the herald. Times of action make princes
+into peasants, and boors into barons. All families have sprung from one
+mean man; and it is well if they have never degenerated from his virtue
+who raised them first from obscurity."
+
+"My Lord of Murray will please to except the house of Douglas," said
+Morton, haughtily; "men have seen it in the tree, but never in the
+sapling--have seen it in the stream, but never in the fountain.
+
+[Footnote: The late excellent and laborious antiquary, Mr. George
+Chalmers, has rebuked the vaunt of the House of Douglas, or rather
+of Hume of Godscroft, their historian, but with less than his wonted
+accuracy. In the first volume of his Caledonia, he quotes the passage in
+Godscroft for the purpose of confuting it.
+
+The historian (of the Douglasses) cries out, "We do not know them in the
+fountain, but in the stream; not in the root, but in the stem; for we
+know not which is the mean man that did rise above the vulgar." This
+assumption Mr. Chalmers conceives ill-timed, and alleges, that if the
+historian had attended more to research than to declamation, he might
+easily have seen the first mean man of this renowned family. This
+he alleges to have been one Theobaldus Flammaticus, or Theobald the
+Fleming, to whom Arnold, Abbot of Kelso, between the year 1147 and 1160,
+granted certain lands on Douglas water, by a deed which Mr. Chalmers
+conceives to be the first link of the chain of title-deeds to
+Douglasdale. Hence, he says, the family must renounce their family
+domain, or acknowledge this obscure Fleming as their ancestor. Theobald
+the Fleming, it is acknowledged, did not himself assume the name of
+Douglas; "but," says the antiquary, "his son William, who inherited
+his estate, called himself, and was named by others, De Duglas;" and
+he refers to the deeds in which he is so designed. Mr. Chalmers' full
+argument may be found in the first volume of his Caledonia, p. 579.
+
+This proposition is one which a Scotsman will admit unwillingly, and
+only upon undeniable testimony: and as it is liable to strong grounds
+of challenge, the present author, with all the respect to Mr. Chalmers
+which his zealous and effectual researches merit, is not unwilling to
+take this opportunity to state some plausible grounds for doubting that
+Theobaldus Flammaticus was either the father of the first William de
+Douglas, or in the slightest degree connected with the Douglas family.
+
+It must first be observed, that there is no reason whatever for
+concluding Theobaldus Flammaticus to be the father of William de
+Douglas, except that they both held lands upon the small river of
+Douglas; and that there are two strong presumptions to the contrary.
+For, first, the father being named Fleming, there seems no good reason
+why the son should have assumed a different designation: secondly, there
+does not occur a single instance of the name of Theobald during the long
+line of the Douglas pedigree, an omission very unlikely to take place
+had the original father of the race been so called. These are secondary
+considerations indeed; but they are important, in so far as they exclude
+any support of Mr. Chalmers' system, except from the point which he has
+rather assumed than proved, namely, that the lands granted to Theobald
+the Fleming were the same which were granted to William de Douglas, and
+which constituted the original domain of which we find this powerful
+family lords.
+
+Now, it happens, singularly enough, that the lands granted by the Abbot
+of Kelso to Theobaldus Flammaticus are not the same of which William
+de Douglas was in possession. Nay, it would appear, from comparing the
+charter granted to Theobaldus Flammaticus, that, though situated on the
+water of Douglas, they never made a part of the barony of that name, and
+therefore cannot be the same with those held by William de Douglas in
+the succeeding generation. But if William de Douglas did not succeed
+Theobaldus Flammaticus, there is no more reason for holding these
+two persons to be father and son than if they had lived in different
+provinces; and we are still as far from having discovered the first mean
+man of the Douglas family as Hume of Godscroft was in the 16th century.
+We leave the question to antiquaries and genealogists.]
+
+In the earliest of our Scottish annals, the Black Douglas was powerful
+and distinguished as now."
+
+"I bend to the honours of the house of Douglas," said Murray, somewhat
+ironically; "I am conscious we of the Royal House have little right
+to compete with them in dignity--What though we have worn crowns and
+carried sceptres for a few generations, if our genealogy moves no
+farther back than to the humble _Alanus Dapifer!"_
+
+[Footnote: To atone to the memory of the learned and indefatigable
+Chalmers for having ventured to impeach his genealogical proposition
+concerning the descent of the Douglasses, we are bound to render him our
+grateful thanks for the felicitous light which he has thrown on that of
+the House of Stewart, still more important to Scottish history.
+
+The acute pen of Lord Hailes, which, like the spear of Ithuriel,
+conjured so many shadows from Scottish history, had dismissed among the
+rest those of Banquo and Fleance, the rejection of which fables left the
+illustrious family of Stewart without an ancestor beyond Walter the
+son of Allan, who is alluded to in the text. The researches of our late
+learned antiquary detected in this Walter, the descendant of Allan, the
+son of Flaald, who obtained from William the Conqueror the Castle of
+Oswestry in Shropshire, and was the father of an illustrious line
+of English nobles, by his first son, William, and by his second son,
+Walter, the progenitor of the royal family of Stewart.]
+
+Morton's cheek reddened as he was about to reply; but Henry Warden
+availed himself of the liberty which the Protestant clergy long
+possessed, and exerted it to interrupt a discussion which was becoming
+too eager and personal to be friendly.
+
+"My lords," he said, "I must be bold in discharging the duty of my
+Master. It is a shame and scandal to hear two nobles, whose hands have
+been so forward in the work of reformation, fall into discord about such
+vain follies as now occupy your thoughts. Bethink you how long you have
+thought with one mind, seen with one eye, heard with one ear, confirmed
+by your union the congregation of the Church, appalled by your joint
+authority the congregation of Anti-Christ; and will you now fall into
+discord, about an old decayed castle and a few barren hills, about the
+loves and likings of an humble spearman, and a damsel bred in the same
+obscurity, or about the still vainer questions of idle genealogy?"
+
+"The good man hath spoken right, noble Douglas," said Murray, reaching
+him his hand, "our union is too essential to the good cause to be
+broken off upon such idle terms of dissension. I am fixed to gratify
+Glendinning in this matter--my promise is passed. The wars, in which I
+have had my share, have made many a family miserable; I will at least
+try if I may not make one happy. There are maids and manors enow in
+Scotland.--I promise you, my noble ally, that young Bennygask shall be
+richly wived."
+
+"My lord," said Warden, "you speak nobly, and like a Christian. Alas!
+this is a land of hatred and bloodshed--let us not chase from thence
+the few traces that remain of gentle and domestic love.--And be not
+too eager for wealth to thy noble kinsman, my Lord of Morton, seeing
+contentment in the marriage state no way depends on it."
+
+"If you allude to my family misfortune," said Morton, whose Countess,
+wedded by him for her estate and honours, was insane in her mind, "the
+habit you wear, and the liberty, or rather license, of your profession,
+protect you from my resentment."
+
+"Alas! my lord," replied Warden, "how quick and sensitive is our
+self-love! When pressing forward in our high calling, we point out the
+errors of the Sovereign, who praises our boldness more than the noble
+Morton? But touch we upon his own sore, which most needs lancing, and he
+shrinks from the faithful chirurgeon in fear and impatient anger!"
+
+"Enough of this, good and reverend sir," said Murray; "you transgress
+the prudence yourself recommended even now.--We are now close upon the
+village, and the proud Abbot is come forth at the head of his hive. Thou
+hast pleaded well for him, Warden, otherwise I had taken this occasion
+to pull down the nest, and chase away the rooks."
+
+"Nay, but do not so," said Warden; "this William Allan, whom they call
+the Abbot Eustatius, is a man whose misfortunes would more prejudice our
+cause than his prosperity. You cannot inflict more than he will endure;
+and the more that he is made to bear, the higher will be the influence
+of his talents and his courage. In his conventual throne he will be but
+coldly looked on--disliked, it may be, and envied. But turn his crucifix
+of gold into a crucifix of wood--let him travel through the land, an
+oppressed and impoverished man, and his patience, his eloquence, and
+learning, will win more hearts from the good cause, than all the mitred
+abbots of Scotland have been able to make prey of during the last
+hundred years."
+
+"Tush! tush! man," said Morton, "the revenues of the Halidome will
+bring more men, spears, and horses, into the field in one day, than
+his preaching in a whole lifetime. These are not the days of Peter the
+Hermit, when monks could march armies from England to Jerusalem; but
+gold and good deeds will still do as much or more than ever. Had Julian
+Avenel had but a score or two more men this morning, Sir John Foster had
+not missed a worse welcome. I say, confiscating the monk's revenues is
+drawing his fang-teeth."
+
+"We will surely lay him under contribution," said Murray; "and,
+moreover, if he desires to remain in his Abbey, he will do well to
+produce Piercie Shafton."
+
+As he thus spoke, they entered the market-place, distinguished by their
+complete armour and their lofty plumes, as well as by the number of
+followers bearing their colours and badges. Both these powerful nobles,
+but more especially Murray, so nearly allied to the crown, had at that
+time a retinue and household not much inferior to that of Scottish
+royalty. As they advanced into the market-place, a pursuivant, pressing
+forward from their train, addressed the monks in these words:--"The
+Abbot of Saint Mary's is commanded to appear before the Earl of Murray."
+
+"The Abbot of Saint Mary's," said Eustace, "is, in the patrimony of his
+Convent, superior to every temporal lord. Let the Earl of Murray, if he
+seeks him, come himself to his presence."
+
+On receiving this answer, Murray smiled scornfully, and, dismounting
+from his lofty saddle, he advanced, accompanied by Morton, and followed
+by others, to the body of monks assembled around the cross. There was an
+appearance of shrinking among them at the approach of the heretic lord,
+so dreaded and so powerful. But the Abbot, casting on them a glance
+of rebuke and encouragement, stepped forth from their ranks like
+a courageous leader, when he sees that his personal valour must be
+displayed to revive the drooping courage of his followers. "Lord
+James Stewart," he said, "or Earl of Murray, if that be thy title, I,
+Eustatius, Abbot of Saint Mary's, demand by what right you have filled
+our peaceful village, and surrounded our brethren, with these bands
+of armed men? If hospitality is sought, we have never refused it to
+courteous asking--if violence be meant against peaceful churchmen, let
+us know at once the pretext and the object?"
+
+"Sir Abbot," said Murray, "your language would better have become
+another age, and a presence inferior to ours. We come not here to reply
+to your interrogations, but to demand of you why you have broken the
+peace, collecting your vassals in arms, and convocating the Queen's
+lieges, whereby many men have been slain, and much trouble, perchance
+breach of amity with England, is likely to arise?"
+
+"_Lupus in fabula_," answered the Abbot, scornfully. "The wolf accused
+the sheep of muddying the stream when he drank in it above her--but it
+served as a pretext for devouring her. Convocate the Queen's lieges! I
+did so to defend the Queen's land against foreigners. I did but my duty;
+and I regret I had not the means to do it more effectually."
+
+"And was it also a part of your duty to receive and harbour the Queen
+of England's rebel and traitor; and to inflame a war betwixt England and
+Scotland?" said Murray.
+
+"In my younger days, my lord," answered the Abbot, with the same
+intrepidity, "a war with England was no such dreaded matter; and not
+merely a mitred abbot, bound by his rule to show hospitality and afford
+sanctuary to all, but the poorest Scottish peasant, would have been
+ashamed to have pleaded fear of England as the reason for shutting his
+door against a persecuted exile. But in those olden days, the English
+seldom saw the face of a Scottish nobleman, save through the bars of his
+visor."
+
+"Monk!" said the Earl of Morton, sternly, "this insolence will little
+avail thee; the days are gone by when Rome's priests were permitted to
+brave noblemen with impunity. Give us up this Piercie Shafton, or by my
+father's crest I will set thy Abbey in a bright flame!"
+
+"And if thou dost, Lord of Morton, its ruins will tumble above the tombs
+of thine own ancestors. Be the issue as God wills, the Abbot of Saint
+Mary's gives up no one whom he hath promised to protect."
+
+"Abbot!" said Murray, "bethink thee ere we are driven to deal
+roughly--the hands of these men," he said, pointing to the soldiers,
+"will make wild work among shrines and cells, if we are compelled to
+undertake a search for this Englishman."
+
+"Ye shall not need," said a voice from the crowd; and, advancing
+gracefully before the Earls, the Euphuist flung from him the mantle in
+which he was muffled. "Via the cloud that shadowed Shafton!" said he;
+"behold, my lords, the Knight of Wilverton, who spares you the guilt of
+violence and sacrilege."
+
+"I protest before God and man against any infraction of the privileges
+of this house," said the Abbot, "by an attempt to impose violent hands
+upon the person of this noble knight. If there be yet spirit in a
+Scottish Parliament, we will make you hear of this elsewhere, my lords!"
+
+"Spare your threats," said Murray; "it may be, my purpose with
+Sir Piercie Shafton is not such as thou dost suppose--Attach him,
+pursuivant, as our prisoner, rescue or no rescue."
+
+"I yield myself," said the Euphuist, "reserving my right to defy my Lord
+of Murray and my Lord of Morton to single duel, even as one gentleman
+may demand satisfaction of another."
+
+"You shall not want those who will answer your challenge, Sir Knight,"
+replied Morton, "without aspiring to men above thine own degree."
+
+"And where am I to find these superlative champions," said the English
+knight, "whose blood runs more pure than that of Piercie Shafton?"
+
+"Here is a flight for you, my lord!" said Murray.
+
+"As ever was flown by a wild-goose," said Stawarth Bolton, who had now
+approached to the front of the party.
+
+"Who dared to say that word?" said the Euphuist, his face crimson with
+rage.
+
+"Tut! man," said Bolton, "make the best of it, thy mother's father was
+but a tailor, old Overstitch of Holderness--Why, what! because thou art
+a misproud bird, and despiseth thine own natural lineage, and rufflest
+in unpaid silks and velvets, and keepest company with gallants and
+cutters, must we lose our memory for that? Thy mother, Moll Overstitch,
+was the prettiest wench in those parts--she was wedded by wild Shafton
+of Wilverton, who men say, was akin to the Piercie on the wrong side of
+the blanket."
+
+"Help the knight to some strong waters," said Morton; "he hath fallen
+from such a height, that he is stunned with the tumble."
+
+In fact, Sir Piercie Shafton looked like a man stricken by a
+thunderbolt, while, notwithstanding the seriousness of the scene
+hitherto, no one of those present, not even the Abbot himself, could
+refrain from laughing at the rueful and mortified expression of his
+face.
+
+"Laugh on," he said at length, "laugh on, my masters," shrugging his
+shoulders; "it is not for me to be offended--yet would I know full fain
+from that squire who is laughing with the loudest, how he had discovered
+this unhappy blot in an otherwise spotless lineage, and for what purpose
+he hath made it known?"
+
+"_I_ make it known?" said Halbert Glendinning, in astonishment,--for to
+him this pathetic appeal was made,--"I never heard the thing till this
+moment."
+
+[Footnote: The contrivance of provoking the irritable vanity of Sir
+Piercie Shafton, by presenting him with a bodkin, indicative of his
+descent from a tailor, is borrowed from a German romance, by the
+celebrated Tieck, called Das Peter Manchem, _i. e._ The Dwarf Peter. The
+being who gives name to the tale, is the Burg-geist, or castle spectre,
+of a German family, whom he aids with his counsel, as he defends their
+castle by his supernatural power. But the Dwarf Peter is so unfortunate
+an adviser, that all his counsels, though producing success in the
+immediate results, are in the issue attended with mishap and with guilt.
+The youthful baron, the owner of the haunted castle, falls in love with
+a maiden, the daughter of a neighbouring count, a man of great pride,
+who refuses him the hand of the young lady, on account of his own
+superiority of descent. The lover, repulsed and affronted, returns to
+take counsel with the Dwarf Peter, how he may silence the count, and
+obtain the victory in the argument, the next time they enter on the
+topic of pedigree. The dwarf gives his patron or pupil a horse-shoe,
+instructing him to give it to the count when he is next giving
+himself superior airs on the subject of his family. It has the effect
+accordingly. The count, understanding it as an allusion to a misalliance
+of one of his ancestors with the daughter of a blacksmith, is thrown
+into a dreadful passion with the young lover, the consequences of which
+are the seduction of the young lady, and the slaughter of her father.
+
+If we suppose the dwarf to represent the corrupt part of human
+nature,--that "law in our members which wars against the law of our
+minds,"--the work forms an ingenious allegory.]
+
+"Why, did not that old rude soldier learn it from thee?" said the
+knight, in increasing amazement.
+
+"Not I, by Heaven!" said Bolton; "I never saw the youth in my life
+before."
+
+"But you _have_ seen him ere now, my worthy master," said Dame
+Glendinning, bursting in her turn from the crowd. "My son, this is
+Stawarth Bolton, he to whom we owe life, and the means of preserving
+it--if he be a prisoner, as seems most likely, use thine interest with
+these noble lords to be kind to the widow's friend."
+
+"What, my Dame of the Glen!" said Bolton, "thy brow is more withered, as
+well as mine, since we met last, but thy tongue holds the touch better
+than my arm. This boy of thine gave me the foil sorely this morning. The
+Brown Varlet has turned as stout a trooper as I prophesied; and where is
+White Head?"
+
+"Alas!" said the mother, looking down, "Edward has taken orders, and
+become a monk of this Abbey."
+
+"A monk and a soldier!--Evil trades both, my good dame. Better have
+made one a good master fashioner, like old Overstitch, of Holderness. I
+sighed when I envied you the two bonny children, but I sigh not now to
+call either the monk or the soldier mine own. The soldier dies in the
+field, the monk scarce lives in the cloister."
+
+"My dearest mother," said Halbert, "where is Edward--can I not speak
+with him?"
+
+"He has just left us for the present," said Father Philip, "upon a
+message from the Lord Abbot."
+
+"And Mary, my dearest mother?" said Halbert.--Mary Avenel was not far
+distant, and the three were soon withdrawn from the crowd, to hear and
+relate their various chances of fortune.
+
+While the subordinate personages thus disposed of themselves, the Abbot
+held serious discussion with the two Earls, and, partly yielding to
+their demands, partly defending himself with skill and eloquence,
+was enabled to make a composition for his Convent, which left it
+provisionally in no worse situation than before. The Earls were the more
+reluctant to drive matters to extremity, since he protested, that if
+urged beyond what his conscience would comply with, he would throw the
+whole lands of the Monastery into the Queen of Scotland's hands, to be
+disposed of at her pleasure. This would not have answered the views of
+the Earls, who were contented, for the time, with a moderate sacrifice
+of money and lands. Matters being so far settled, the Abbot became
+anxious for the fate of Sir Piercie Shafton, and implored mercy in his
+behalf.
+
+"He is a coxcomb," he said, "my lords, but he is a generous, though a
+vain fool; and it is my firm belief you have this day done him more pain
+than if you had run a poniard into him."
+
+"Run a needle into him you mean, Abbot," said the Earl of Morton; "by
+mine honour, I thought this grandson of a fashioner of doublets was
+descended from a crowned head at least!"
+
+"I hold with the Abbot," said Murray; "there were little honour in
+surrendering him to Elizabeth, but he shall be sent where he can do her
+no injury. Our pursuivant and Bolton shall escort him to Dunbar, and
+ship him off for Flanders.--But soft, here he comes, and leading a
+female, as I think."
+
+"Lords and others," said the English knight with great solemnity, "make
+way for the Lady of Piercie Shafton--a secret which I listed not to make
+known, till fate, which hath betrayed what I vainly strove to conceal,
+makes me less desirous to hide that which I now announce to you."
+
+"It is Mysie Happer, the Miller's daughter, on my life!" said Tibb
+Tacket. "I thought the pride of these Piercies would have a fa'."
+
+"It is indeed the lovely Mysinda," said the knight, "whose merits
+towards her devoted servant deserved higher rank than he had to bestow."
+
+"I suspect, though," said Murray, "that we should not have heard of the
+Miller's daughter being made a lady, had not the knight proved to be the
+grandson of a tailor."
+
+"My lord," said Piercie Shafton, "it is poor valour to strike him
+that cannot smite again; and I hope you will consider what is due to
+a prisoner by the law of arms, and say nothing more on this odious
+subject. When I am once more mine own man, I will find a new road to
+dignity."
+
+"_Shape_ one, I presume," said the Earl of Morton.
+
+"Nay, Douglas, you will drive him mad,"--said Murray; "besides, we
+have other matter in hand--I must see Warden wed Glendinning with Mary
+Avenel, and put him in possession of his wife's castle without delay. It
+will be best done ere our forces leave these parts."
+
+"And I," said the Miller, "have the like grist to grind; for I hope some
+one of the good fathers will wed my wench with her gay bridegroom."
+
+"It needs not," said Shafton; "the ceremonial hath been solemnly
+performed."
+
+"It will not be the worse of another bolting," said the Miller; "it is
+always best to be sure, as I say when I chance to take multure twice
+from the same meal-sack."
+
+"Stave the miller off him," said Murray, "or he will worry him dead.
+The Abbot, my lord, offers us the hospitality of the Convent; I move we
+should repair hither, Sir Piercie and all of us. I must learn to know
+the Maid of Avenel--to-morrow I must act as her father--All Scotland
+shall see how Murray can reward a faithful servant."
+
+Mary Avenel and her lover avoided meeting the Abbot, and took up their
+temporary abode in a house of the village, where next day their hands
+were united by the Protestant preacher in presence of the two Earls.
+On the same day Piercie Shafton and his bride departed, under an escort
+which was to conduct him to the sea-side, and see him embark for the Low
+Countries. Early on the following morning the bands of the Earls were
+under march to the Castle of Avenel, to invest the young bridegroom
+with the property of his wife, which was surrendered to them without
+opposition.
+
+But not without those omens which seemed to mark every remarkable event
+which befell the fated family, did Mary take possession of the ancient
+castle of her forefathers. The same warlike form which had appeared more
+than once at Glendearg, was seen by Tibb Tacket and Martin, who returned
+with their young mistress to partake her altered fortunes. It glided
+before the cavalcade as they advanced upon the long causeway, paused
+at each drawbridge, and flourished its hand, as in triumph, as it
+disappeared under the gloomy archway, which was surmounted by the
+insignia of the house of Avenel. The two trusty servants made their
+vision only known to Dame Glendinning, who, with much pride of heart,
+had accompanied her son to see him take his rank among the barons of the
+land. "Oh, my dear bairn!" she exclaimed, when she heard the tale, "the
+castle is a grand place to be sure, but I wish ye dinna a' desire to be
+back in the quiet braes of Glendearg before the play be played out."
+But this natural reflection, springing from maternal anxiety, was soon
+forgotten amid the busy and pleasing task of examining and admiring the
+new habitation of her son.
+
+While these affairs were passing, Edward had hidden himself and his
+sorrows in the paternal Tower of Glendearg, where every object was full
+of matter for bitter reflection. The Abbot's kindness had despatched him
+thither upon pretence of placing some papers belonging to the Abbey in
+safety and secrecy; but in reality to prevent his witnessing the triumph
+of his brother. Through the deserted apartments, the scene of so many
+bitter reflections, the unhappy youth stalked like a discontented ghost,
+conjuring up around him at every step new subjects for sorrow and for
+self-torment. Impatient, at length, of the state of irritation and
+agonized recollection in which he found himself, he rushed out and
+walked hastily up the glen, as if to shake off the load which hung
+upon his mind. The sun was setting when he reached the entrance of
+Corri-nan-shian, and the recollection of what he had seen when he last
+visited that haunted ravine, burst on his mind. He was in a humour,
+however, rather to seek out danger than to avoid it.
+
+"I will face this mystic being," he said; "she foretold the fate which
+has wrapt me in this dress,--I will know whether she has aught else to
+tell me of a life which cannot but be miserable."
+
+He failed not to see the White Spirit seated by her accustomed haunt,
+and singing in her usual low and sweet tone. While she sung, she seemed
+to look with sorrow on her golden zone, which was now diminished to the
+fineness of a silken thread.
+
+  "Fare thee well, thou Holly green,
+  Thou shall seldom now be seen,
+  With all thy glittering garlands bending,
+  As to greet my slow descending,
+  Startling the bewilder'd hind.
+  Who sees thee wave without a wind.
+
+  "Farewell, Fountain! now not long
+  Shalt thou murmur to my song,
+  While thy crystal bubbles glancing,
+  Keep the time in mystic dancing,
+  Rise and swell, are burst and lost,
+  Like mortal schemes by fortune crost.
+
+  "The knot of fate at length is tied,
+  The Churl is Lord, the Maid is bride.
+  Vainly did my magic sleight
+  Send the lover from her sight;
+  Wither bush, and perish well,
+  Fall'n is lofty Avenel!"
+
+The vision seemed to weep while she sung; and the words impressed on
+Edward a melancholy belief, that the alliance of Mary with his brother
+might be fatal to them both.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here terminates the First Part of the Benedictine's Manuscript. I have
+in vain endeavoured to ascertain the precise period of the story, as
+the dates cannot be exactly reconciled with those of the most accredited
+histories. But it is astonishing how careless the writers of Utopia are
+upon these important subjects. I observe that the learned Mr. Laurence
+Templeton, in his late publication entitled IVANHOE, has not only
+blessed the bed of Edward the Confessor with an offspring unknown to
+history, with sundry other solecisms of the same kind, but has inverted
+the order of nature, and feasted his swine with acorns in the midst of
+summer. All that can be alleged by the warmest admirer of this author
+amounts to this,--that the circumstances objected to are just as true
+as the rest of the story; which appears to me (more especially in the
+matter of the acorns) to be a very imperfect defence, and that the
+author will do well to profit by Captain Absolute's advice to his
+servant, and never tell him more lies than are indispensably necessary.
+
+                End of THE MONASTERY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Monastery, by Sir Walter Scott
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