summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
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      The Monastery, by Sir Walter Scott
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<pre>

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: July 25, 2014

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONASTERY ***




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and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

HTML file produced by David Widger




</pre>

    <div style="height: 8em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      THE MONASTERY
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Sir Walter Scott
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h4>
      THE WAVERLY NOVELS by SIR WALTER SCOTT. <br /> <br /> Complete In Twelve
      Volumes <br /> Printed from the latest English Editions Embracing The
      Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes.
    </h4>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0008m.jpg" alt="0008m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0008.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>

<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0009m.jpg" alt="0009m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0009.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>

<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0067m.jpg" alt="0067m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0067.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      <b>CONTENTS</b>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION&mdash;(1830.) </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> ANSWER BY "THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY," </a>
    </p>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> <b>THE MONASTERY.</b> </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0001"> Chapter the First. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0002"> Chapter the Second. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0003"> Chapter the Third. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0004"> Chapter the Fourth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0005"> Chapter the Fifth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0006"> Chapter the Sixth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0007"> Chapter the Seventh. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0008"> Chapter the Eighth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0009"> Chapter the Ninth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0010"> Chapter the Tenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0011"> Chapter the Eleventh. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0012"> Chapter the Twelfth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0013"> Chapter the Thirteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0014"> Chapter the Fourteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0015"> Chapter the Fifteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0016"> Chapter the Sixteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0017"> Chapter the Seventeenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0018"> Chapter the Eighteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0019"> Chapter the Nineteenth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0020"> Chapter the Twentieth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0021"> Chapter the Twenty-First. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0022"> Chapter the Twenty-Second. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0023"> Chapter the Twenty-Third. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0024"> Chapter the Twenty-Fourth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0025"> Chapter the Twenty-Fifth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0026"> Chapter the Twenty-Sixth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0027"> Chapter the Twenty-Seventh. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0028"> Chapter the Twenty-Eighth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0029"> Chapter the Twenty-Ninth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0030"> Chapter the Thirtieth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0031"> Chapter the Thirty-First. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0032"> Chapter the Thirty-Second. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0033"> Chapter the Thirty-Third. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0034"> Chapter the Thirty-Fourth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0035"> Chapter the Thirty-Fifth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0036"> Chapter the Thirty-Sixth. </a>
    </p>
    <p class="toc">
      <a href="#link2HCH0037"> Chapter the Thirty-Seventh. </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      THE MONASTERY.
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      INTRODUCTION&mdash;(1830.)
    </h2>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;Queen of Faery,
  With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
  Were dwelling in the place.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, <i>mea paupera regna</i>
      (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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>Colmslie</i> belonged to Mr. Innes of Stow, while <i>Hillslap</i>
      forms part of the estate of Crookston. He adds&mdash;"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 <i>Glendearg,</i> 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:&mdash;'Well.' said
      Sir Walter, 'if you do that, you must trust for its not being <i>lifted</i>
      before to-morrow, to the protection of Halbert Glendinning: against
      Christie of the Clintshill.' At page 58, vol. iii., the first edition, the
      '<i>winding</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;<i>Utinam
      hane eliam viris impleam amicis</i>&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;where
      war was the natural and constant state of the inhabitants, and peace only
      existed in the shape of brief and feverish truces&mdash;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 <i>Crambe bis cocta</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Machinery remained&mdash;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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Even the last lingering phantom of the brain,
  The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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&mdash;in power over the elements&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>esprit follet</i> who places its
      pleasure in misleading and tormenting mortals, and the benevolent Fairy of
      the East, who uniformly guides, aids, and supports them.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>Praecieuses</i>, as they were
      styled, who formed the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and afforded
      Moliere matter for his admirable comedy, <i>Les Praecieuses Ridicules</i>.
      In England, the humour does not seem to have long survived the accession
      of James I.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;"As free as nature first made man,
  When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>jeux d'esprit</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson, founded
      upon system, or what the age termed humours,&mdash;by which was meant
      factitious and affected characters, superinduced on that which was common
      to the rest of their race,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>incredulus odi</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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 <i>chef-d'oeuvre</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;<i>tout genre est
      permis, hors le genre ennuyeux</i>. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>tour de force</i>, was objected to
      as inartificial, and not perfectly, intelligible to the general reader.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "If it isna weel bobbit.
  We'll bob it again."
</pre>
    <p>
      ABBOTSFORD, <i>1st November</i>, 1830.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0030m.jpg" alt="0030m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0030.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE
    </h2>
    <h4>
      FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS MAJESTY'S &mdash;&mdash; REGIMENT OF
      INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
    </h4>
    <p>
      Sir,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  '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&mdash;antiquarian trade,
                I think, they call it.
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>not</i>; 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 <i>ours</i> talk
      of, though I seldom observed that it influenced them in the actual affair&mdash;-that
      exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a bride,&mdash;truly my courage was
      of a complexion much less ecstatical.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 <i>status</i>,
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>otium cum dignitate</i> 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?&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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',&mdash;there were few
      folk kend sae muckle about the Abbey."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, 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&mdash;now reading
      a line of old Dugdale&mdash;now sipping my ale, or munching my bread and
      cheese&mdash;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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0039m.jpg" alt="0039m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0039.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;the Captain's a decent man."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;I
      have seen the fundations when we were sticking saumon&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then the gentleman is a scholar, David?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I'se uphaud him a scholar," answered David: "he has a black coat on, or a
      brown ane, at ony-rate."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is he a clergyman?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am thinking no, for he looked after his horse's supper before he spoke
      o' his ain," replied mine host.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Has he a servant?" demanded I.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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,&mdash;'And,
      landlord, get a bottle of your best sherry, and supper for two.'&mdash;Ye
      wadna have had me refuse to do the gentleman's bidding, and me a
      publican?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, David," said I, "I wish your virtuoso had taken a fitter hour&mdash;but
      as you say he is a gentleman&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I'se uphaud him that&mdash;the order speaks for itsell&mdash;a bottle of
      sherry&mdash;minched collops and a fowl&mdash;that's speaking like a
      gentleman, I trow?&mdash;That's right, Captain, button weel up, the
      night's raw&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      In five minutes after this dialogue, I found myself in the parlour of the
      George, and in the presence of the stranger.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Pluck from our memories a rooted "legend,"
  Raze out the written records of our brain.
  Or cleanse our bosoms of that perilous stuff&mdash;
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>Mumpsimus</i> for his new <i>Sumpsimus</i>.
      But let it pass. <i>Humana perpessi sumus</i>&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Betide, betide, whate'er betide.
  Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside. }
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>cromlech</i> to a <i>cairn</i>,
      and could give as good an account of each as if he had lived in the time
      of the Danes or Druids.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>fabliau</i>."
      {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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is not to be doubted," answered I, not very well understanding,
      however, the proposition to which I gave such unqualified assent.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Am I to understand, then," I answered, "that I am speaking with a
      Catholic clergyman?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not so," answered the monk; "I am a Scotchman by extraction only, and
      never was in this neighbourhood during my whole life."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Many of your convents abroad, sir," said I, "enjoyed very handsome
      incomes&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the meanwhile, however," I observed, "the monks had an easy life of
      it, and, as the old song goes,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;made gude kale
  On Fridays when they fasted."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>fortune de la guerre!</i>"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I again assured him of my willingness to assist him in anything that was
      not contrary to my allegiance or religion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "My proposal," he replied, "affects neither.&mdash;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&mdash;firmness and intrepidity&mdash;a
      true love of his country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which
      she is surrounded.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "May I then inquire, sir," said I, "with what purpose you seek this
      country?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;the
      arms <i>part y per pale</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A treasure!" echoed I, in astonishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," replied the monk, "an inestimable treasure, for those who know how
      to use it rightly."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;drive up." But I resisted the devil,
      and he fled from me.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The treasure I seek," said the stranger, smiling, "will not be envied by
      princes or nobles,&mdash;-it is simply the heart of an upright man."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He must, indeed, have been an excellent man," replied I, "whose memory,
      at so distant a period, calls forth such strong marks of regard."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He was, as you justly term him," said the ecclesiastic, "indeed excellent&mdash;excellent
      in his life and doctrine&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>pyx</i>) "or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of
      gold and silver, deil hae me an I conneve at their being removed."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the stranger from his energetic desire to execute the
      purpose for which he came&mdash;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 <i>de trop</i>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let us remove these with caution, my friend," said the stranger, "lest we
      injure that which I come to seek."
    </p>
    <p>
      "They are prime stanes," said the sexton, "picked free every ane of them;&mdash;warse
      than the best wad never serve the monks, I'se warrant."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The stranger stooped eagerly to assist him.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Na, na, haill o' my ain," said the sexton; "nae halves or quarters;"&mdash;and
      he lifted from amongst the ruins a small leaden box.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "You are perfectly right in that, Saunders," said I.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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&mdash;mair by token, he was the only ane
      in the town to ken&mdash;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&mdash;they
      kend best. I wad hae made nae great charge. I wadna hae excised Johnnie,
      dead or alive.&mdash;Stay, see&mdash;the strange gentleman is coming."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hold the lantern to assist him, Mattocks," said I.&mdash;"This is rough
      walking, sir."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," replied the Benedictine; "I may say with a poet, who is doubtless
      familiar to you&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      I should be surprised if he were, thought I internally.
    </p>
    <p>
      The stranger continued:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
  Have my old feet stumbled at graves!"
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I fancy," he said, "gentlemen, your curiosity will not be satisfied,&mdash;perhaps
      I should say that your suspicions will not be removed,&mdash;unless I undo
      this casket; yet it only contains the mouldering remains of a heart, once
      the seat of the noblest thoughts."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      I stared a little at this annunciation, and observed, that the hand seemed
      too modern for the date he assigned to the manuscript.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;for you will find copies of many of the original papers in
      that parcel&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;the
      best corps of grenadiers, as our old general of brigade expressed himself,
      may be <i>used up</i>. 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&mdash;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,
      &mdash; of April, 18&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>For the Author of "Waverley," &amp;c. care of Mr. John Ballantyne,
      Hanover Street, Edinburgh.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      ANSWER BY "THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY,"
    </h2>
    <h3>
      TO THE FOREGOING LETTER FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.
    </h3>
    <h3>
      DEAR CAPTAIN,
    </h3>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;I mean that part of the
      <i>terra incognita</i> 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&mdash;it is not unusual to hear old maiden ladies declaim against
      scandal&mdash;the private book-cases of some grave-seeming men would not
      brook decent eyes&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;giving the feeble arm of man the momentum of an Afrite&mdash;commanding
      manufactures to arise, as the rod of the prophet produced water in the
      desert&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      {Footnote: Probably the ingenious author alludes to the national adage:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  The king said sail,
  But the wind said no.
</pre>
    <p>
      Our schoolmaster (who is also a land surveyor) thinks this whole passage
      refers to Mr. Watt's improvements on the steam engine.&mdash;<i>Note by
      Captain Clutterbuck</i>.}
    </p>
    <p>
      This potent commander of the elements&mdash;this abridger of time and
      space&mdash;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&mdash;was not only the most profound man of
      science, the most successful combiner of powers and calculator of numbers
      as adapted to practical purposes,&mdash;was not only one of the most
      generally well-informed,&mdash;but one of the best and kindest of human
      beings.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a
      deep philologist&mdash;he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as
      if he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic,&mdash;you
      would have said the old man had studied political economy and
      belles-lettres all his life,&mdash;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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  <i>Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori, &amp;c.</i>

  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I wander from my purpose, which was to assure you, that I know you as well
      as the mother who <i>did</i> 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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  From my research the boldest spider fled,
  And moths, retreating, trembled as I read;
</pre>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;and all, you will say, for what?&mdash;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.&mdash;"O
      Athenians, how hard we labour to deserve your praise!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;(though falsehood is&mdash;excuse the observation&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>amende
      honorable</i> 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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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 <i>in extremis</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Our reader is doubtless impatient, and we must own, with John Bunyan,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  We have too long detain'd him in the porch,
  And kept him from the sunshine with a torch.
</pre>
    <p>
      Adieu, therefore, my dear Captain&mdash;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.&mdash;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
      <i>irritabile genus</i> comprehends the bookselling as well as the
      book-writing species.&mdash;Once more adieu!
    </p>
    <h3>
      THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.
    </h3>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0074m.jpg" alt="0074m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0074.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      THE MONASTERY.
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the First.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  O ay! the Monks, the Monks they did the mischief!
  Theirs all the grossness, all the superstition
  Of a most gross and superstitious age&mdash;
  May He be praised that sent the healthful tempest
  And scatter'd all these pestilential vapours!
  But that we owed them <i>all</i> 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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>feuars</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>in-field</i>. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was, besides, <i>out-field</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;the ill-cultivated
      garden afforded "lang-cale,"&mdash;and the river gave salmon to serve as a
      relish during the season of Lent.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the feuar
      again roofed his small fortalice which the enemy had ruined&mdash;the poor
      labourer rebuilt his cottage&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Second.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  In yon lone vale his early youth was bred,
  Not solitary then&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The mountains, as they would have been called in England, <i>Scottice</i>
      the steep <i>braes</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>scaurs</i>. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, <i>Corrie nan Shian</i>,
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      To restless and indefatigable moss-troopers, indeed, these morasses were
      well known, and sometimes afforded a retreat. They often rode down the
      glen&mdash;called at this tower&mdash;asked and received hospitality&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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, <i>Afflictae Sponsae ne obliviscaris</i>.
      {Footnote: Forget not the afflicted spouse.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0080m.jpg" alt="0080m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0080.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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&mdash;state her deserted
      condition&mdash;place the little tower at his command&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "At least, sir," said Elspeth Brydone, "take share of what our spence and
      our garners afford. Your horses are tired&mdash;your folk want
      refreshment."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not a whit&mdash;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.&mdash;Comrades, face about.&mdash;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.&mdash;Here, my little fellow," said he, speaking to
      the eldest boy, who might be about nine or ten years old, "lend me thy
      bonnet."
    </p>
    <p>
      The child reddened, looked sulky, and hesitated, while the mother, with
      many a <i>fye</i> and <i>nay pshaw</i>, 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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0083m.jpg" alt="0083m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0083.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What mean ye by throwing away Saint George's red cross?" said he to the
      elder boy, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Because Saint George is a southern saint," said the child, sulkily.
      "Good"&mdash;said Stawarth Bolton.&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why, good again!" said the honest soldier. "I protest unto you, mistress,
      I envy you these boys. Are they both yours?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Well, dame, you have two fair boys; I would I could
      borrow one, for Dame Bolton and I live childless in our old hall.&mdash;Come,
      little fellows, which of you will go with me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "God-a-mercy, my little levin-bolt," said Stawarth, "the goodly custom of
      deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;protect this family, as under assurance&mdash;do
      them no wrong, and suffer no wrong to be done to them, as thou wilt answer
      it.&mdash;Dame, Brittson is a married man, old and steady; feed him on
      what you will, but give him not over much liquor."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mother," said the elder boy, "I will not say amen to a prayer for a
      Southern."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mother," said the younger, more reverentially, "is it right to pray for a
      heretic?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Follow me to
      the Place, sir," she said to Brittson, "and such as we have to offer you
      shall be at your disposal."
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Third.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0089m.jpg" alt="0089m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0089.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0096m.jpg" alt="0096m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0096.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "We are broken and beggared now, out and out," said old Martin the
      shepherd&mdash;and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, "the
      thieves, the harrying thieves I not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;a word mair and she's dead outright."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;we can
      make a fend&mdash;work or want&mdash;we can do baith, but she can do
      neither."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There is a way," said the shepherd, "but I kenna if she could bring her
      heart to it,&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Loath should I be to wish her to it," said Martin; "but what may we do?&mdash;to
      stay here is mere starvation; and where to go, I'm sure I ken nae mair
      than ony tup I ever herded."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Speak no more of it," said the widow of Avenel, suddenly joining in the
      conversation, "I will go to the tower.&mdash;Dame Elspeth is of good folk,
      a widow, and the mother of orphans,&mdash;she will give us house-room
      until something be thought upon. These evil showers make the low bush
      better than no bield."
    </p>
    <p>
      "See there, see there," said Martin, "you see the leddy has twice our
      sense."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And natural it is," said Tibb, "seeing that she is convent-bred, and can
      lay silk broidery, forby white-seam and shell-work."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What corner in Scotland rues it not!" said the Lady of Avenel.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The husband nodded acquiescence; for it was deemed highly imprudent to
      speak of the fairies, either by their title of <i>good neighbours</i> or
      by any other, especially when about to pass the places which they were
      supposed to haunt.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "But with the morning cool reflection came."
</pre>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Sheriff</i>. You saw these gay-looking things? what did you think they
      were?
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Shepherd</i>. Ou, I am no that free to say what I might think they
      were.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Sheriff</i>. Come, lad, I must have a direct answer&mdash;who did you
      think they were?
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Shepherd</i>. Ou, sir, troth I am no that free to say that I mind wha I
      might think they were.
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Sheriff</i>. Come, come sir! I ask you distinctly, did you think they
      were the fairies you saw?
    </p>
    <p>
      <i>Shepherd</i>. Indeed, sir, and I winna say but I might think it was the
      Good Neighbours.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus unwillingly was he brought to allude to the irritable and captious
      inhabitants of fairy land.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The exiled family then set forward,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      In this dilemma, the child suddenly exclaimed&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "All-Hallow Eve!" said Tibb, in a whisper to Martin.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the last
      pledge of Avenel&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I kend her husband weel, and have bought and sold with him,
      for as great a man as he was."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Fourth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
   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 <i>Ode to Fear</i>.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>crook</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It must be Christie of Clint-hill," said Martin, rising; "what can have
      brought him here at this time?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Or how came he in?" said Elspeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Where is Christie of Clint-hill?" said Martin.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I do not know," said little Mary; "I never saw him."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Dame Elspeth, it was <i>my</i> fault&mdash;I did say to them, that I saw
      a man in the spence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what made you do so, child," said her mother, "to startle us all
      thus?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Because," said Mary, lowering her voice, "I could not help it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not help it, Mary!&mdash;you occasioned all this idle noise, and you
      could not help it? How mean you by that, minion?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "She has told it herself," said Halbert Glendinning, "or it had never been
      told by me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nor by me neither," said Edward, emulously.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;I
      would not for a mark that he were about the house, and a body no ken
      whare."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was not Christie," said Mary; "it was&mdash;it was a gentleman&mdash;a
      gentleman with a bright breastplate, like what I hae seen langsyne, when
      we dwelt at Avenel&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What like was he?" continued Tibb, who now took share in the
      investigation.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!&mdash;the lassie has seen her father!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I could hae wished it had been the deil himself&mdash;be good to and
      preserve us!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Better they rade wi' nane than distress the country-side the gate they
      do," said Dame Elspeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And sae weel as the lances and broadswords hae kept them back, I trow!&mdash;I
      was mair beholden to ae Southron, and that was Stawarth Bolton, than to a'
      the border-riders ever wore Saint Andrew's cross&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And is it not strange," she said, "that the heiress of Avenel should have
      seen her father this blessed night?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And ye think it was her father, then?" said Elspeth Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What else can I think?" said Tibb.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It may hae been something waur, in his likeness," said Dame Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I ken naething about that," said Tibb,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That was very natural," said Tibb; "but ye hae sobered since that, or ye
      wadna haud our braw gallants sae lightly."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How should that be," said Tibb, "and you sic a weel-favoured woman to
      this day?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ye hae tell'd me that before," said Tibb; "but anent the Hallowe'en?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Aweel, aweel, I had mair joes than ane, but I favoured nane o' them; and
      sae, at Hallowe'en, Father Nicolas the cellarer&mdash;he was cellarer
      before this father, Father Clement, that now is&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;gude man, he liked not it should be
      said that he was seen out o' the body!&mdash;But mark the end o' it, Tibb;
      we were married, and the gray-goose wing was the death o' him after a'!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But tell me, Tibb," said Dame Glendinning, "what does your leddy aye do
      reading out o' that thick black book wi' the silver clasps?&mdash;there
      are ower mony gude words in it to come frae ony body but a priest&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And that wad be the cause, then, that the bairn didna mak muckle din
      about what it saw?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But what saw she in the bog, then," said Dame Glendinning, "forby
      moor-cocks and heather-blutters?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;certain it
      was that Shagram reisted, and I ken Martin thinks he saw something."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what might the white leddy be?" said Elspeth; "have ye ony guess o'
      that?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Amen," answered Tibb, devoutly; "and now it's time I should hap up the
      wee bit gathering turf, as the fire is ower low."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Fifth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  A priest, ye cry, a priest!&mdash;lame shepherds they,
  How shall they gather in the straggling flock?
  Dumb dogs which bark not&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;May not
      the lady come hither to the sacrament of confession? the road is distant
      and painful to travel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The lady is unwell, holy father," answered the Sacristan, "and unable to
      bear the journey."
    </p>
    <p>
      "True&mdash;ay,&mdash;yes&mdash;then must one of our brethren go to her&mdash;Knowest
      thou if she hath aught of a jointure from this Walter de Avenel?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ho! ho! ho!" echoed the Sacristan, in the tone and tune in which an
      inferior applauds the jest of his superior.&mdash;Then added, with a
      hypocritical shuffle, and a sly twinkle of his eye, "It is our duty, most
      holy father, to comfort the widow&mdash;He! he! he!"
    </p>
    <p>
      This last laugh was more moderate, until the Abbot should put his sanction
      on the jest.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ho! ho!" said the Abbot; "then, to leave jesting, Father Philip, take
      thou thy riding gear, and go to confess this Dame Avenel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But," said the Sacristan&mdash;&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "Give me no <i>Buts;</i> neither But nor If pass between monk and Abbot,
      Father Philip; the bands of discipline must not be relaxed&mdash;heresy
      gathers force like a snow-ball&mdash;the multitude expect confessions and
      preachings from the Benedictine, as they would from so many beggarly
      friars&mdash;and we may not desert the vineyard, though the toil be
      grievous unto us."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And with so little advantage to the holy monastery," said the Sacristan.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;toil not deterring them, for the
      glen is five miles in length&mdash;fear not withholding them, for it is
      said to be haunted of spectres&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Woman," said the Sacristan, sternly, "thou speakest thou knowest not what&mdash;What
      avails clearing the outside of the platter, if the inside be foul with
      heresy?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Holy Mother of Heaven!" said Dame Elspeth, crossing herself, "have I kept
      house with a heretic?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And she can write and read, I had almost said, as weel as your reverence"
      said Elspeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whom doth she write to, and what doth she read?" said the monk, eagerly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay," replied Elspeth, "I cannot say I ever saw her write at all, but her
      maiden that was&mdash;she now serves the family&mdash;says she can write&mdash;And
      for reading, she has often read to us good things out of a thick black
      volume with silver clasps."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let me see it," said the monk, hastily, "on your allegiance as a true
      vassal&mdash;on your faith as a Catholic Christian&mdash;instantly&mdash;instantly
      let me see it."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>round</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;My mule, my mule!&mdash;I will abide no
      longer here&mdash;well hast thou done, dame, in placing in my hands this
      perilous volume."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is it then witchcraft or devil's work?" said Dame Elspeth, in great
      agitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am sure, and it is true," said Elspeth. "Oh, if she had dealt by the
      counsel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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, <i>the Word slayeth</i>&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nae doubt, nae doubt," said the poor woman, "your reverence knows best."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not I," said Father Philip, in a tone as deferential as he thought could
      possibly become the Sacristan of Saint Mary's,&mdash;"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,&mdash;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&mdash;I mean my beloved sister," (for the
      Sacristan had got into the end of one of his old sermons,)&mdash;"This I
      speak not so much of the rectors, curates, and secular clergy, so called
      because they live after the fashion of the <i>seculum</i> 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&mdash;sister, I would say&mdash;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&mdash;may our patrons make
      us thankful!&mdash;than any holy foundation in Scotland. Wherefore&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0113m.jpg" alt="0113m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0113.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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 <i>Iter Septentrionale</i>:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "I, Sir John Pringle of Palmer stede, Give an hundred markis of gowd sae
      reid, To help to bigg my brigg ower Tweed."
    </p>
    <p>
      Pringle of Galashiels, afterwards of Whytbank, was the Baron to whom the
      bridge belonged.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;<i>a heavy water</i>, as it is called
      in that country, through which the monk had no particular inclination to
      ride, if he could manage the matter better.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;it is thy gossip, Father Philip, who calls
      thee."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0114m.jpg" alt="0114m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0114.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;and if a step farther, I put it upon his own
      conscience,&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0116m.jpg" alt="0116m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0116.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
               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,&mdash;
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Landed&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Sixth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.&mdash;Yet how to do this,
  Nor hurt the wholesome crop and tender vine-plants,
  Craves good advisement.
</pre>
    <p>
      THE REFORMATION.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;slept
      soundly, and did not disquiet himself with dreams.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;practices
      to be inquired into&mdash;heretics to be detected and punished&mdash;the
      fallen off to be reclaimed&mdash;the wavering to be confirmed&mdash;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&mdash;horses
      reeking, and riders exhausted&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      These missives Abbot Boniface received with an important air of
      helplessness, or a helpless air of importance,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0123m.jpg" alt="0123m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0123.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;No
      hint will bring forth his opinion&mdash;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&mdash;I will bear it
      no longer!&mdash;Brother Bennet,"&mdash;(a lay brother answered to his
      call)&mdash;" tell Father Eustace that I need not his presence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I came to say to your reverence, that the holy father is entering even
      now from the cloisters."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be it so," said the Abbot, "he is welcome,&mdash;remove these things&mdash;or
      rather, place a trencher, the holy father may be a little hungry&mdash;yet,
      no&mdash;remove them, for there is no good fellowship in him&mdash;Let the
      stoup of wine remain, however, and place another cup."
    </p>
    <p>
      The lay brother obeyed these contradictory commands in the way he judged
      most seemly&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  A fiery soul, which working out its way,
  Fretted the puny body to decay,
  And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "For the stomach's sake, brother," said the Abbot, colouring a little&mdash;"You
      know the text."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Assuredly," said the monk, "the magistrate should not bear the sword in
      vain&mdash;those be they that turn the world upside down&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;a man under
      command, having soldiers under him! He says, send forth&mdash;scour the
      country&mdash;guard the passes&mdash;Truly these men do not travel as
      those who would give their lives for nothing&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;it
      is the tenure on which they hold their lands&mdash;if they will not come
      forth for the Church which gives them bread, let their possessions be
      given to others."
    </p>
    <p>
      "We shall not be wanting," said the Abbot, collecting himself with
      importance, "to do whatever may advantage Holy Kirk&mdash;thyself shall
      hear the charge to our Bailiff and our officials&mdash;but here again is
      our controversy with the warden of the bridge and the Baron of Meigallot&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0126m.jpg" alt="0126m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0126.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;and the baron threatens violence&mdash;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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Because I am surprised at the question which the Lord Abbot of Saint
      Mary's asks at the youngest of his brethren."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;the honour of the
      living, and the weal of departed souls, alike forbid it&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Abbot sighed deeply. "All this," he said, "is soon spoken by him who
      hath to act it not; but&mdash;" 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sancta Maria!" said the Abbot, "our dear brother hath perished by the
      way!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "It may not be," said Eustace, hastily&mdash;"let the bell be tolled&mdash;cause
      the brethren to get torches&mdash;alarm the village&mdash;hurry down to
      the river&mdash;I myself will be the foremost."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Seventh.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
     Cleanse the foul bosom of the perilous stuff
     That weighs upon the heart.
                                         MACBETH.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0129m.jpg" alt="0129m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0129.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      After various attempts to speak, the first words he uttered were,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Swim we merrily&mdash;the moon shines bright."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Swim we merrily!" retorted the Abbot, indignantly; "a merry night have ye
      chosen for swimming, and a becoming salutation to your Superior!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our brother is bewildered," said Eustace;&mdash;"speak, Father Philip,
      how is it with you?"
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Good luck to your fishing,"
</pre>
    <p>
      continued the Sacristan, making a most dolorous attempt at the tune of his
      strange companion.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "An it please your reverence, I did but go to shut the sluice of the mill&mdash;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&mdash;for so please you he
      never shuts his gate&mdash;I caught up my lever, and was about&mdash;Saint
      Mary forgive me!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And now that this churl is gone, Father Philip," said Eustace, "wilt thou
      tell our venerable Superior what ails thee? art thou <i>vino gravatus,</i>
      man? if so we will have thee to thy cell."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Water! water! not wine," muttered the exhausted Sacristan.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How is it with Father Philip?" said the Abbot; "and through what came he
      into such a state?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I
      say only suppose&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;we will examine, and we will punish."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Being," said the Abbot, "as it is, an heretical translation, it may be
      thought that Satan may have power over it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright!
  Good luck to your fishing, whom watch you to-night?"
</pre>
    <p>
      "Brother Philip," said the Abbot, "we exhort thee to say thy prayers,
      compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;&mdash;it is
      but a deception of the devil's."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;'Now swim we merrily'&mdash;it is as it were
      a spell upon me."
    </p>
    <p>
      He then again began to warble
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Good luck to your fishing."
</pre>
    <p>
      And checking himself in the strain with difficulty, he exclaimed, "It is
      too certain&mdash;I am but a lost priest! Swim we merrily&mdash;I shall
      sing it at the very mass&mdash;Wo is me! I shall sing all the remainder of
      my life, and yet never be able to change the tune!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;make
      diligent use of thy scourge and hair-cloth&mdash;refrain for three days
      from all food, save bread and water&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Eighth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Nay, dally not with time, the wise man's treasure,
  Though fools are lavish on't&mdash;the fatal Fisher
  Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
                                      OLD PLAY.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.&mdash;So
      be it with Father Eustace! The fairy hopes of my youth I have trodden
      under foot like those neglected rustlers&mdash;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&mdash;feeble it must be&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;I am wont, I think, to have more
      command over my senses. I will repeat my prayers, and banish such folly
      from my recollection."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;help the right reverend Sub-Prior to dismount, and take
      his mule from him.&mdash;O father! God has sent you in our need&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our trouble matters not, good dame," said Father Eustace; "in what can I
      pleasure you? I came hither to visit the Lady of Avenel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!&mdash;Would it please you to go to her chamber?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hath she not been shriven by Father Philip?" said the monk.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Shriven she was," said the Dame of Glendearg, "and by Father Philip, as
      your reverence truly says&mdash;but&mdash;I wish it may have been a clean
      shrift&mdash;Methought Father Philip looked but moody upon it&mdash;and
      there was a book which he took away with him, that&mdash;" She paused as
      if unwilling to proceed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Speak out, Dame Glendinning," said the Father; "with us it is your duty
      to have no secrets."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Returned!" said the monk; "how mean you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I mean," answered Dame Glendinning, "that it was brought back to the
      tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how&mdash;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&mdash;for
      we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be Saint Waldave,
      and thanks to the holy Monastery&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;for you patted him on the head and gave him a
      brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet,&mdash;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 <i>Corri-nan-Shian</i>,
      where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn, and they saw there&mdash;Good
      guide us!&mdash;a White Woman sitting on the burnside wringing her hands&mdash;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&mdash;and when they went up to her&mdash;behold she was
      passed away!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "For shame, good woman!" said Father Eustace; "a woman of your sense to
      listen to a tale so idle!&mdash;the young folk told you a lie, and that
      was all."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That is worthy of mark at least," said the monk. "Know you no other copy
      of this volume within these bounds?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "None, your reverence," returned Elspeth; "why should there?&mdash;no one
      could read it were there twenty."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father
      Philip?" said the monk.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As sure as that I now speak with your reverence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is most singular!" said the monk; and he walked across the room in a
      musing posture.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say,"
      continued Dame Glendinning, "respecting this matter&mdash;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?&mdash;Be here! that I should have named
      their unlucky names twice ower!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Did I know Kate Happer?" replied the widow; "as well as the beggar knows
      his dish&mdash;a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain
      maybe twenty years syne."
    </p>
    <p>
      "She cannot be the wench I mean," said Father Eustace; "she after whom I
      inquire is scarce fifteen, a black-eyed girl&mdash;you may have seen her
      at the kirk."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Perhaps, then," he said, "you know her usual dress, Dame Glendinning?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay, ay, father," answered the dame readily enough, "a white kirtle the
      wench wears, to hide the dust of the mill, no doubt&mdash;and a blue hood,
      that might weel be spared, for pridefulness."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The dame paused&mdash;was unwilling to combat the solution suggested by
      the monk&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;I would it were the sole one&mdash;of the power of the
      Enemy in these days. The matter must be sifted&mdash;with a curious and a
      careful hand."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;some
      folk say they will not stick at whiles to put in a handful of ashes
      amongst Christian folk's corn-meal."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;do you go before, and
      prepare her to see me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;the victorious refutation which should lay the disputant
      prostrate at the Confessor's mercy&mdash;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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;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?&mdash;may
      she not be recalled&mdash;recalled but for a moment?&mdash;Oh! would that
      she could express, but by the most imperfect word&mdash;but by the most
      feeble motion, her acquiescence in the needful task of penitential prayer!&mdash;Does
      she not breathe?&mdash;Art thou sure she doth not?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "She will never breathe more," said the matron. "Oh! the poor fatherless
      girl&mdash;now motherless also&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Wo to me," said the good monk, "if indeed she went not hence in good
      assurance&mdash;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?&mdash;the value of an immortal soul!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"Ay," said
      Father Eustace, "there lies the faded tree, and, as it fell, so it lies&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;if vigils&mdash;if
      masses&mdash;if penance&mdash;if maceration of my body, till it resembles
      that extenuated form which the soul hath abandoned, may assure thy
      deliverance. The Holy Church&mdash;the godly foundation&mdash;our blessed
      Patroness herself, shall intercede for one whose errors were
      counter-balanced by so many virtues.&mdash;Leave me, dame&mdash;here, and
      by her bed-side, will I perform those duties&mdash;which this piteous case
      demands!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;who
      was confessor at once, and Sub-Prior&mdash;mighty in all religious and
      secular considerations, so far as the vassals of the Monastery were
      interested.
    </p>
    <p>
      Her barley-bread had been toasted&mdash;her choicest cask of home-brewed
      ale had been broached&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;not the barley scones, which "the departed saint, God sain her!
      used to say were so good"&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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: <i>Begrutten</i>&mdash;over-weeped}
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Ninth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>jack</i>,
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "So, our lady is dead, Dame Glendinning?" said the jack-man; "my master
      has sent you even now a fat bullock for her mart&mdash;it may serve for
      her funeral. I have left him in the upper cleugh, as he is somewhat
      kenspeckle, {Footnote: <i>Kenspeckle</i>&mdash;that which is easily
      recognized by the eye.} and is marked both with cut and birn&mdash;the
      sooner the skin is off, and he is in saultfat, the less like you are to
      have trouble&mdash;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&mdash;though
      I think this monk hero might do mine errand."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thine errand, rude man!" said the Sub-Prior, knitting his brows&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "For God's sake" cried poor Dame Glendinning, terrified at the idea of a
      quarrel between them,&mdash;"O Christie!&mdash;-it is the Sub-Prior&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Friend," said the Sub-Prior, "believe not that I will do to the Father
      Abbot the indignity of delivering such an errand.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "This to me!" said the angry spearman, "this to me and to my master&mdash;Look
      to yourself then, Sir Priest, and try if <i>Ave</i> and <i>Credo</i> will
      keep bullocks from wandering, and hay-stacks from burning."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. "Tibb Tacket! Martin!
      where be ye all?&mdash;Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man
      of Holy Kirk!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;and his blessing,
      if I have said aught amiss."
    </p>
    <p>
      "For God's sake! your reverence," said the widow of Glendearg apart to the
      Sub-Prior, "bestow on him your forgiveness&mdash;how shall we poor folk
      sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with such
      men as he is?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "You are right, dame," said the Sub-Prior, "your safety should, and must
      be, in the first instance consulted.&mdash;Soldier, I forgive thee, and
      may God bless thee and send thee honesty."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That will cost me a farther ride," said the man, "but it is all in the
      day's work.&mdash;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?&mdash;will
      you go with me and be a moss-trooper?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pshaw!" answered Christie, "thou shouldst take another husband, dame, and
      drive such follies out of thy thoughts&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas! Master Christie," said the matron, "that you should talk to a lone
      woman in such a fashion, and death in the house besides!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Lone woman!&mdash;why, that is the very reason thou shouldst take a mate.
      Thy old friend is dead, why, good&mdash;choose thou another of somewhat
      tougher frame, and that will not die of the pip like a young chicken.&mdash;Better
      still&mdash;Come, dame, let me have something to eat, and we will talk
      more of this."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The lady read it," answered the young champion of property; "and so it
      could not be wrong&mdash;it shall not be taken away.&mdash;I wonder where
      Halbert is?&mdash;listening to the bravading tales of gay Christie, I
      reckon,&mdash;he is always wishing for fighting, and now he is out of the
      way."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why, Edward, you would not fight with me, who am both a priest and old
      man?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward opened the missal with eager curiosity, and glanced at the pictures
      with which it was illustrated. "Saint George and the dragon&mdash;Halbert
      will like that; and Saint Michael brandishing his sword over the head of
      the Wicked One&mdash;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&mdash;that shall be my favourite; and where
      shall we find one for poor Mary?&mdash;here is a beautiful woman weeping
      and lamenting herself."
    </p>
    <p>
      "This is Saint Mary Magdalen repenting of her sins, my dear boy," said the
      father.
    </p>
    <p>
      "That will not suit <i>our</i> Mary; for she commits no faults, and is
      never angry with us, but when we do something wrong."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The boy was lost in wonder at the portrait of the Virgin, which the
      Sub-Prior turned up to him.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;for now I think upon it, Mary may like that best which
      was her mother's."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially
      these two Marys?" said the boy.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;and remember you are to
      bring back the black book; that you must promise me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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 <i>sorners</i> {Footnote: To <i>sorne</i>, 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.}&mdash;"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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
 "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The same voice replied,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!&mdash;My
      pulse beats temperately&mdash;my hand is cool&mdash;I am fasting from
      everything but sin, and possessed of my ordinary faculties&mdash;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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In reply to his demand, the voice again sung;&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Men of good are bold as sackless,{Footnote: Sackless&mdash;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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "By my sooth, sir," he said, holding the light up to Father Eustace's
      face, "you look sorely travelled and deadly pale&mdash;but a little matter
      serves to weary out you men of the cell. I now who speak to you&mdash;I
      have ridden&mdash;before I was perched up here on this pillar betwixt wind
      and water&mdash;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&mdash;But
      will you taste some food, or a cup of distilled waters?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "By my faith, and I will do so," said Peter Bridge-Ward, "even for thy
      sake&mdash;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!&mdash;Wife, I say&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "If I confess this strange visitation," thought the Sub-Prior, "I become
      the ridicule of all my brethren&mdash;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.&mdash;But then, if I make not true confession of my shame,
      with what face can I again presume to admonish or restrain others?&mdash;Avow,
      proud heart," continued he, addressing himself, "that the weal of Holy
      Church interests thee less in this matter than thine own humiliation&mdash;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&mdash;stoop
      thyself in turn to their derision&mdash;tell what they may not believe&mdash;affirm
      that which they will ascribe to idle fear, or perhaps to idle falsehood&mdash;sustain
      the disgrace of a silly visionary, or a wilful deceiver.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There he is! there he is! God be thanked&mdash;there he is, hale and
      fear!" exclaimed the vassals; while the monks exclaimed, "<i>Te Deum
      laudamus</i>&mdash;the blood of thy servants is precious in thy sight!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is the matter, children? what is the matter, my brethren?" said
      Father Eustace, dismounting at the gate.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      The vassals dispersed with joyful acclamation, and the monks, with equal
      jubilee, conducted the Sub-Prior into the refectory.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Tenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Here we stand&mdash;
  Woundless and well, may Heaven's high name be bless'd for't!
  As erst, ere treason couch'd a lance against us.
                                                  Decker.
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"The
      devil! the devil himself, brings the dead back upon the living."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay," said a monk to him, "say rather that Our Lady foils the attempts of
      the wicked on her faithful servants&mdash;our dear brother lives and
      moves."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;It is even so," he added, as
      he gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound&mdash;not
      as much as a rent in his frock!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And whence should my wound have come?" said Father Eustace.
    </p>
    <p>
      "From the good lance that never failed me before," replied Christie of the
      Clinthill.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Heaven absolve thee for thy purpose!" said the Sub-Prior; "wouldst thou
      have slain a servant of the altar?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "To choose!" answered Christie; "the Fifemen say, an the whole pack of ye
      were slain, there were more lost at Flodden."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Villain! art thou heretic as well as murderer?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There is some goodness about him yet," said the Sacristan to the Abbot,
      who at that moment entered&mdash;"He refused to hear a heretic preacher."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The better for him in the next world," answered the Abbot. "Prepare for
      death, my son,&mdash;we deliver thee over to the secular arm of our
      bailie, for execution on the Gallow-hill by peep of light."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Amen!" said the ruffian; "'tis the end I must have come by sooner or
      later&mdash;and what care I whether I feed the crows at Saint Mary's or at
      Carlisle?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let me implore your reverend patience for an instant," said the
      Sub-Prior; "until I shall inquire&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What!" exclaimed the Abbot, observing him for the first time&mdash;"Our
      dear brother restored to us when his life was unhoped for!&mdash;nay,
      kneel not to a sinner like me&mdash;stand up&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I will write by express to the Primate for thy speedy
      removal and advancement."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, but let me understand," said the Sub-Prior; "did this soldier say he
      had slain me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That he had transfixed you," answered the Abbot, "in full career with his
      lance&mdash;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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;and then, like a singing fiend as
      she was, she sung to me.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  'Thank the holly-bush
    That nods on thy brow;
  Or with this slender rush
    I had strangled thee now.'
</pre>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Do as ye list," replied the Abbot&mdash;"but you shall not convince me
      that it is fitting you remain in this inferior office in the convent of
      Saint Mary."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;as little as in
      coming hither to tell my own misdeeds&mdash;I think the devil was in me
      when I took this road&mdash;I might have remembered the proverb, 'Never
      Friar forgot feud.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And it was solely for that&mdash;for that only hasty word of mine,
      uttered in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?"
      said Father Eustace.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay! for that, and&mdash;for the love of thy gold crucifix," said Christie
      of the Clinthill.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal&mdash;the glittering earth&mdash;so
      far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?&mdash;Father
      Abbot, I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to my
      mercy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, brother," interposed the Sacristan, "to your doom, if you will, not
      to your mercy&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our Lady forbid!" said the Sacristan, "he is a second Julian the
      Apostate."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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;&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;An ye give me gold for couching my lance at thee,
      what would you give me to level it at a heretic?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the officer's nose, to his
      great amazement.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire&mdash;"An it
      were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions," said Christie of the Clinthill, "I
      will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hardened wretch!" said Father Eustace, "art thou but this instant
      delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave," said the bailie, "and
      teach thee thine Oremus."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day," said he of
      the Clinthill.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,"
      answered the secular officer of the Church.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Master Bailie, retire with your
      halberdiers, and trouble not the man whom we have dismissed.&mdash;And
      thou, Christie, or whatever be thy name, take thy departure, and remember
      thou owest thy life to the Lord Abbot's clemency."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Obstinate even to brutality!" said Father Eustace; "and yet who knows but
      some better ore may lie under so rude an exterior?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Save a thief from the gallows," said the Sacristan&mdash;"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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;ay, and I remember them as it were yesterday&mdash;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&mdash;that is, if their confessor knew his business&mdash;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&mdash;he was a merry
      man&mdash;there come the tithes of the spoilers of the Egyptians! Ay, and
      I have seen the famous John the Armstrang&mdash;a fair man he was and a
      goodly, the more pity that hemp was ever heckled for him&mdash;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&mdash;and
      leave here a tassel, and there a noble, till there was as little gold on
      his bonnet as on my hood&mdash;you will find no such Border thieves now!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "There is no good thing left in them," said Father Nicolas; "they are
      clean naught&mdash;Ah, the thieves that I have seen!&mdash;such proper
      men! and as pitiful as proper, and as pious as pitiful!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Yet let the bells be duly
      rung for the edification of the laymen without, and also that the novices
      may give due reverence.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Gratias agimus quam maximas, Domine reverendissime</i>," replied the
      brethren, departing in their due order.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0159m.jpg" alt="0159m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0159.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "My brother," said he, <i>ex cathedra</i>, "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,&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Eleventh.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
    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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      When he spoke to Elspeth Glendinning of that which a mother best loves to
      hear&mdash;the proficiency and abilities of her son&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;his reluctance to
      leave his mother, and other objections, which the Sub-Prior treated as
      evasive.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;above all I hope&mdash;that the vanity of
      superior knowledge&mdash;a sin with which those who have made proficiency
      in learning are most frequently beset&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "Take your bonnet, Edward, and make haste&mdash;the Laird of Colmslie is
      at the head of the glen with his hounds."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay! you will labour at the monk's lessons till you turn monk yourself,"
      answered Halbert.&mdash;"Mary, will you go with me, and I will show you
      the cushat's nest I told you of?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I cannot go with you, Halbert," answered Mary, "because I must study this
      lesson&mdash;it will take me long to learn it&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Should you indeed?" said Halbert; "then I will wait for you&mdash;and,
      what is more, I will try to get my lesson also."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;I would
      a score of Southrons would come up the glen, and we should learn how
      little all this muttering and scribbling is worth."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"Yes, Mary&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;But come, and Edward shall sit betwixt us and teach
      us."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He shall not teach <i>me</i>," said Halbert, in the same angry mood; "I
      never can teach <i>him</i> to do any thing that is honourable and manly,
      and he shall not teach <i>me</i> any of his monkish tricks.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Report them yourself, then, and they will be <i>your</i> 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 <i>brachan</i>."
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"Where can your brother be going, Edward?&mdash;what book?&mdash;what
      teacher does he talk of?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He arrived at length in a narrow and secluded <i>cleuch</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is the season and the hour," said Halbert to himself; "and now I&mdash;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&mdash;I am sure she does&mdash;for she comes of
      noble blood, and scorns sloth and cowardice.&mdash;And do I myself not
      stand here slothful and cowardly as any priest of them all?&mdash;Why
      should I fear to call upon this form&mdash;this shape?&mdash;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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0183m.jpg" alt="0183m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0183.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Thrice to the holly brake&mdash;
  Thrice to the well:&mdash;
  I bid thee awake,
  White Maid of Avenel!

  "Noon gleams on the Lake&mdash;
  Noon glows on the Fell&mdash;
  Wake thee, O wake,
  White Maid of Avenel!"
</pre>
    <p>
      These lines were hardly uttered, when there stood the figure of a female
      clothed in white, within three steps of Halbert Glendinning.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "I guess'twas frightful there to see
  A lady richly clad as she&mdash;
  Beautiful exceedingly." {Footnote: Coleridge's Christabelle.}

</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twelfth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Halbert stood silent and gasped for breath, his hairs erecting themselves
      on his head&mdash;-his mouth open&mdash;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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "What I am I must not show&mdash;
  What I am thou couldst not know&mdash;
  Something betwixt heaven and hell&mdash;
  Something that neither stood nor fell&mdash;
  Something that through thy wit or will
  May work thee good&mdash;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&mdash;
  This is all that thou mayest know."
</pre>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady replied,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;so
      at least it seemed to Halbert&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady replied:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;and by Heaven, other occupations shall henceforward fill up
      my time. I have lived in this day the space of years&mdash;I came hither a
      boy&mdash;I will return a man&mdash;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&mdash;I will learn why
      the Lady of Avenel loved it&mdash;why the priests feared, and would have
      stolen it&mdash;why thou didst twice recover it from their hands.&mdash;What
      mystery is wrapt in it?&mdash;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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Give me the volume, Lady," said young Glendinning. "They call me idle&mdash;they
      call me dull&mdash;in this pursuit my industry shall not fail, nor, with
      God's blessing, shall my understanding. Give me the volume." The
      apparition again replied:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Many a fathom dark and deep
  I have laid the book to sleep;
  Ethereal fires around it glowing&mdash;
  Ethereal music ever flowing&mdash;
    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."
</pre>
    <p>
      Halbert Glendinning boldly reached his hand to the White Lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Fearest thou to go with me?" she said, as his hand trembled at the soft
      and cold touch of her own&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Here lies the volume thou boldly hast sought;
  Touch it, and take it,&mdash;'twill dearly be bought!"
</pre>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
          "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;be once more
      present, lovely vision!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>abstracted multures</i>.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>intown multures</i>. I could speak to the thirlage of <i>invecta
      et illata</i> too, but let that pass. I have said enough to intimate that
      I talk not without book. Those of the <i>Sucken</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The most effectual means he could devise was this show of good fellowship
      and neighbourly friendship,&mdash;under colour of which he made his annual
      cruise through the barony&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>infield</i>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>beau-ideal</i>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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, &amp;c. }
</pre>
    <p>
      Indeed, to be able to outdo and bully the whole <i>Sucken</i>, (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&mdash;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&mdash;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'?&mdash;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&mdash;ay, and their mothers that
      bore them&mdash;ay, she is a sweet and a lovely creature as ever tied
      snood over brown hair&mdash;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&mdash;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?'&mdash;And if they tax him with churl's blood, Edward might
      say, that, forby the old proverb, how
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Gentle deed
  Makes gentle bleid;
</pre>
    <p>
      yet, moreover, there comes no churl's blood from Glendinning or Brydone;
      for, says Edward&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;or
      what know I? ye might bear in mind the words Martin and I had about the
      last barley ye sawed&mdash;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. (<i>Knabe</i>&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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 <i>lock</i>, signifying a small quantity, and the <i>gowpen</i>,
      a handful, were additional perquisites demanded by the miller, and
      submitted to or resisted by the <i>Suckener</i> as circumstances
      permitted. These and other petty dues were called in general the <i>Sequels</i>.}
      And reason good, for as the old song says,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  I live by my mill. God bless her,
   She's parent, child, and wife.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;And so, Mysie, ye may
      doff your cloak since our neighbour is so kindly glad to see us&mdash;why,
      I think, we are as blithe to see her&mdash;not one in the Halidome pays
      their multures more duly, sequels, arriage, and carriage, and
      mill-services, used and wont."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the
      eyes black, large, and roguishly good-humoured&mdash;the mouth was small&mdash;the
      lips well formed, though somewhat full&mdash;the teeth were pearly white&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>aver</i> {Note: <i>Aver</i>&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is this he, neighbour?" quoth the Miller.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;as broken a ship has come to land."
    </p>
    <p>
      "To be a Prior, neighbour Miller," said Edward, "a man must first be a
      priest, and for that I judge I have little vocation."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He will take to the pleugh-pettle, neighbour," said the good dame; "and
      so will Halbert too, I trust. I wish you saw Halbert.&mdash;Edward, where
      is your brother?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ranges he not homeward at dinner-time, dame," demanded the Miller; "for
      we call noon the dinner-hour at Kennaquhair?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"that MacFarlane's geese liked their play
      better than their meat," a proverb which has been current ever since.}
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0205m.jpg" alt="0205m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0205.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Fourteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Nay, let me have the friends who eat my victuals,
  As various as my dishes.&mdash;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&mdash;Variety.
                           NEW PLAY.
</pre>
    <p>
      "And what brave lass is this?" said Hob Miller, as Mary Avenel entered the
      apartment to supply the absence of Dame Elspeth Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Nothing, indeed, could exhibit a stronger contrast than the appearance of
      the two girls;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 ?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No," said Mary Avenel, "you shall tell me who they are."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, if you like it better," said Mysie&mdash;"but how shall I know
      them?&mdash;-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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But can you not guess who this stranger should be?" said Mysie.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Indeed, I cannot even attempt it; but to judge by his companion, it is no
      matter how little he is known," replied Mary.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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;&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;Ho! Martin,&mdash;Tibb,&mdash;Dame
      Glendinning&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hout tout, man!" answered Jasper, "keep a calm sough; better to fleech a
      fool than fight with him."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was about this period, that the "only rare poet of his time, the witty,
      comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John Lylly&mdash;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.}&mdash;he, in short, who wrote that singularly coxcomical
      work, called <i>Euphues and his England</i>, 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&mdash;all the court ladies were his scholars, and to <i>parler
      Euphuisme</i>, was as necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant, as
      those of understanding how to use his rapier, or to dance a measure.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pretty and quaint, fairest lady," answered the Euphuist. "Ah, that I had
      with me my Anatomy of Wit&mdash;that all-to-be-unparalleled volume&mdash;that
      quintessence of human wit&mdash;that treasury of quaint invention&mdash;that
      exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered
      manual, of all that is worthy to be known&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0213m.jpg" alt="0213m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0213.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      The knight treated this intruder's mistake&mdash;for certainly Christie
      had no idea that all these epithets which sounded so rich and splendid,
      were lavished upon a small quarto volume&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Brave words&mdash;very brave words&mdash;very exceeding pyet words,"
      answered the Miller; "nevertheless, to speak my mind, a lippy of bran were
      worth a bushel of them."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;And
      yet, touching this juvenal, he hath that about him which belongeth to
      higher birth, for all are not black who dig coals&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nor all white who are millers," said honest Happer, glad to get in a
      word, as they say, edgeways.
    </p>
    <p>
      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'&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight took the rebuke with good humour. "By my mine honour," he said,
      "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;there are enow of rank riders in this land, that neither fear
      God nor regard man."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;have
      you not heard me say it, Tibb?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Mother!" said Halbert, in a firm and commanding tone of voice, "what or
      whom is it that you fear under my father's roof?&mdash;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.&mdash;I
      pray you let this excuse suffice: and what satisfies you, will, I trust,
      be nothing less than acceptable to your guests."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Fifteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Some ran to cupboard, and some to kist,
  But nought was away that could be mist.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I must have a more precise answer than this, Sir Knight," said the young
      Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;&mdash;" At this moment the door of the apartment
      opened, and Mary Avenel presented herself&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our northern and country manners, Sir Knight, do not permit us to
      exchange epithets with those to whom we are strangers," replied Mary
      Avenel.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;" {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 <i>Every Man out of his Humour</i>, 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 <i>Cynthia's Revels</i>. "you know that I call Madam Plilantia my <i>Honour,</i>
      and she calls me her <i>Ambition.</i> 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?'"&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas! alas! my brother," said Edward, "think what these words may cost
      thee!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our mother&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;But what need
      I waste my stock of similitudes in holding converse with myself?&mdash;Yonder
      comes the monkish retinue, like some half score of crows winging their way
      slowly up the valley&mdash;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&mdash;Mercy, a'gad, I were finely helped up if the
      vesture has miscarried among the thievish Borderers!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0229m.jpg" alt="0229m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0229.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>mortreux</i>,
      <i>blanc-manger</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Sir Knight&mdash;good
      now, Sir Piercie&mdash;Be quiet, Benedict, there is a good steed&mdash;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 <i>Deo gratias</i> so soon as he alighted in the court-yard
      of the Tower of Glendearg.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Sixteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;He hath not yet, I trust,
      turned, like his great prototype, his hunting-spear against man!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, to get savoury meat, such as our soul loveth," muttered the
      Sub-Prior; "it has been at times an acceptable gift.&mdash;I bid you good
      morrow, my good dame, as I must attend upon his lordship the Father
      Abbot."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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'."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Never mind&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Benedicite!" said Abbot Boniface, "now marry fie upon these hard benches
      with all my heart&mdash;they are as uneasy as the <i>scabella</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;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&mdash;Timothy,
      said I, let them saddle Benedict&mdash;let them saddle my black palfrey,
      and bid the Sub-Prior and some half-score of attendants be in readiness
      tomorrow after matins&mdash;we would ride to Glendearg.&mdash;Brother
      Timothy stared, thinking, I imagine, that his ears had scarce done him
      justice&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to forgive&mdash;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,&mdash;when he ate up the
      head of a Moor carbonadoed, and of other viands savouring rather of the
      rusticity of this northern region."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How!" said the Abbot, "a haunch of venison!&mdash;from whence comes that
      dainty? I remember not thou didst intimate its presence in thy hamper of
      vivers."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;your holiness has seldom seen
      such a haunch."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Minute
      down, however, the name of that youth&mdash;it is fitting merit should be
      rewarded, and he shall hereafter be a <i>frater ad succurrendum</i> in the
      kitchen and buttery."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.&mdash;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 <i>hospitium</i>?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.}
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  'Dixit Abbas ad Prioris,
  Tu es homo boni moris,
  Quia semper sanioris
  Mihi das concilia.'
</pre>
    <p>
      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, <i>Intravit in secretis nostris</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;quitting
      the gay theatre, for the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house&mdash;bartering
      the sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba,
      for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe&mdash;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&mdash;but it were discourteous to urge that
      topic."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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: <i>Attaint</i> was a term of tilting used to
      express the champion's having <i>attained</i> 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.&mdash;Ah! brave resort of the
      noble, the fair and the gay!&mdash;Ah! throne of love, and citadel of
      honour!&mdash;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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Here he paused, wrung his hands, looked upwards, and seemed lost in
      contemplation of his own fallen fortunes.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Were it not better to call up the rest of the brethren?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The hint was not thrown away.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "You are right, reverend sir," answered the courtier; "<i>rem acu</i>&mdash;you
      have touched the point with a needle&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Rem acu</i>, 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&mdash;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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0241m.jpg" alt="0241m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0241.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "This," said the Abbot, "seems but hard measure on the part of your
      honourable kinsman."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You are right, sir&mdash;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&mdash;the <i>poignet</i>
      being of silver exquisitely hatched, and indeed the weapon being
      altogether a piece of exceeding rare device and beauty&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "So goodly a gift might at least have purchased you a few days'
      hospitality," said Father Eustace.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Reverend sir," said Sir Piercie, "had I abidden with him, I should have
      been complimented out of every remnant of my wardrobe&mdash;actually
      flayed, by the hospitable gods I swear it! Sir, he secured my spare
      doublet, and had a pluck at my galligaskins&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;also two
      pair black silk slops, with hanging garters of carnation silk&mdash;also
      the flesh-coloured silken doublet, with the trimmings of fur, in which I
      danced the salvage man at the Gray's-Inn mummery&mdash;also&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;my retreat can only attract the
      admiration of those few to whom circumstances permit its displaying
      itself."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.&mdash;There is also my sad-coloured
      riding-suit, and three cut-work shirts with falling bands&mdash;I pray
      you, pardon me&mdash;I must needs see how matters stand with them without
      farther dallying."
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus speaking, he left the room; and the Sub-Prior, looking after him
      significantly, added, "Where the treasure is will the heart be also."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,
    </p>
    <p>
      {Footnote: "Yorke," says Camden, "was a Londoner, a man of loose and
      dissolute behaviour, and desperately audacious&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;this
      knight were enough to turn their brains, from the <i>Vestiarius</i> down
      to the very scullion boy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;now they are&mdash;what
      shall I call them&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Benedictine!" replied the Abbot, "they are indeed slippery and evil
      times."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And therefore," said Father Eustace, "we must walk warily&mdash;we must
      not, for example, bring this man&mdash;this Sir Piercie Shafton, to our
      house of Saint Mary's."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But how then shall we dispose of him?" replied the Abbot; "bethink thee
      that he is a sufferer for holy Church's sake&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;that
      unconscientious baron would not stick to plunder the exiled stranger&mdash;Let
      him remain here&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Were we not better," said the Abbot, "send him on to the court, and get
      rid of him at once?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay, but at the expense of our friends&mdash;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&mdash;Rather than fail of distinction,
      he would sue for love to our gracious sovereign&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thou hast prevailed with me, Father Eustace," said the Abbot, "and it
      will go hard but I improve on thy plan&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whatever accommodation he can have, which infers not a risk of
      discovery," said the Sub-Prior, "it is our duty to afford him."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>pointed</i> 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
      <i>trussing</i>.} He will be fortunate if he lights on any one here who
      can do him the office of groom of the chamber."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I would he would appear," said the Abbot, "for here comes the Refectioner
      with the collation&mdash;By my faith, the ride hath given me a sharp
      appetite!"
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Seventeenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  I'll seek for other aid&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Halbert," said the old man, "you will never live to have white hair, if
      you take fire thus at every spark of provocation."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;What avails it,
      old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal,
      and repose on thy hard pallet?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "God help me," answered Martin, "there may be truth in what thou sayest&mdash;but
      walk slower, for my old limbs cannot keep pace with your young legs&mdash;walk
      slower, and I will tell you why age, though unlovely, is yet endurable."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Right, Martin," answered Halbert; "there, indeed, thou didst what might
      be a sufficient apology for a whole life of insignificance."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thou canst judge, then, of noble bearing?" said Halbert.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;though I know not the reason&mdash;the rude northern
      dialect, so familiar to my tongue, has given place to a more town-bred
      speech."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And this change in thyself and me, thou canst by no means account for?"
      said young Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;could read and write like a priest, and could wield brand and
      buckler with the best of the riders. I mind him&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what was that?" said Halbert, his eyes sparkling with eagerness.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nothing less," answered Martin, "than body-servant to the Archbishop of
      Saint Andrews!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Halbert's countenance fell.&mdash;"A servant&mdash;and to a priest? Was
      this all that knowledge and activity could raise him to?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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: <i>Mint</i>&mdash;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: <i>Yauds</i>&mdash;horses;
      more particularly horses of labour.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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;&mdash;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.&mdash;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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Thrice to the holy brake&mdash;
    Thrice to the well:&mdash;
  I bid thee awake,
    White Maid of Avenel!

  Noon gleams on the lake&mdash;
    Noon glows on the fell&mdash;
  Wake thee, O wake,
    White Maid of Avenel!"
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "I demand of thee, then," said the youth, "by what charm it is that I am
      thus altered in mind and in wishes&mdash;that I think no longer of deer or
      dog, of bow or bolt&mdash;that my soul spurns the bounds of this obscure
      glen&mdash;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?&mdash;Am I the same, who but yesterday,
      as it were, slumbered in contented obscurity, but who am to-day awakened
      to glory and ambition?&mdash;Speak&mdash;tell me, if thou canst, the
      meaning of this change?&mdash;Am I spell-bound?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady replied,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The spirit answered,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Ask thy heart,&mdash;whose secret cell
  Is fill'd with Marv Avenel!
  Ask thy pride,&mdash;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?&mdash;
  Why thou spurn'st thy lowly lot?&mdash;
  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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;by what means make it known?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady replied,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Yet thine own fate," replied Halbert, "unless men greatly err, is linked
      with that of mortals?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The phantom answered,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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&mdash;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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Speak yet more plainly," answered young Glendinning; "of this I can
      understand nothing. Say, what hath forged thy wierded {Footnote: <i>Wierded</i>&mdash;fated.}
      link of destiny with the House of Avenel? Say, especially, what fate now
      overhangs that house?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady replied,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Look on my girdle&mdash;on this thread of gold&mdash;
  '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&mdash;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!&mdash;the stars forbid it."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Then canst thou read the stars," answered the youth; "and mayest tell me
      the fate of my passion, if thou canst not aid it?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The White Lady again replied,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "And rivalry?" repeated Glendinning; "it is, then, as I feared!&mdash;But
      shall that English silkworm presume to beard me in my father's house, and
      in the presence of Mary Avenel?&mdash;Give me to meet him, spirit&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      She answered as promptly as before,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Give me to redeem my honour," said Halbert Glendinning&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The phantom failed not to reply,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "When Piercie Shafton boasteth high,
  Let this token meet his eye.
  The sun is westering from the dell,
  Thy wish is granted&mdash;fare thee well!"
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0273m.jpg" alt="0273m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0273.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Edward is scrupulous and wary.&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Eighteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I nothing doubt it," said the Abbot, "but I pray you to sit down at the
      board."
    </p>
    <p>
      But Sir Piercie had now got into his element, and was not easily
      interrupted&mdash;"I own," he continued, "that slight as the toy is, it
      might perchance have had some captivation for Julian&mdash;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!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Marry!" said the Abbot, somewhat impatiently, "the greatest discretion
      that I can see in the matter is, to eat our victuals being hot&mdash;Father
      Eustace, say the Benedicite, and cut up the haunch."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Sub-Prior readily obeyed the first part of the Abbot's injunction, but
      paused upon the second&mdash;"It is Friday, most reverend," he said in
      Latin, desirous that the hint should escape, if possible, the ears of the
      stranger.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We are travellers," said the Abbot, in reply, "and <i>viatoribus licitum
      est</i>&mdash;You know the canon&mdash;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;&mdash;wherefore fall to and eat your food with cheerful
      countenances, and you, Father Refectioner, <i>da mixtus</i>."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>Cymbalum</i>. Then would I enter
      keen with hunger, parched with thirst, (<i>da mihi vinum quaeso, et merum
      sit</i>,) and partake with appetite of whatever was set before us,
      according to our rule; feast or fast day, <i>caritas</i> or <i>penitentia</i>,
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>coquinarius</i>, a bolt so justly shot. It
      has cloven the very heart of the buck."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "So please your noble fatherhood," answered Dame Glendinning with a deep
      curtsy, "I should know somewhat of archery to my cost, seeing my husband&mdash;God
      assoilzie him!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;that
      is, always provided he be there.&mdash;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&mdash;Wherefore, I say, answer me to the point, is thy son a
      practised archer, ay or no?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alack! my reverend lord," replied the widow, "and my croft would be
      better tilled, if I could answer your reverence that he is not.&mdash;Practised
      archer!&mdash;marry, holy sir, I would he would practise something else&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A green gown and a pair of leathern galligaskins every Pentecost," said
      the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Four marks by the year at Candlemas," answered the Refectioner.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A hogshead of ale at Martlemas, of the double strike, and single ale at
      pleasure, as he shall agree with the Cellarer&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who is a reasonable man," said the Abbot, "and will encourage an active
      servant of the convent."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A mess of broth and a dole of mutton or beef, at the Kitchener's, on each
      high holiday," resumed the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The gang of two cows and a palfrey on our Lady's meadow." answered his
      brother officer.
    </p>
    <p>
      "An ox-hide to make buskins of yearly, because of the brambles," echoed
      the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And various other perquisites, <i>quae nunc praescribere longum</i>,"
      said the Abbot, summing, with his own lordly voice, the advantages
      attached to the office of conventional bow-bearer.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "How," said the Abbot, bending his brows, "accept of it?&mdash;Woman, is
      thy son in his right wits?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Refuse!" said the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Refuse!" answered the Refectioner, echoing the other's word in a tone of
      still louder astonishment.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Refuse four marks by the year!" said the one.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ale and beer&mdash;broth and mutton&mdash;cow's grass and palfrey's!"
      shouted the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Gown and galligaskins!" responded the Refectioner.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Nineteenth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;And these
      trifling particulars complete his external appearance.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>Promptuarium
      Parvulorum</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "My son&mdash;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&mdash;a-hem&mdash;especially
      touching wood-craft&mdash;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&mdash;a-hem."
      He made here a pause, but observing that Glendinning only replied to his
      compliment by a bow, he proceeded,&mdash;"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&mdash;that we may, with our own hand, and
      without loss of time, induct thee into office."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Kneel down," said the Kitchener on the one side; and "Kneel down," said
      the Refectioner on the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      But Halbert Glendinning remained standing.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay, my son," said the Abbot, "is it indeed so?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Four marks by the year, duly and truly," said the Kitchener.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Cow's-grass, doublet, and galligaskins," responded the Refectioner.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Your kindness, reverend father," said the youth, "craves my dearest
      thanks&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "By our Lady," said the Abbot, "I think the youth be mad indeed&mdash;or
      that you, Sir Piercie, judged of him most truly, when you prophesied that
      he would prove unfit for the promotion we designed him&mdash;it may be you
      knew something of this wayward humour before?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thou art thyself a kite, and kestrel to boot," replied Halbert
      Glendinning, without a moment's hesitation.
    </p>
    <p>
      "This in our presence, and to a man of worship?" said the Abbot, the blood
      rushing to his face.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, my lord," answered the youth; "even in your presence I return to
      this gay man's face, the causeless dishonour&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Unmannered boy!" said the Abbot.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, my good lord," said the knight, "praying pardon for the coarse
      interruption, let me entreat you not to be wroth with this rustical&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Proud as you are, Sir Knight," said Halbert, "in your imagined
      superiority, be not too confident that you cannot be moved."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Faith, by nothing that thou canst urge," said Sir Piercie.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Knowest thou, then, this token?" said young Glendinning, offering to him
      the silver bodkin he had received from the White Lady.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I did nought to him," answered Halbert Glendinning, "but what you all saw&mdash;am
      I to answer for his fantastic freaks of humour?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Without waiting until Halbert Glendinning replied, he came forward,
      whispering to him as he passed, "Be secret&mdash;thou shalt have the
      satisfaction thou hast dared to seek for."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be assured," said the knight, without looking up, however, while he
      spoke, "I will satisfy the Lord Abbot."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;but
      it passes away speedily, as you yourselves may judge."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tush! reverend sirs&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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: <i>Prime</i> was the midnight service of the monks.} and
      this by way of misericord or <i>indulgentia.</i>" {Footnote: <i>Misericord,</i>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;gave
      his hand to be kissed by Dame Glendinning&mdash;himself kissed the cheek
      of Mary Avenel, and even of the Miller's maiden, when they approached to
      render him the same homage&mdash;commanded Halbert to rule his temper, and
      to be aiding and obedient in all things to the English Knight&mdash;admonished
      Edward to be <i>discipulus impiger atque strenuus</i>&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twentieth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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&mdash;let us make no days on't,
  I'll lead your way.
</pre>
    <h3>
      LOVE'S PILGRIMAGE.
    </h3>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What is my pleasure!" answered Sir Piercie; "a goodly question after the
      part you have acted towards me!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not, I trust, if my hand and sword can defend it," replied Halbert,
      boldly.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thou wilt, then," said the knight, "do nothing to avert the certain fate
      which thou hast provoked with such wantonness?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Explain to me instantly," said Sir Piercie, "without equivocation or
      delay, by what means thou wert enabled to wound my honour so deeply&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Content," replied Halbert Glendinning: "I will guide thee to a spot where
      an hundred men might fight and fall without any chance of interruption."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is well," answered Sir Piercie Shafton. "Here then we part.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0283m.jpg" alt="0283m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0283.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      He shall read nothing in my countenance, thought Halbert, proudly, that
      can make him think my indifference less than his own.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As it now waxed late, the family of Glendearg separated for the evening;
      Sir Piercie first saying to the dame, that "her son Albert&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Halbert," said Elspeth, with emphasis, "Halbert, after his goodsire,
      Halbert Brydone."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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."&mdash;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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  'Ah rest!&mdash;no rest but change of place and posture:
  Ah sleep!&mdash;no sleep but worn-out Nature's swooning;
  Ah bed!&mdash;no bed but cushion fill'd with stones:
  Rest, sleep, nor bed, await not on an exile.'"
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "A pleasant gentleman," said Dame Glendinning; "but I will warrant him an
      humorous {Footnote: <i>Humorous</i>&mdash;full of whims&mdash;thus
      Shakspeare, "Humorous as winter."&mdash;The vulgar word humorsome comes
      nearest to the meaning.}&mdash;And sings a sweet song, though it is
      somewhat of the longest.&mdash;Well, I make mine avow he is goodly company&mdash;I
      wonder when he will go away."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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&mdash;And Mary Avenel&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;to his mother and brother&mdash;especially to Mary Avenel&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;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&mdash;I should but humble myself in vain&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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."
</pre>
    <p>
      "Avaunt thee, false Spirit!" said Halbert Glendinning; "I have bought thy
      advice too dearly already&mdash;Begone in the name of God!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "You have summon'd me once&mdash;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."
</pre>
    <p>
      Halbert Glendinning gave way for a moment to terror, and called on his
      brother, "Edward! waken, waken, for Our Lady's sake!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward awaked accordingly, and asked what he wanted.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Look out," said Halbert, "look up! seest thou no one in the room?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, upon my good word," said Edward, looking out.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What! seest thou nothing in the moonshine upon the floor there?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;thy
      sleep hath not refreshed thee&mdash;thy waking hath been a dream.&mdash;Credit
      me, dear Halbert, say the <i>Pater</i> and <i>Credo</i>, resign thyself to
      the protection of God, and thou wilt sleep sound and wake in comfort."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It may be," said Halbert slowly, and having his eye still bent on the
      female form which to him seemed distinctly visible,&mdash;"it may be. But
      tell me, dear Edward, seest thou no one on the chamber floor but me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No one," answered Edward, raising himself on his elbow; "dear brother,
      lay aside thy weapon, say thy prayers, and lay thee down to rest."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Amen! my dearest brother," answered Edward; "but we must not provoke that
      Heaven in our wantonness which we invoke in our misery.&mdash;Be not angry
      with me, my dear brother&mdash;I know not why you have totally of late
      estranged yourself from me&mdash;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&mdash;Believe me,
      I have wept in secret, though I forbore to intrude myself on your privacy.
      The time has been&mdash;when you held me not so cheap; and&mdash;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&mdash;but now I
      have, though I know not why, lost thy regard and affection.&mdash;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&mdash;let
      me draw closer around thee thy mantle."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Forbear," said Halbert&mdash;"your care is needless&mdash;your complaints
      are without reason&mdash;your fears on my account are in vain."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
       *       *       *       *       *       *
</pre>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-First.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Indifferent, but indifferent&mdash;pshaw, he doth it not
  Like one who is his craft's master&mdash;ne'er the less
  I have seen a clown confer a bloody coxcomb
  On one who was a master of defence.
                                      OLD PLAY.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      He showed his cross-bow, and was about to express the pretext he had
      meditated, when Mary interrupted him.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not so, Halbert&mdash;that evasion were unworthy of one whose word has
      hitherto been truth. You meditate not the destruction of the deer&mdash;your
      hand and your heart are aimed at other game&mdash;you seek to do battle
      with this stranger."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And wherefore should I quarrel with our guest?" answered Halbert,
      blushing deeply.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are, indeed, many reasons why you should not," replied the maiden,
      "nor is there one of avail wherefore you should&mdash;yet nevertheless,
      such a quarrel you are now searching after."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why should you suppose so, Mary?" said Halbert, endeavouring to hide his
      conscious purpose&mdash;"he is my mother's guest&mdash;he is protected by
      the Abbot and the community, who are our masters&mdash;he is of high
      degree also,&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;Oh, let it then be from pity!&mdash;from
      pity, Halbert, to your aged mother, whom your death or victory will alike
      deprive of the comfort and stay of her age."
    </p>
    <p>
      "She has my brother Edward," said Halbert, turning suddenly from her.
    </p>
    <p>
      "She has indeed," said Mary Avenel, "the calm, the noble-minded, the
      considerate Edward, who has thy courage, Halbert, without thy fiery
      rashness,&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Halbert's heart swelled as he replied to this reproach. "Well&mdash;what
      avails it speaking?&mdash;you have him that is better than me&mdash;wiser,
      more considerate&mdash;braver, for aught I know&mdash;you are provided
      with a protector, and need care no more for me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mary Avenel availed herself of his state of suspense. "Hear me," she said,
      "hear me, Halbert!&mdash;I am an orphan, and even Heaven hears the orphan&mdash;I
      have been the companion of your infancy, and if <i>you</i> will not hear
      me for an instant, from whom may Mary Avenel claim so poor a boon?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I hear you," said Halbert Glendinning, "but be brief, dear Mary&mdash;you
      mistake the nature of my business&mdash;it is but a morning of summer
      sport which we propose."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Say not thus," said the maiden, interrupting him, "say not thus to me&mdash;others
      thou mayst deceive, but me thou canst not&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then," said Halbert, "if thou canst so read the human heart,&mdash;say,
      dear Mary&mdash;what dost thou see in mine?&mdash;tell me that&mdash;say
      that what thou seest&mdash;what thou readest in this bosom, does not
      offend thee&mdash;say but <i>that</i>, 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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;Credit me, lovely Discretion&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;that affront&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "For which condescension," said Halbert, "I have to thank the token which
      I presented to you."
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight changed colour, and grinded his teeth with rage&mdash;"Draw
      your weapon!" said he to Glendinning.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0301m.jpg" alt="0301m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0301.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "Not in this spot," answered the youth; "we should be liable to
      interruption&mdash;Follow me, and I will bring you to a place where we
      shall encounter no such risk."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;for the rest, I must trust to good sword,
      strong arm, and sound heart."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not so, O thou,&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"It must have been her work!" he thought:
      "the Spirit foresaw and has provided for the fatal event of the combat&mdash;I
      must return from this place a homicide, or I must remain here for ever!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"In
      this very shirt," said he, "O mine Audacity!&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      And he judged right; for Sir Piercie Shafton no sooner heard him speak,
      than he exclaimed, "Thy death-hour has struck&mdash;betake thee to thy
      sword&mdash;Via!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>stoccata, imbrocata, punto-reverso, incartata</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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: <i>Dependence</i>&mdash;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&mdash;Dost thou
      understand me?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have heard Father Eustace," said Halbert, after a moment's
      recollection, "speak of the three furies, with their thread and their
      shears."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Enough&mdash;enough,"&mdash;interrupted Sir Piercie Shafton, crimsoning
      with a new fit of rage, "the thread of thy life is spun!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Second.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Yes, life hath left him&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Most rustical youth," he said, "thy fortune hath prevailed over knightly
      skill&mdash;and Audacity hath overcome Condescension, even as the kite
      hath sometimes hawked at and struck down the falcon-gentle.&mdash;Fly and
      save thyself!&mdash;Take my purse&mdash;it is in the nether pocket of my
      carnation-coloured hose&mdash;and is worth a clown's acceptance. See that
      my mails, with my vestments, be sent to the Monastery of Saint Mary's"&mdash;(here
      his voice grew weak, and his mind and recollection seemed to waver)&mdash;"I
      bestow the cut velvet jerkin, with close breeches conforming&mdash;for&mdash;oh!&mdash;the
      good of my soul."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be of good comfort, sir," said Halbert, half distracted with his agony of
      pity and remorse. "I trust you shall yet do well&mdash;Oh for a leech!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Were there twenty physicians, O most generous Audacity, and that were a
      grave spectacle&mdash;I might not survive, my life is ebbing fast.&mdash;Commend
      me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion&mdash;O Claridiana!&mdash;true
      empress of this bleeding heart&mdash;which now bleedeth in sad earnest!&mdash;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&mdash;O
      saints and angels&mdash;-knights and ladies&mdash;masques and theatres&mdash;quaint
      devices&mdash;chain-work and broidery&mdash;love, honour, and beauty!&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;groaned
      deeply, shut his eyes, and became motionless.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I will essay the spell howsoever; and
      if she can give me aid, she <i>shall</i> do it, or know of what a madman
      is capable even against those of another world!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;Sorceress&mdash;Fiend!&mdash;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!"&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Save ye, good father!" said the youth. "God and Our Lady have sent you to
      my assistance."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;come with
      me! You are aged&mdash;you have experience&mdash;you have at least your
      senses&mdash;and mine have well nigh left me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A man&mdash;and bleeding to death&mdash;and here in this desolate spot!"
      said the stranger.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Stay not to question it, father," said the youth, "but come instantly to
      his rescue. Follow me,&mdash;follow me, without an instant's delay."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, thou shalt not need," said the traveller; "if it indeed be as thou
      sayest, I will follow thee of free-will&mdash;the rather that I am not
      wholly unskilled in leech-craft, and have in my scrip that which may do
      thy friend a service&mdash;Yet walk more slowly, I pray thee, for I am
      already well-nigh forespent with travel."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"Young man," he said, "if thou
      meanest aught but good to these gray hairs, thou wilt gain little by thy
      cruelty&mdash;I have no earthly treasure to tempt either robber or
      murderer."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And I," said the youth, "am neither&mdash;and yet&mdash;God of Heaven!&mdash;I
      <i>may</i> be a murderer, unless your aid comes in time to this wounded
      wretch!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is it even so," said the traveller; "and do human passions disturb the
      breast of nature, even in her deepest solitude?&mdash;Yet why should I
      marvel that where darkness abides the works of darkness should abound?&mdash;By
      its fruits is the tree known&mdash;Lead on, unhappy youth&mdash;I follow
      thee!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "By the blessed Heaven!&mdash;by our dear Lady!" ejaculated Halbert&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "As I am a Christian man," said Glendinning, "I left him here bleeding to
      death&mdash;and now I nowhere spy him, and much I doubt that the tomb that
      thou seest has closed on his mortal remains."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "His name," said Halbert, after a moment's pause, "is Piercie Shafton&mdash;there,
      on that very spot I left him bleeding; and what power has conveyed him
      hence, I know no more than thou dost."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;a harebrained trafficker in treason&mdash;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.&mdash;Come with me, youth, and save thyself from the evil
      consequences of this deed&mdash;Guide me to the Castle of Avenel, and thy
      reward shall be protection and safety."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Third.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  'Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold.
  The warrior first feels pain&mdash;'tis when the heat
  And fiery fever of his soul is pass'd,
  The sinner feels remorse.
                               OLD PLAY.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then
      addressed him.&mdash;"My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or
      die&mdash;Why art thou so much cast down?&mdash;Tell me thy unhappy tale,
      and it may be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young
      life."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas!" said Halbert Glendinning, "can you wonder why I am cast down?&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pause there, my son," said the traveller. "That thou hast defaced God's
      image in thy neighbour's person&mdash;that thou hast sent dust to dust in
      idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest dye&mdash;that
      thou hast cut short the space which Heaven might have allowed him for
      repentance, makes it yet more deadly&mdash;but for all this there is balm
      in Gilead."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I understand you not, father," said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone
      which was assumed by his companion.
    </p>
    <p>
      The old man proceeded. "Thou hast slain thine enemy&mdash;it was a cruel
      deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I understand you, father," said Halbert; "thou wouldst have me atone for
      my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary&mdash;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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Art thou a priest, father?" said the young man, "or by what commission
      dost thou talk of such high matters?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "By that of my Almighty Master," said the traveller, "under whose banner I
      am an enlisted soldier."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0315m.jpg" alt="0315m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0315.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "Hearken to me, then," said Halbert; "to slay thee, I have no heart&mdash;to
      make thee prisoner, were equally to bring thy blood on my head&mdash;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&mdash;but though an ignorant, a
      zealous member.&mdash;When thou art there arrived, beware of thyself&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yet thou sayest not," answered the Protestant preacher, for such he was,
      "that for lucre he would sell the blood of his guest?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Your courage and devotion," said Glendinning, "are worthy of a better
      cause."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That," said Warden, "cannot be&mdash;mine is the very best."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>hags</i>,
      by which the firmer parts of the morass were intersected.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I have already told thee," answered Halbert Glendinning, sternly, "that I
      will hear nothing from thee that savours of doctrine."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Glendinning stoutly replied, "I know not how that may be&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;thou speakest but as thou art taught&mdash;yet sure I trust
      that so goodly a youth will be still rescued, like a brand from the
      burning."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a small
      rocky islet in a mountain lake, or <i>tarn,</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0319m.jpg" alt="0319m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0319.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Fourth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Probably it was with this conviction that the old man, gazing on the
      castle, muttered to himself, "<i>Lapis offensionis et petra scandali!</i>"
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "This Julian Avenel, then, holds no high place in the love and regard of
      his neighbours?" said Warden.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You describe a dangerous man," replied Warden.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You may have experience of that," replied the youth, "if you deal not the
      more warily;&mdash;though it may be that he also has forsaken the
      community of the church, and gone astray in the path of heresy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I am now sufficiently refreshed by these few minutes of
      repose."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;if you
      do risk going thither, obtain from him, if possible, his safe conduct, and
      beware that he swears it by the Black Rood&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;But thou, good youth, needest thou trust
      thyself in this dangerous den?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Halbert Glendinning soon recognized Christie of the Clinthill, and made
      his companion aware that the henchman of Julian Avenel was approaching.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;What old carle hast thou with thee?&mdash;He
      is not of the brotherhood of Saint Mary's&mdash;at least he has not the
      buist {Footnote: <i>Buist</i>&mdash;The brand, or mark, set upon sheep or
      cattle, by their owners.} of these black cattle."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "For thyself and welcome, young comrade," replied Christie; "but we
      harbour no pilgrims, nor aught that looks like a pilgrim."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>canting</i> 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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0151m.jpg" alt="0151m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0151.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the devil is not so black as he is painted."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>secret</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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>i. e.</i> 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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0329m.jpg" alt="0329m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0329.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;the gay gown of green which swept the
      floor,&mdash;the silver embroidered girdle, with its bunch of keys,
      depending in house-wifely pride by a silver chain,&mdash;the yellow silken
      <i>couvrechef</i> (Scottice, <i>curch</i>) which was disposed around her
      head, and partly concealed her dark profusion of hair,&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;the subdued look of grief, and the starting tear for
      which that constrained smile was again exchanged when she saw herself
      entirely disregarded,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;thou foul kite, thou wouldst never have done&mdash;give thee
      part thou wilt have all&mdash;Ay, prune thy feathers, and prink thyself
      gay&mdash;much thou wilt make of it now&mdash;dost think I know thee not?&mdash;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?&mdash;well&mdash;there&mdash;take it then, and rejoice thyself&mdash;little
      boon goes far with thee, and with all thy sex&mdash;and so it should."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>kindly</i> language of hawking, as Lady
      Juliana Berners terms it, hawks' talons are called their <i>singles</i>}
      So la! So la! wouldst mount? wouldst fly? the jesses are round thy
      clutches, fool&mdash;thou canst neither stir nor soar but by my will&mdash;Beware
      thou come to reclaim, wench, else I will wring thy head off one of these
      days&mdash;Well, have it then, and well fare thou with it.&mdash;So ho,
      Jenkin!" One of the attendants stepped forward&mdash;"Take the foul gled
      hence to the mew&mdash;or, stay; leave her, but look well to her casting
      and to her bathing&mdash;we will see her fly to-morrow.&mdash;How now,
      Christie, so soon returned?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Noble sir," said that worthy satellite, "the Laird of&mdash;," he named
      no place, but pointed with his finger in a south-western direction,&mdash;
      "may not ride with you the day he purposed, because the Lord Warden has
      threatened that he will&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Cowardly caitiff!" said Julian; "by Heaven! the whole world turns sheer
      naught&mdash;it is not worth a brave man's living in&mdash;ye may ride a
      day and night, and never see a feather wave or hear a horse prance&mdash;the
      spirit of our fathers is dead amongst us&mdash;the very brutes are
      degenerated&mdash;the cattle we bring at our life's risk are mere carrion&mdash;our
      hawks are riflers {Footnote: So called when they only caught their prey by
      the feathers.}&mdash;our hounds are turnspits and trindle-tails&mdash;our
      men are women&mdash;and our women are&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"Our women
      are such as she is."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"Our women,
      Julian&mdash;what would you say of the women?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;"And what strangers hast thou brought with
      thee, Christie, that stand yonder like two stone statues?" said the Baron.
    </p>
    <p>
      "The taller," answered Christie, "is, so please you, a young fellow called
      Halbert Glendinning, the eldest son of the old widow at Glendearg."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What brings him here?" said the Baron; "hath he any message from Mary
      Avenel?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not as I think," said Christie; "the youth is roving the country&mdash;he
      was always a wild slip, for I have known him since he was the height of my
      sword."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What qualities hath he?" said the Baron.
    </p>
    <p>
      "All manner of qualities," answered his follower&mdash;"he can strike a
      buck, track a deer, fly a hawk, halloo to a hound&mdash;he shoots in the
      long and crossbow to a hair's breadth&mdash;wields a lance or sword like
      myself nearly&mdash;backs a horse manfully and fairly&mdash;I wot not what
      more a man need to do to make him a gallant companion."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"wretched old man."} who stands beside him?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Some cast of a priest as I fancy&mdash;he says he is charged with letters
      to you."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;if you will
      serve Julian Avenel, you may find it without going farther."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What!&mdash;thou hast stricken some of the king's deer, I warrant,&mdash;or
      lightened the meadows of Saint Mary's of some of their beeves&mdash;or
      thou hast taken a moonlight leap over the border?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, sir," said Halbert, "my case is entirely different."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then I warrant thee," said the Baron, "thou hast stabbed some brother
      churl in a fray about a wench&mdash;thou art a likely lad to wrangle in
      such a cause."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;Look at the depth of the lake, the
      strength of the walls, the length of the causeway&mdash;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&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I thank you for your offers, noble sir," replied Halbert, "but I must
      answer in brief, that I cannot profit by them&mdash;my fortunes lead me
      elsewhere."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders&mdash;thou
      understandest?" Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell
      back to a respectful distance from his master.&mdash;"And thou, old man,"
      said the Baron, turning to the elder traveller, "hast thou been roaming
      the world after fortune too?&mdash;it seems not she has fallen into thy
      way."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.&mdash;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.&mdash;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 <i>quaestionarii</i>,
      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&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "When you have done speaking," said Warden, in the same composed manner,
      "it will be full time to reply."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Say on man, in the devil's name&mdash;but take heed&mdash;beg not here&mdash;were
      it but for the rinds of cheese, the refuse of the rats, or a morsel that
      my dogs would turn from&mdash;neither a grain of meal, nor the nineteenth
      part of a gray groat, will I give to any feigned limmer of thy coat."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am not the man to attempt either," was the concise reply.
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"I thank thee, wench; thou art a
      careful secretary."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;a preacher of the&mdash;the new doctrine of
      the Lords of the Congregation."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The doctrine of the blessed Scriptures," said the preacher, "purified
      from the devices of men."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sayest thou?" said Julian Avenel&mdash;"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&mdash;no more tithes and offerings to make men poor&mdash;no
      more prayers or psalms to make men cowards-no more christenings and
      penances, and confessions and marriages."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Warden would have replied; but the Baron allowed him not time, striking
      the table with the hilt of his dagger, and crying out,&mdash;"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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You have been commended to our care, Sir Preacher, since that is your
      style, by a person whom we highly honour."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am assured," said Warden, "that the most noble Lord&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;thou shalt sit
      betwixt Catherine and me at the board-end.&mdash;And, Christie, do thou
      look to the young springald, and call to the cellarer for a flagon of the
      best."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Fifth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  When lovely woman stoops to folly,
  And finds too late that men betray&mdash;
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the old ones used to confer these blessings chiefly on
      the laity."
    </p>
    <p>
      "We acknowledge no such rule," said the preacher&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The better&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "In a word, then," said Henry Warden, "that lady&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "How?" said the Baron, starting&mdash;"what of her?&mdash;what hast thou
      to say of that dame?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"Is she, in brief, thy wife?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;then instantly constraining himself, he
      muttered, "What need to run myself into trouble for a fool's word?"&mdash;then
      resuming his seat, he answered coldly and scornfully&mdash;"No, Sir Priest
      or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife&mdash;Cease thy whimpering, thou
      foolish wench&mdash;she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and
      that makes her as honest a woman."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Handfasted?"&mdash;repeated Warden.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;no jump in the dark for us&mdash;no
      clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know how they will wear
      with us&mdash;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&mdash;that
      space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may
      call the priest to marry them for life&mdash;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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;it relieves thee when she is most
      the subject of pity&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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
      <i>his</i> Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty
      with <i>mine?</i> Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with what
      concerns thee not&mdash;thou hast no gull in Julian Avenel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The speech and the motion were ill-timed, and wrought on that proud and
      wayward spirit the reverse of her wishes.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;The blood gushed from her face.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Peace," he said, "prithee, peace, thou silly minion&mdash;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&mdash;there&mdash;dry thy
      tears&mdash;Call thy women.&mdash;So ho!&mdash;where be these queans?&mdash;Christie&mdash;Rowley&mdash;Hutcheon&mdash;drag
      them hither by the hair of the head!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;Spur not an unbroken horse&mdash;put not
      your ploughshare too deep into new land&mdash;Preach to us spiritual
      liberty, and we will hearken to you.&mdash;But we will give no way to
      spiritual bondage.&mdash;Sit, therefore, down, and pledge me in old sack,
      and we will talk over these matters."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is <i>from</i> spiritual bondage," said the preacher, in the same tone
      of admonitory reproof, "that I came to deliver you&mdash;it is from a
      bondage more fearful than than that of the heaviest earthly gyves&mdash;it
      is from your own evil passions."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sit down," said Avenel, fiercely; "sit down while the play is good&mdash;else
      by my father's crest and my mother's honour!&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Now," whispered Christie of the Clinthill to Halbert, "if he refuse to
      sit down, I would not give a gray groat for his head."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&mdash;I
      will hear no man speak a word for him&mdash;&mdash;Look to the falcon,
      Christie, thou fool&mdash;an she escape, I will despatch you after her
      every man&mdash;Away with that hypocritical dreamer&mdash;drag him hence
      if he resist!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;By Heaven! they make us worse than we would be
      without them."
    </p>
    <p>
      {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;&mdash;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."&mdash;See the whole confession in the State
      Trials.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."&mdash;<i>Memoirs of Sir
      Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth.</i>}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;are ye Border-riders, and sit
      as mute over your meal as a mess of monks and friars?&mdash;Some one sing,
      if no one list to speak. Much eaten without either mirth or music is ill
      of digestion.&mdash;Louis," he added, speaking to one of the youngest of
      his followers, "thou art ready enough to sing when no one bids thee."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
                 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!
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0418m.jpg" alt="0418m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0418.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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 <i>soupirait</i> 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&mdash;"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&mdash;"By Heaven, the bar has given way in my
      hand!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thank Heaven, my son, instead of swearing by it," answered Warden from
      his dungeon.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Are there no means by which I can assist your escape, my father?" said
      Halbert.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are none, my son," answered the preacher; "but if thou wilt ensure
      my safety, that may be in thy power."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will labour earnestly for it," said the youth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Take then a letter which I will presently write, for I have the means of
      light and writing materials in my scrip&mdash;Hasten towards Edinburgh,
      and on the way thou wilt meet a body of horse marching southwards&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "God bless thee, my son," said the old man, "and complete the marvellous
      work which he has begun."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Amen!" answered Halbert, with solemnity, and proceeded on his enterprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Sixth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Look to the minced meat, Tibb," said Elspeth; "and turn the broach even,
      thou good-for-nothing Simmie,&mdash;thy wits are harrying birds' nests,
      child.&mdash;Weel, Tibb, this is a fasheous job, this Sir Piercie lying
      leaguer with us up here, and wha kens for how lang?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Now, in good time, here comes Mysie of the Mill.&mdash;And where hae ye
      been, lass for a's gane wrang without you?" said Elspeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;So I gaed a gliff up
      the burn."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;leave
      us to do the wark, and out to the play themsells."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I thought ye might like to
      ken if they were coming back, just to get the dinner forward."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And saw ye ought of them then?" demanded Elspeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The knight's white feather!" said Dame Glendinning; "ye are a silly
      hempie&mdash;my Halbert's high head will be seen farther than his feather,
      let it be as white as it like, I trow."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>girdle</i>, 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&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "An they come not back the sooner," said Tibb, "they will fare the waur,
      for the meat will be roasted to a cinder&mdash;and there is poor Simmie
      that can turn the spit nae langer: the bairn is melting like an icicle in
      warm water&mdash;Gang awa, bairn, and take a mouthful of the caller air,
      and I will turn the broach till ye come back."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It has been ane of her weary ghaists," said Dame Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It's just a trembling on her spirits, as her blessed mother used to
      have," said Tibb.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      At length a new assistant, who had joined the group unobserved, tendered
      his aid in the following terms:&mdash;"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?&mdash;Let me approach her," he said,"&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;"Secure the
      murderer!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"take away the murderer!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The English knight paused for a moment, and then replied,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And at what place, I pray you?" said the monk.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My bairn! my bairn!" exclaimed Dame Glendinning. "Yes, holy father, make
      the villain account for my bairn!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I swear, good woman, by bread and by water,&mdash;which are the props of
      our life&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Swear by wine and wastel-bread, for these are the props of <i>thy</i>
      life, thou greedy Southron!" said Dame Glendinning;&mdash;"a base
      belly-god, to come here to eat the best, and practise on our lives that
      give it to him!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I tell thee, woman," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "I did but go with thy son
      to the hunting."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be silent, woman," said the Sub-Prior, "and rail not upon the English
      knight; we do not yet know of any thing beyond suspicion."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the blood of my
      father's son&mdash;of the heir of our name! If he denies to give me a true
      account of him, he shall not deny me vengeance."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hear him! he confesses the deed, holy father," said Edward.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be patient, my son," said the Sub-Prior, endeavouring to soothe the
      feelings which he could not otherwise control, "be patient&mdash;thou wilt
      attain the ends of justice better through my means than thine own violence&mdash;And
      you, women, be silent&mdash;Tibb, remove your mistress and Mary Avenel."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,&mdash;let me know the price of his head, and I will pay it
      to your convent treasurer."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Peace, Edward, peace&mdash;I entreat&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You drive me beyond my patience," said the Euphuist, "even as the
      over-driven ox is urged into madness!&mdash;What can I tell you of a young
      fellow whom I have not seen since the second hour after sunrise?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "But can you explain in what circumstances you parted with him?" said the
      monk.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What <i>are</i> the circumstances, in the devil's name, which you desire
      should be explained?&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "If these end it not," said Edward, "blows shall, and that full speedily."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      So saying, he opened his cloak, forgetting, with his characteristical
      inconsistency, that he showed his shirt stained with blood.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How were that possible, Sir Piercie Shafton," said the monk, "since I see
      no wound from whence it can have flowed?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That," said the knight, "is the most mysterious part of the transaction&mdash;See
      here!"
    </p>
    <p>
      So saying, he undid his shirt collar, and, opening his bosom, showed the
      spot through&mdash;which Halbert's sword had passed, but already
      cicatrized, and bearing the appearance of a wound lately healed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight, after a moment's recollection, said in reply, "I will be open
      with you, my father&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Seventh.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight coloured very deeply.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.&mdash;Well, sir&mdash;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.&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;I put my hand to the wound&mdash;it
      was whole and skinned over as you now see it&mdash;I rise and come hither;
      and in these words you have my whole day's story."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;a wound received in the
      morning, of which there is no recent appearance at sunset,&mdash;a grave
      filled up, in which no body is deposited&mdash;the vanquished found alive
      and well&mdash;the victor departed no man knows whither. These things, Sir
      Knight, hang not so well together, that I should receive them as gospel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Speak in plain terms, for the love of heaven!" said the monk; "these
      holiday phrases belong not to solemn affairs&mdash;Was the grave open when
      the conflict began?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was," answered the knight, "I acknowledge it; even as he that
      acknowledgeth&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;only one of the combatants appears,
      and he is covered with blood, and to all appearance woundless."&mdash;Here
      the knight made a gesture of impatience.&mdash;"Nay, fair son, hear me but
      one moment&mdash;the grave is closed and covered by the sod&mdash;what can
      we believe, but that it conceals the bloody corpse of the fallen
      duellist?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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&mdash;it being a choice and most fanciful piece of
      raiment, which I wore for the first time at the Queen's pageant in
      Southwark."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;honours with which I protest to you the noblest dancers and
      proudest beauties in Feliciana have graced my poor services&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I grieve to be an interruption to your designs, Sir Knight," said the
      monk, "but that purpose of thine may hardly be fulfilled."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How, reverend father!" said the knight, with an air of the utmost
      surprise; "if what you say respects my departure, understand that it <i>must</i>
      be, for I have so resolved it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sir Knight," reiterated the Sub-Prior, "I must once more repeat, this <i>cannot</i>
      be, until the Abbot's pleasure be known in the matter."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Pardon me," said the Sub-Prior; "the Lord Abbot hath in this matter a
      voice potential."
    </p>
    <p>
      Sir Piercie Shafton's colour began to rise&mdash;"I marvel," he said, "to
      hear your reverence talk thus&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sir Knight," returned the Sub-Prior, civilly, "your high lineage and your
      kindling anger will avail you nothing in this matter&mdash;You shall not
      come here to seek a shelter, and then spill our blood as if it were
      water."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I tell you," said the knight, "once more, as I have told you already,
      that there was no blood spilled but mine own!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "We of the house of Piercie," answered Shafton, "brook neither threats nor
      restraint&mdash;I say I will travel to-morrow, happen what may!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And I," answered the Sub-Prior, in the same tone of determination, "say
      that I will break your journey, come what may!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who shall gainsay me," said the knight, "if I make my way by force?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My cousin of Northumberland will know how to revenge this usage to a
      beloved kinsman so near to his blood," said the Englishman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0365m.jpg" alt="0365m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0365.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward Glendinning replied,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;"Edward, I have known you from infancy&mdash;I have
      done what lay within my reach to be of use to you&mdash;I say nothing of
      what you owe to me as the representative of your spiritual Superior&mdash;I
      say nothing of the duty from the vassal to the Sub-Prior&mdash;But Father
      Eustace expects from the pupil whom he has nurtured&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;your reverence knows our Border
      creed."
    </p>
    <p>
      "'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&mdash;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&mdash;More of that
      another time&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"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&mdash;&mdash;"
      Here his voice faltered, and he paused for a moment, and then went on with
      resolution and rapidity&mdash;"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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "May God help us," said Father Eustace, "for, frail wretches as we are, we
      cannot help ourselves under sudden and strong temptation.&mdash;Edward, I
      will rely on your word that you do nothing rashly."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That will I not," said Edward,&mdash;"that, my better than father, I
      surely will not. But the blood of my brother,&mdash;the tears of my mother&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;and
      of Mary Avenel, shall not be shed in vain. I will not deceive you, father&mdash;if
      this Piercie Shafton hath slain my brother, he dies, if the whole blood of
      the whole house of Piercie were in his veins."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "Bonds enter'd into
  For gay apparel against the triumph day."
</pre>
    <p>
      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."&mdash;<i>Every Man out of his Humour.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Fastidius</i>. 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&mdash;Signor Luculento.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Punt</i>. Luculento! What inauspicious chance interposed itself to
      your two lives?
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Fast</i>. 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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Punt</i>. This was a strange encounter.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Fast</i>. 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,&mdash;I had thrown off the hangers a little before,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Car</i>. I wonder he speaks not of his wrought shirt.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Fast</i>. 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&mdash;
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Car</i>. O, comes it in there.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Fast</i>. 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?
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Maci</i>. Well! yes; and by this we can guess what apparel the
      gentleman wore.
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Punt</i>. 'Fore valour! it was a designment begun with much
      resolution, maintained with as much prowess, and ended with more
      humanity."}
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!&mdash;I must now to the melancholy work of
      consoling that which is well-nigh inconsolable, a mother weeping for her
      first-born."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;the very image of
      her dear Simon Glendinning, the stay of her widowhood and the support of
      her old age."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0372m.jpg" alt="0372m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0372.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Eighth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  He is at liberty, I have ventured for him!
  &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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 <i>outshot</i>,
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0409m.jpg" alt="0409m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0409.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "I preach for ever, but I preach in vain."
</pre>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"Let me first succour the gallant youth, and trust to
      fortune for the rest."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I come," she said, "to save your life, which is else in great peril&mdash;if
      you answer me, speak as low as you can, for they have sentinelled your
      door with armed men."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0502m.jpg" alt="0502m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0502.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am silent," replied the Southron, "even as the starless night&mdash;but
      yet&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Do not think of me," said Mysie, hastily; "I am safe&mdash;I will take
      thought for myself, if I once saw you out of this dangerous dwelling&mdash;if
      you would provide yourself with any part of your apparel or goods, lose no
      time."
    </p>
    <p>
      The knight <i>did</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Speak low," said Mysie Happer, "or you will awaken the English knight. It
      is I, Mysie Happer, who knock&mdash;I wish to get out&mdash;you have
      locked me up&mdash;and I was obliged to wait till the Southron slept."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Locked you up!" replied Edward, in surprise.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes," answered the Miller's daughter, "you have locked me up into this
      room&mdash;I was in Mary Avenel's sleeping apartment."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And can you not remain there till morning," replied Edward, "since it has
      so chanced?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I cannot get you a light," said he, "for I cannot leave this post; but
      there is a fire below."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"What! menseful Mysie of the Mill so
      soon at her prayers?&mdash;now, benison on the bonny eyes that open so
      early!&mdash;I'll have a kiss for good morrow's sake."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will have another kiss first," answered Dan of the Howlet-hirst.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And for what purpose?" answered the warder.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And where is the byre-woman?" said Dan.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sitting with me in the kitchen, in case these distressed folks want any
      thing."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are the keys, then, Mysie Dorts," said the sentinel.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Many thanks, Dan Ne'er-do-weel," answered the Maid of the Mill, and
      escaped down stairs in a moment.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mysie answered with great readiness, that "she was driving out the cows,
      for that they would be spoiled for want of looking to."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I thank thee, kind maiden," said Edward&mdash;"and yet," he added, after
      a moment's pause, "what damsel is that thou hast with thee?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hell and darkness!" exclaimed Edward, in a transport of fury and
      astonishment, "it is Piercie Shafton&mdash;What! treason! treason!&mdash;ho!&mdash;Dan&mdash;Jasper&mdash;Martin&mdash;the
      villain escapes!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "To horse! to horse!" cried Mysie, and in an instant mounted behind the
      knight, who was already in the saddle.
    </p>
    <p>
      Edward caught up a cross-bow, and let fly a bolt, which whistled so near
      Mysie's ear, that she called to her companion,&mdash;"Spur&mdash;spur, Sir
      Knight!&mdash;the next will not miss us.&mdash;Had it been Halbert instead
      of Edward who bent that bow, we had been dead."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Thus it strangely happened, that two men were flying in different
      directions at the same time, each accused of being the other's murderer.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Twenty-Ninth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What ails thee," he said, "my generous Molinara?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yonder is my father's house," said Mysie, in a voice interrupted by the
      increased burst of her sorrow.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Only that you will fly and save yourself," said Mysie, mustering up her
      utmost efforts to utter these few words.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We shall meet again," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "at least I trust so;
      meanwhile, weep no more, fair Molinara, an thou lovest me."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>en cavalier</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
     Who in his port was modest as a maid.
</pre>
    <p>
      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?&mdash;would you that I should
      accompany you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas!" said Mysie, looking up, and her cheek changing from scarlet to
      pale, "I have no home left."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas!" answered the Miller's maiden, "I have no longer either home or
      father. He is a devoted servant to the Abbey&mdash;I have offended the
      Abbot, and if I return home my father will kill me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"At least," he added, "until I
      shall be able to conduct you to a place of safety."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>en croupe</i>.
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Keep it, fairest Mysinda, for my sake," said the Knight.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      This <i>causa scientiae</i>, 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 kind 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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0393m.jpg" alt="0393m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0393.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  &mdash;&mdash;-sweet engaging Grace
  Put on some clothes to come abroad,
    And took a waiter's place.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>imbroccata, stoccata</i>, or <i>punto reverso</i>,
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the damsel&mdash;that
      is&mdash;the young woman&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Where is she gane?" said the host, gazing on him, and repeating his
      question&mdash;"She is gane hame to her father's, it is like&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is she gone then?" muttered Sir Piercie, making two or three hasty
      strides through the narrow apartment&mdash;"Is she gone?&mdash;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.&mdash;And
      ought it not to prove so? and has she not deserved it, were it ten times
      more valuable?&mdash;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.&mdash;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.&mdash;Cast my reckoning, mine host, and let
      your groom lead forth my nag."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "How!" said the knight; "the reckoning paid? and by whom, I pray you?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And the nag, my ingenious Molinara," said Sir Piercie, "whence comes the
      nag?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But then your father will be the loser," objected yet again the
      pertinacious uprightness of Sir Piercie Shafton.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I do protest, fair Molinara," said Sir Piercie Shafton&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But our story here necessarily leaves the English knight and his page, to
      return to the Tower of Glendearg.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirtieth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;and
      it was a bloody grave&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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.&mdash;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.&mdash;Sleep, eternal sleep,
  Dark, long, and cold forgetfulness my lot!&mdash;
    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&mdash;
  Stoop, then, and make it yours&mdash;I may not make it mine!"
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What, ho!&mdash;my masters," he said, "I bring you a prisoner."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You had better have brought us liberty," said Dan of the Howlet-hirst.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hush, thou unmannered knave," said Edward, "it is the Sub-Prior; and this
      is neither time, place, nor company, for your ruffian jests."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;ay, and broke out
      of them too, as the captain of the Castle of Lochmaben knows full well."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "And now," said Edward, "to horse, my mates, and pursue the villain
      Shafton!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Halt, there," said Christie of the Clinthill; "pursue your guest, my
      master's friend and my own?&mdash;there go two words to that bargain. What
      the foul fiend would you pursue him for?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let me pass," said Edward, vehemently, "I will be staid by no man&mdash;the
      villain has murdered my brother!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "What says he?" said Christie, turning to the others; "murdered? who is
      murdered, and by whom?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I tell you," said Edward, "that my brother was slain and buried yesterday
      morning by this false Englishman."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And where is he now?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And why did he chase the youth?" said the Sub-Prior; "what harm had he
      done?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Whither away so fast, Edward?" said the monk.
    </p>
    <p>
      "To Corri-nan-shian, Father," answered the youth.&mdash;"Martin and Dan,
      take pickaxe and mattock, and follow me if you be men!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Right," said the monk, "and fail not to give us instant notice what you
      find."
    </p>
    <p>
      "If you find aught there like Halbert Glendinning," said Christie,
      hallooing after Edward, "I will be bound to eat him unsalted.&mdash;'T is
      a sight to see how that fellow takes the bent!&mdash;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&mdash;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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-First.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  At school I knew him&mdash;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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Should I not tell his unhappy mother the joyful tidings?" said Father
      Eustace,&mdash;"and yet better wait till they return from searching the
      grave. Well, Sir Jackman, your message to me from your master?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be brief, good henchman," said the Sub-Prior, "for the devil is ever most
      to be feared when he preacheth."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Briefly, then&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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. <i>Pereat iste!</i> 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.&mdash;Bring
      the heretic before me," he said, issuing his commands aloud, and in a tone
      of authority.
    </p>
    <p>
      Henry Warden was led in, his hands still bound, but his feet at liberty.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Clear the apartment," said the Sub-Prior, "of all but the necessary guard
      on the prisoner."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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!"&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;is this the
      termination of Wellwood's career?&mdash;And having known and loved him
      during the best years of our youth, do we meet in our old age as judge and
      criminal?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not as judge and criminal," said Henry Warden,&mdash;for to avoid
      confusion we describe him by his later and best known name&mdash;"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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not to thee," answered the Sub-Prior, "be assured&mdash;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&mdash;for her welfare it shall at every risk be exercised, without
      fear and without favour."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Silence, blasphemer," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, "or I will have thy
      blatant obloquy stopped with a gag!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Ay," replied Warden, "such is the freedom of the Christian conference to
      which Rome's priests so kindly invite us!&mdash;the gag&mdash;the rack&mdash;the
      axe&mdash;is the <i>ratio ultima Romae</i>. 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Of that," said the monk, "I nothing doubt&mdash;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."&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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,
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  'O gran bonta dei caralieri antiqui!
  Erano nemici, eran' de fede diversa'&mdash;
</pre>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0422m.jpg" alt="0422m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0422.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The preacher paused&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Stay yet," said the Sub-Prior; "one important part of thy engagement is
      forgotten&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There we break off our treaty," said Warden, firmly&mdash;"Wo unto me if
      I preach not the Gospel!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;prepare
      to endure what thy folly, as well as thy heresy, deserves.&mdash;Bind him,
      soldier."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Spare me not," he said to Christie; for even that ruffian hesitated to
      draw the cord straitly.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Were but Edward safe from the infection," he thought to himself&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br /> <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Second.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      The first words which Edward uttered were,&mdash;"My brother is safe,
      reverend father&mdash;he is safe, thank God, and lives!&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      The earnestness of the youth&mdash;the vivacity with which he looked and
      moved&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"Of
      whom, I say, speak you? If of a youth somewhat older than you seem to be&mdash;brown-haired,
      open-featured, taller and stronger than you appear, yet having much of the
      same air and of the same tone of voice&mdash;if such a one is the brother
      whom you seek, it may be I can tell you news of him."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Speak, then, for Heaven's sake," said Edward&mdash;"life or death lies on
      thy tongue!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Didst thou not say, even now," he said, "that there was no vestige of a
      grave in that spot?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "These are delusions of the Enemy," said the Sub-Prior, crossing himself.&mdash;"Christian
      men may no longer doubt of it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "The badge of our salvation," said the Sub-Prior, "cannot be so termed&mdash;the
      sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I pity thee," said the Sub-Prior, as actively ready for polemics as
      himself,&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I offered thee a fair field of debate," said the Sub-Prior, "which thou
      didst refuse. I will not at present resume the controversy."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It was by his intercession, however," repeated the Sub-Prior; "for what
      says the Vulgate? Thus it is written: '<i>Et exaudivit Dominus vocem
      Helie; et reversa est anima pueri intra cum, et revixit</i>;'&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      His commands being obeyed, Edward and the monk were left alone, when the
      Sub-Prior thus addressed him:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;go tell it to thy
      mother."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I must tell her then," said Edward, "that if she has regained one son,
      another is lost to her."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What meanest thou, Edward? what language is this?" said the Sub-Prior.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I comprehend thee not," said the Sub-Prior. "What canst thou have done to
      deserve such self-accusation?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My confession will require her mercy," replied Edward. "My brother
      Halbert&mdash;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&mdash;this brother, so kind, so
      gently affectionate&mdash;I heard of his sudden, his bloody, his violent
      death, and I rejoiced&mdash;I heard of his unexpected restoration, and I
      sorrowed!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Edward," said the father, "thou art beside thyself&mdash;what could urge
      thee to such odious ingratitude?&mdash;In your hurry of spirits you have
      mistaken the confused tenor of your feelings&mdash;Go, my son, pray and
      compose thy mind&mdash;we will speak of this another time."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, father, no," said Edward, vehemently, "now or never!&mdash;I will
      find the means to tame this rebellious heart of mine, or I will tear it
      out of my bosom&mdash;Mistake its passions?&mdash;No, father, grief can
      ill be mistaken for joy&mdash;All wept, all shrieked around me&mdash;my
      mother&mdash;the menials&mdash;she too, the cause of my crime&mdash;all
      wept&mdash;and I&mdash;I could hardly disguise my brutal and insane joy
      under the appearance of revenge&mdash;Brother, I said, I cannot give thee
      tears, but I will give thee blood&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Surely the sordid desire to succeed him in his small
      possessions&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Perish the paltry trash!" said Edward, with the same emotion. "No,
      father, it was rivalry&mdash;it was jealous rage&mdash;it was the love of
      Mary Avenel, that rendered me the unnatural wretch I confess myself!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Of Mary Avenel!" said the Priest&mdash;"of a lady so high above either of
      you in name and in rank? How dared Halbert&mdash;how dared you, to presume
      to lift your eye to her but in honour and respect, as a superior of
      another degree from yours?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;Enough,
      we loved&mdash;we both loved her! But the passion of Halbert was requited.
      He knew it not, he saw it not&mdash;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&mdash;I saw my rival's
      advancing progress in her affections&mdash;I bore it, father, and yet I
      hated him not&mdash;I could not hate him!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;could not help
      sorrowing when he was again restored to be a stumbling-block in my paths."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will wrestle with the demon which has haunted me, father," replied the
      youth, firmly&mdash;"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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Madman!" said the Sub-Prior, "at what dreadful crime does thy fury
      drive?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There are actions, father," returned Edward, "which brook no delay, and
      this is one. It must be done this very <i>now</i>; 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Even now, if thou wilt," said the Sub-Prior, yielding to his impetuosity&mdash;"go,
      then, and command them to prepare for our departure.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;his spare and emaciated countenance
      bore a bolder, loftier, and more commanding port&mdash;his voice, always
      beautiful, trembled as labouring under the immediate impulse of the
      Divinity&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hast thou, my fair son," said he, "faithfully recounted the circumstances
      which have thus suddenly determined thee to a religious life?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Know, then, father," replied Edward, "that betwixt hope and despair&mdash;and,
      heavens! what a hope!&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "How, my fair son?" said the Sub-Prior, "beware you jest not with your
      present situation!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I jest not, father," answered the youth; "it may be I shall never jest
      again&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I believe thee, my son," said the monk; "proceed in thy strange story."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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:&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  '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&mdash;
  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!'"
</pre>
    <p>
      "'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&mdash;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.&mdash;Wilt
      thou not first see thy mother?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;all of them shall learn it. My mother&mdash;Mary Avenel&mdash;my
      restored and happy brother&mdash;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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Third.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Martin soothed them by placing food and liquor before them. They ate
      sullenly, however, and departed in bad humour.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "If I carry this Well-wood, or Warden, to the Monastery." he thought, "he
      must die&mdash;die in his heresy&mdash;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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is a perversion of the text," said the eager Henry Warden, "grounded
      on a vain play upon words&mdash;a most idle paronomasia."
    </p>
    <p>
      The controversy would have been rekindled, and in all probability&mdash;for
      what can insure the good temper and moderation of polemics?&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;(her soul be at rest&mdash;she
      meant nae ill)&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You'll be wishing to help him to recover his brother? May the saints
      reward your kindness!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;however it is all one
      to my master&mdash;Saint Mary! what call you yon, Sir Monk?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The branch of a willow streaming across the path betwixt us and the sky."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Beshrew me," said Christie, "if it looked not like a man's hand holding a
      sword.&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Now, Our Lady forfend!" said the Sub-Prior.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Amen!" answered Christie, in some trepidation, "did your reverence see
      aught?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nothing whatever," replied the monk; "it was thy tale which wrested from
      me that exclamation."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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,&mdash;
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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.'"
</pre>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;I say, when ye have computed all this, ye may
      guess what course will best serve your Monastery."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A man's hand and a mailed glove on that," said the jackman. "They
    </p>
    <p>
      {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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Constable, a spy engaged by Sir Ralph Sadler, talks of two Border thieves,
      whom he used as his guides:&mdash;"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."&mdash;<i>Sadler's letters during the
      Northern Insurrection.</i>}
    </p>
    <p>
      call us marauders, thieves, and what not; but the side we take we hold by.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Why,
      it is much for me to forbear old customs on any account whatever."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I come, I come, venerable brother," said Father Eustace&mdash;And having
      repeatedly ejaculated "I come!" he at last went to the Abbot in good
      earnest.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Fourth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  It is not texts will do it&mdash;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&mdash;Turn them out
  Thus primed with your good cheer, to guard your wall,
  And they will venture for't.&mdash;
                                 OLD PLAY.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;your bread hath been given to you, and your water hath been
      sure&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There hath not been such a Lord Abbot," said Father Nicholas, "to my
      knowledge, since the days of Abbot Ingelram, who&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      At that portentous word, which always preluded a long story, the Abbot
      broke in.
    </p>
    <p>
      "May God have mercy on his soul!&mdash;we talk not of him now.&mdash;What
      I would know of ye, my brethren, is, whether I have, in your mind,
      faithfully discharged the duties of mine office?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "There has never been subject of complaint," answered the Sub-Prior.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;the <i>indulgentiae</i>&mdash;the <i>gratias</i>&mdash;the
      <i>biberes</i>-the weekly mess of boiled almonds&mdash;the enlarged
      accommodation of the refectory&mdash;the better arrangement of the
      cellarage&mdash;the improvement of the revenue of the Monastery&mdash;the
      diminution of the privations of the brethren.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;But all these things avail nothing&mdash;As we read
      in holy Maccabee, <i>Capta est civitas per voluntatem Dei</i>. It hath
      cost me no little thought, no common toil, to keep these weighty matters
      in such order as you have seen them&mdash;there was both barn and binn to
      be kept full&mdash;Infirmary, dormitory, guest-hall, and refectory, to be
      looked to&mdash;processions to be made, confessions to be heard, strangers
      to be entertained, <i>veniae</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Marry, this it is," said the Abbot. "The talk is not now of <i>biberes</i>,
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0495m.jpg" alt="0495m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0495.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      {Footnote: The <i>biberes, caritas</i>, 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 <i>De Pitancia
      Centum Librarum</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of this charter, respecting the pittance of 100<i>l</i> 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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0512m.jpg" alt="0512m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0512.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <h3>
      CARTA REGIS ROBERTI I. ABBATI ET CONVENTUI DE MELROSS.
    </h3>
    <p>
      <i>Carta de Pitancia Centum Librarum.</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      or of <i>caritas</i>, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I thought that purpose had been broken by the feud between Semple and the
      Kennedies," said the Sub-Prior, hastily.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0505m.jpg" alt="0505m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0505.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;<i>Principes
      convenerunt unum adversus Dominum.</i>&mdash;There are the letters."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our duty must be done," answered the Sub-Prior, "and the rest is in the
      hands of God."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our duty&mdash;our duty?" answered the Abbot, impatiently; "doubtless we
      are to do our duty; but what is that duty? or how will it serve us?&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay," said the Sub-Prior, "let some man skilled in war lead our people&mdash;there
      is Julian Avenel, an approved soldier."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But a scoffer, a debauched person, and, in brief, a man of Belial," quoth
      the Abbot.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Is it even so?" said the Abbot; "I never judged that his body of satin
      and his brain of feathers boded us much good."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It may be," said the Abbot, "that Foster will wait for Murray, whose
      purpose hitherward is but delayed for a short space."
    </p>
    <p>
      "By the rood, he will not," said the Sub-Prior; "we know this Sir John
      Foster&mdash;a pestilent heretic, he will long to destroy the church&mdash;born
      a Borderer, he will thirst to plunder her of her wealth&mdash;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&mdash;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.&mdash;Sacristan, send
      for our bailiff.&mdash;Where is the roll of fencible men liable to do suit
      and service to the Halidome?&mdash;Send off to the Baron of Meigallot; he
      can raise threescore horse and better&mdash;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.&mdash;And
      now, my lord, let us compute our possible numbers, and those of the enemy,
      that human blood be not spilled in vain&mdash;Let us therefore calculate&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "My brain is dizzied with the emergency," said the poor Abbot&mdash;"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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "In the name of Our Lady, do nothing hastily, my lord!" said Father
      Nicholas&mdash;"I do remember that when the worthy Abbot Ingelram, being
      in his ninetieth year&mdash;for I warrant you he could remember when
      Benedict the Thirteenth was deposed&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But, my brother," said the Abbot, "I leave a more able in my place."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The Abbot mused for a space, and then replied,&mdash;"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!&mdash;peace be with you! May the
      new Abbot-expectant sleep as sound as he who is about to resign his
      mitre."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."&mdash;He touched a bell
      which stood on the table, and commanded Christie of the Clinthill to be
      brought before him.&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Has the Baron (so styled) of Avenel any friendship with Sir John Foster,
      Warden of the West Marches of England?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Such friendship as is between the wild-cat and the terrier," replied the
      rider.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Will he do battle with him should they meet?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "As surely," answered Christie, "as ever cock fought on Shrovetide-even."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And would he fight with Foster in the Church's quarrel?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "On any quarrel, or upon no quarrel whatever," replied the jackman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Yet one word more&mdash;Thou didst say thou couldst
      find out where the English knight Piercie Shafton has this day fled to?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "That I can, and bring him back too, by fair means or force, as best likes
      your reverence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No force must be used upon him. Within what time wilt thou find him out?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Within thirty hours, so he have not crossed the Lothian firth&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bring him hither then, and thou wilt deserve good at our hands, which I
      may soon have free means of bestowing on thee."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Peace, sir, and begone on thine errand&mdash;thou shalt have a letter
      from us to Sir Piercie."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Am I to bring her hither, please your reverence?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hither, you malapert knave?" said the churchman; "remember you to whom
      you speak?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bring the unfortunate girl to her father's and break no scurril jests
      here," said the Sub-Prior&mdash;"See that thou guide her in all safety and
      honour."
    </p>
    <p>
      "In safety, surely," said the rider, "and in such honour as her outbreak
      has left her.&mdash;I bid your reverence farewell, I must be on horse
      before cock-crow."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What, in the dark!&mdash;how knowest thou which way to go?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;I would swear to the
      curve of the caulker." So saying, he departed.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;But now
      let me to my most needful task."
    </p>
    <p>
      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}
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Fifth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  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.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0458m.jpg" alt="0458m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0458.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Cousin!" said the pedlar, "I thought you said this youth had been a
      stranger."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And why so?" said Halbert; "let us rather go down and make a signal to
      them."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;the head is furnished with fangs, and the
      tail hath its sting; the only harmless point of access is the main body."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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 <i>enfans
      perdus</i>, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>handfasting</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What ails the fool?" said the Earl, drawing his dark-red eyebrows
      together, while the same dusky glow kindled on his brow&mdash;"Hast thou
      not learned to tell a true tale without stammering?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "So please you," answered Halbert, with considerable address, "I have
      never before spoken in such a presence."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Speak
      on, friend, and speak freely."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;"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&mdash;he hath broken his own word, and hath violated my
      safe-conduct&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let him go down to his place with Baal's priests," said the preachers,
      "and be his ashes cast into Tophet!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      He questioned him more particularly concerning the Baron of Avenel's
      probable forces&mdash;the strength of his castle&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."&mdash;Then
      looking at Halbert, he said, "Art thou of gentle blood, young man?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay&mdash;nay&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Halbert Glendinning made a frank confession of his duel with Piercie
      Shafton, and mentioned his supposed death.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Would she not, Morton?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But what shall we do with this young homicide?" said Murray; "what will
      our preachers say?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tell them of Moses and of Benaiah," said Morton; "it is but the smiting
      of an Egyptian when all is said out."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
<div class="fig" style="width:65%;">
      <img src="images/0461m.jpg" alt="0461m " width="100%" /><br />
    </div>
    <h5>
      <a href="images/0461.jpg"><i>Original</i></a>
    </h5>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Sixth.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Faint the din of battle bray'd
    Distant down the hollow wind;
  War and terror fled before,
    Wounds and death were left behind.
                      PENROSE.
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Call your master, Halbert," said the Earl; "I have news for him from
      Teviotdale; and for you too, Glendinning.&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "At what, and whom, do you point?" demanded Murray.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What mean you, my lord?" said Murray.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;the point came out behind his back&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How, fellow!" said Morton, "wouldst thou beard a nobleman?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Be silent, Halbert," said Murray, "and you, my Lord of Morton, forbear
      him. I see truth written on his brow."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And you will lose your friends by being too readily suspicious," answered
      Murray. "Enough of this&mdash;let me hear thy tidings."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sir John Foster," said Morton, "is about to send a party into Scotland to
      waste the Halidome."
    </p>
    <p>
      "How! without waiting my presence and permission?" said Murray&mdash;"he
      is mad&mdash;will he come as an enemy into the Queen's country?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No one surely," said Murray; "they would presume to hold no election
      until the Queen's pleasure and mine were known?"
    </p>
    <p>
      Morton shrugged his shoulders&mdash;"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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "We must prevent that meeting," said Murray, hastily; "whichever party
      wins the day, it were a fatal encounter for us&mdash;Who commands the
      troop of the Abbot?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Our faithful old friend, Julian Avenel, nothing less," answered Morton.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Glendinning," said Murray, "sound trumpets to horse directly, and let all
      who love us get on horseback without delay&mdash;Yes, my lord, this were
      indeed a fatal dilemma. If we take part with our English friends, the
      country will cry shame on us&mdash;the very old wives will attack us with
      their rocks and spindles&mdash;the very stones of the street will rise up
      against us&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "All would blame us, James Douglas," replied Murray; "we should lose both
      sides&mdash;we had better advance with the utmost celerity, and do what we
      can to keep the peace betwixt them.&mdash;I would the nag that brought
      Piercie Shafton hither had broken his neck over the highest heuch in
      Northumberland!&mdash;He is a proper coxcomb to make all this bustle
      about, and to occasion perhaps a national war!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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: <i>Spur-whang</i>&mdash;Spur-leather.}
      But to the saddle, James Stewart, since so the phrase goes. I hear your
      trumpets. Bound to horse and away&mdash;we shall soon see which nag is
      best breathed."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who knows the place?" said Murray.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I do, my lord," answered Glendinning.
    </p>
    <p>
      "'Tis well," said the Earl; "take a score of the best-mounted horse&mdash;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.&mdash;Davidson," said he to the gentleman
      who brought the intelligence, "thou shalt be my guide.&mdash;Hie thee on,
      Glendinning&mdash;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&mdash;Tell the dog, Julian Avenel, that he hath already one
      deep score to settle with me&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas! he is gone," said Halbert, speaking to the young woman, in whom he
      had now no difficulty of knowing the unhappy Catherine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, no, no, no!" she reiterated, "do not say so&mdash;he is not dead&mdash;he
      is but in a swoon. I have lain as long in one myself&mdash;and then his
      voice would arouse me, when he spoke kindly, and said, Catherine, look up
      for my sake&mdash;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!&mdash;have you no compassion? He promised to
      wed me if I bore him a boy, and this child is so like to its father!&mdash;How
      shall he keep his word, if you do not help me to awaken him?&mdash;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;mine is going fast.&mdash;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&mdash;there was good in him&mdash;but thou art as
      wild, and wilt soon be as wicked as myself."
    </p>
    <p>
      "God forbid!" said Halbert, hastily.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "There stands our Captain," said one of them, as a strong party of English
      came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Neither," answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then throw down thy sword and yield thee," answered the Englishman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not till I can help myself no otherwise," said Halbert, with the same
      moderation of tone and manner.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe service?"
      demanded the English Captain.
    </p>
    <p>
      "To the noble Earl of Murray."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Then thou servest," said the Southron, "the most disloyal nobleman who
      breathes&mdash;false both to England and Scotland."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Thou liest," said Glendinning, regardless of all consequences.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "With one to one&mdash;one to two&mdash;or two to five, as you list," said
      Halbert Glendinning; "grant me but a fair field."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That thou shalt have.&mdash;Stand back, my mates," said the brave
      Englishman. "If I fall, give him fair play, and let him go off free with
      his people."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Long life to the noble Captain!" cried the soldiers, as impatient to see
      the duel, as if it had been a bull-baiting.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;And here comes the Warden besides to see the sword-play."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Take it up for shame, old Stawarth Bolton," said the English Warden; "and
      thou, young man, tell me who and what thou art?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "A follower of the Earl of Murray, who bore his will to your honour,"
      answered Glendinning,&mdash;"but here he comes to say it himself; I see
      the van of his horsemen come over the hills."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;here
      is Piercie Shafton hard and fast betwixt two troopers."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who, that lad?" said Bolton; "he is no more Piercie Shafton than I am. He
      hath his gay cloak indeed&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;a
      man were better dead than thus slaved and harassed."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;Pursuivant, we grant the conference&mdash;and you, Sir
      Swordsman," (speaking to young Glendinning,) "draw off with your troopers
      to your own party&mdash;march&mdash;attend your Earl's trumpet.&mdash;Stawarth
      Bolton, put our troop in order, and be ready to move forward at the
      wagging of a finger.&mdash;Get you gone to your own friends, I tell you,
      Sir Squire, and loiter not here."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Shoulder your infant!" cried a harquebusier.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Port your infant!" said a pikeman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "By my faith," said Sir John Foster, "I am well content&mdash;my sword is
      not blunted with all it has done yet this day."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sir George," replied Foster, "I have often heard you herons are afraid of
      hawks&mdash;Nay, lay not hand on sword, man&mdash;I did but jest; and for
      this prisoner, let him be brought up hither, that we may see who or what
      he is&mdash;always under assurance, my Lords," he continued, addressing
      the Scots.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Upon our word and honour," said Morton, "we will offer no violence."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      He then led Sir John Foster aside, and spoke to him in this manner:&mdash;"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.&mdash;Be well
      advised, and let the matter now pass off&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      Sir John Foster listened with his head declining on his breast-plate.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is a cursed chance," he said, "and I shall have little thanks for my
      day's work."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "We also have a female Sovereign, my lord," said Morton.
    </p>
    <p>
      "We have so, Douglas," said the Earl,&mdash;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.&mdash;Glendinning, look to that
      woman, and protect her.&mdash;What the fiend, man, hast thou got in thine
      arms?&mdash;an infant as I live!&mdash;where couldst thou find such a
      charge, at such a place and moment?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      The Earl of Morton, unhappy in his marriage, was a libertine in his
      amours.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You must ask that question of Henry Warden, my lord, or of John Knox&mdash;I
      am but a wild counsellor in women's matters."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Forward to Saint Mary's," said the Earl; "pass the word on&mdash;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.&mdash;Forward, I say, my masters!"
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      Chapter the Thirty-Seventh.
    </h2>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  Gone to be married?&mdash;Gone to swear a peace!
</pre>
    <h3>
      KING JOHN
    </h3>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sir Piercie," said the Abbot, at length interrupting him, "our time
      allows brief leisure to speak what might have been."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Fruitless opposition
      becomes not men of our profession; they have my commands to resign the
      sword and the spear,&mdash;God and Our Lady have not blessed our banner."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Bethink you, reverend lord," said Piercie Shafton, very eagerly, "ere you
      resign the defence that is in your power&mdash;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,&mdash;the
      safety, namely, of a fair friend, who, I hope, hath escaped the hands of
      the heretics."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I understand you, Sir Piercie," said the Abbot&mdash;"you mean the
      daughter of our Convent's miller?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;&mdash;"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;our
      minds not filled with jealous hatred, but with Christian meekness and
      forgiveness&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;"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&mdash;to deface our shrines,&mdash;to mutilate and lay waste the
      bodies of our benefactors, as well as their sepulchres&mdash;to destroy
      the pinnacles and carved work of God's house, and Our Lady's?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "From the times of the Apostles?" said the preacher, eagerly. "<i>Negatur,
      Gulielme Allan</i>&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "William Allan," answered the Protestant, "I will be sincere with thee.
      What I promised I have kept&mdash;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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Shame on my weakness!" said Abbot Eustace, dashing the tears from his
      eyes; "my sight is too much dimmed to observe their motions&mdash;look, my
      son Edward," for his favourite novice had again joined him, "and tell me
      what ensigns they bear."
    </p>
    <p>
      "They are Scottish men, when all is done!" exclaimed Edward&mdash;"I see
      the white crosses&mdash;it may be the Western Borderers, or Fernieherst
      and his clan."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Look at the banner," said the Abbot; "tell me, what are the blazonries?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "The arms of Scotland," said Edward, "the lion and its tressure,
      quartered, as I think, with three cushions&mdash;Can it be the royal
      standard?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "At least, my father," said Edward, "he will secure us from the violence
      of the Southron."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;thy brother hath
      fallen from the faith. Such news brought my last secret intelligence&mdash;Murray
      hath already spoken of rewarding his services with the hand of Mary
      Avenel."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Of Mary Avenel!" said the novice, tottering towards and grasping hold of
      one of the carved pinnacles which adorned the proud battlement.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;Murray
      dare not forward a match so unequal in birth."
    </p>
    <p>
      "He dares do what suits his purpose&mdash;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&mdash;awaken
      thy soul within thee, my son. Think you part with a vain vision, an idle
      dream, nursed in solitude and inaction.&mdash;I weep not, yet what am I
      now like to lose?&mdash;Look at these towers, where saints dwelt, and
      where heroes have been buried&mdash;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&mdash;Come, let us descend, and meet our fate. I see them
      approach near to the village."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.&mdash;"His
      brother's bride!" he pulled the cowl over his face, and followed his
      Superior.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is well our Father Boniface hath retired to the inland," said Father
      Philip; "he could never have put over this day&mdash;it would have broken
      his heart!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "God be with the soul of Abbot Ingelram!" said old Father Nicholas, "there
      were no such doings in his days.&mdash;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&mdash;the best is, that I have not long
      to live any where."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>De profundis
      clamavi</i>. 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Hath not Warden told you," said Murray, "that they have been bred
      together, and are lovers from their youth upward?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;have
      seen it in the stream, but never in the fountain.
    </p>
    <p>
      {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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      In the earliest of our Scottish annals, the Black Douglas was powerful and
      distinguished as now."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;What though we have worn crowns and
      carried sceptres for a few generations, if our genealogy moves no farther
      back than to the humble <i>Alanus Dapifer!"</i>
    </p>
    <p>
      {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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.}
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;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.&mdash;I
      promise you, my noble ally, that young Bennygask shall be richly wived."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My lord," said Warden, "you speak nobly, and like a Christian. Alas! this
      is a land of hatred and bloodshed&mdash;let us not chase from thence the
      few traces that remain of gentle and domestic love.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Enough of this, good and reverend sir," said Murray; "you transgress the
      prudence yourself recommended even now.&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;disliked, it may be, and envied. But turn his crucifix of
      gold into a crucifix of wood&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&mdash;"The
      Abbot of Saint Mary's is commanded to appear before the Earl of Murray."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&mdash;if violence be meant
      against peaceful churchmen, let us know at once the pretext and the
      object?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Lupus in fabula</i>," answered the Abbot, scornfully. "The wolf
      accused the sheep of muddying the stream when he drank in it above her&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Abbot!" said Murray, "bethink thee ere we are driven to deal roughly&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Spare your threats," said Murray; "it may be, my purpose with Sir Piercie
      Shafton is not such as thou dost suppose&mdash;Attach him, pursuivant, as
      our prisoner, rescue or no rescue."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You shall not want those who will answer your challenge, Sir Knight,"
      replied Morton, "without aspiring to men above thine own degree."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And where am I to find these superlative champions," said the English
      knight, "whose blood runs more pure than that of Piercie Shafton?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Here is a flight for you, my lord!" said Murray.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As ever was flown by a wild-goose," said Stawarth Bolton, who had now
      approached to the front of the party.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who dared to say that word?" said the Euphuist, his face crimson with
      rage.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tut! man," said Bolton, "make the best of it, thy mother's father was but
      a tailor, old Overstitch of Holderness&mdash;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&mdash;she was wedded by wild Shafton of
      Wilverton, who men say, was akin to the Piercie on the wrong side of the
      blanket."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Help the knight to some strong waters," said Morton; "he hath fallen from
      such a height, that he is stunned with the tumble."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Laugh on," he said at length, "laugh on, my masters," shrugging his
      shoulders; "it is not for me to be offended&mdash;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>I</i> make it known?" said Halbert Glendinning, in astonishment,&mdash;for
      to him this pathetic appeal was made,&mdash;"I never heard the thing till
      this moment."
    </p>
    <p>
      {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>i. e.</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      If we suppose the dwarf to represent the corrupt part of human nature,&mdash;that
      "law in our members which wars against the law of our minds,"&mdash;the
      work forms an ingenious allegory.}
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why, did not that old rude soldier learn it from thee?" said the knight,
      in increasing amazement.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not I, by Heaven!" said Bolton; "I never saw the youth in my life
      before."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But you <i>have</i> 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&mdash;if
      he be a prisoner, as seems most likely, use thine interest with these
      noble lords to be kind to the widow's friend."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Alas!" said the mother, looking down, "Edward has taken orders, and
      become a monk of this Abbey."
    </p>
    <p>
      "A monk and a soldier!&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "My dearest mother," said Halbert, "where is Edward&mdash;can I not speak
      with him?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "He has just left us for the present," said Father Philip, "upon a message
      from the Lord Abbot."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And Mary, my dearest mother?" said Halbert.&mdash;Mary Avenel was not far
      distant, and the three were soon withdrawn from the crowd, to hear and
      relate their various chances of fortune.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.&mdash;But soft, here he comes, and leading a female, as
      I think."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Lords and others," said the English knight with great solemnity, "make
      way for the Lady of Piercie Shafton&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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'."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It is indeed the lovely Mysinda," said the knight, "whose merits towards
      her devoted servant deserved higher rank than he had to bestow."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "<i>Shape</i> one, I presume," said the Earl of Morton.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nay, Douglas, you will drive him mad,"&mdash;said Murray; "besides, we
      have other matter in hand&mdash;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It needs not," said Shafton; "the ceremonial hath been solemnly
      performed."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&mdash;to-morrow I must act as her father&mdash;All Scotland shall
      see how Murray can reward a faithful servant."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I will face this mystic being," he said; "she foretold the fate which has
      wrapt me in this dress,&mdash;I will know whether she has aught else to
      tell me of a life which cannot but be miserable."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
  "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!"
</pre>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /><br />
    </p>
    <p>
      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,&mdash;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      End of THE MONASTERY.
    </p>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>







<pre>





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