asked, “Art thou so unhappy as to doubt the power of the blessed Saint?”
“Nay, mother,” the youth hastened to reply, “I believe as the Holy
Church commands, and doubt not Saint Ringan's power of healing; but, be
it said with reverence, he hath not of late showed the inclination.”
“And has this land deserved it?” said the Catholic matron, advancing
hastily while she spoke, until she attained the summit of a rising
ground, over which the path led, and then standing again still.
“Here,” she said, “stood the Cross, the limits of the Halidome of Saint
Mary's--here--on this eminence--from which the eye of the holy pilgrim
might first catch a view of that ancient monastery, the light of the
land, the abode of Saints, and the grave of monarchs--Where is now that
emblem of our faith? It lies on the earth--a shapeless block, from which
the broken fragments have been carried off, for the meanest uses, till
now no semblance of its original form remains. Look towards the east,
my son, where the sun was wont to glitter on stately spires--from which
crosses and bells have now been hurled, as if the land had been invaded
once more by barbarous heathens.--Look at yonder battlements, of which
we can, even at this distance, descry the partial demolition; and ask
if this land can expect from the blessed saints, whose shrines and whose
images have been profaned, any other miracles but those of vengeance?
How long,” she exclaimed, looking upward, “How long shall it be
delayed?” She paused, and then resumed with enthusiastic rapidity, “Yes,
my son, all on earth is but for a period--joy and grief, triumph and
desolation, succeed each other like cloud and sunshine;--the vineyard
shall not be forever trodden down, the gaps shall be amended, and the
fruitful branches once more dressed and trimmed. Even this day--ay,
even this hour, I trust to hear news of importance. Dally not--let us
on--time is brief, and judgment is certain.”
She resumed the path which led to the Abbey--a path which, in ancient
times, was carefully marked out by posts and rails, to assist the
pilgrim in his journey--these were now torn up and destroyed. A
half-hour's walk placed them in front of the once splendid Monastery,
which, although the church was as yet entire, had not escaped the fury
of the times. The long range of cells and of apartments for the use of
the brethren, which occupied two sides of the great square, were almost
entirely ruinous, the interior having been consumed by fire, which
only the massive architecture of the outward walls had enabled them to
resist. The Abbot's house, which formed the third side of the square,
was, though injured, still inhabited, and afforded refuge to the few
brethren, who yet, rather by connivance than by actual authority,--were
permitted to remain at Kennaquhair. Their stately offices--their
pleasant gardens--the magnificent cloisters constructed for their
recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; and some of the building
materials had apparently been put into requisition by persons in the
village and in the vicinity, who, formerly vassals of the Monastery, had
not hesitated to appropriate to themselves a part of the spoils. Roland
saw fragments of Gothic pillars richly carved, occupying the place of
door-posts to the meanest huts; and here and there a mutilated statue,
inverted or laid on its side, made the door-post, or threshold, of a
wretched cow-house. The church itself was less injured than the other
buildings of the Monastery. But the images which had been placed in the
numerous niches of its columns and buttresses, having all fallen under
the charge of idolatry, to which the superstitious devotion of the
Papists had justly exposed them, had been broken and thrown down,
without much regard to the preservation of the rich and airy canopies
and pedestals on which they were placed; nor, if the devastation had
stopped short at this point, could we have considered the preservation
of these monuments of antiquity as an object to be put in the balance
with the introduction of the reformed worship.
Our pilgrims saw the demolition of these sacred and venerable
representations of saints and angels--for as sacred and venerable they
had been taught to consider them--with very different feelings. The
antiquary may be permitted to regret the necessity of the action, but
to Magdalen Graeme it seemed a deed of impiety, deserving the instant
vengeance of heaven,--a sentiment in which her relative joined for the
moment as cordially as herself. Neither, however, gave vent to their
feelings in words, and uplifted hands and eyes formed their only mode of
expressing them. The page was about to approach the great eastern gate
of the church, but was prevented by his guide. “That gate,” she said,
“has long been blockaded, that the heretical rabble may not know there
still exist among the brethren of Saint Mary's men who dare worship
where their predecessors prayed while alive, and were interred when
dead--follow me this way, my son.”
Roland Graeme followed accordingly; and Magdalen, casting a hasty glance
to see whether they were observed, (for she had learned caution from the
danger of the times,) commanded her grandson to knock at a little wicket
which she pointed out to him. “But knock gently,” she added, with a
motion expressive of caution. After a little space, during which no
answer was returned, she signed to Roland to repeat his summons for
admission; and the door at length partially opening, discovered a
glimpse of the thin and timid porter, by whom the duty was performed,
skulking from the observation of those who stood without; but
endeavouring at the same time to gain a sight of them without being
himself seen. How different from the proud consciousness of dignity with
which the porter of ancient days offered his important brow, and his
goodly person, to the pilgrims who repaired to Kennaquhair! His solemn
“_Intrate, mei filii,_” was exchanged for a tremulous “You cannot enter
now--the brethren are in their chambers.” But, when Magdalen Graeme
asked, in an under tone of voice, “Hast thou forgotten me, my brother?”
he changed his apologetic refusal to “Enter, my honoured sister, enter
speedily, for evil eyes are upon us.”
They entered accordingly, and having waited until the porter had, with
jealous haste, barred and bolted the wicket, were conducted by him
through several dark and winding passages. As they walked slowly on,
he spoke to the matron in a subdued voice, as if he feared to trust the
very walls with the avowal which he communicated.
“Our Fathers are assembled in the Chapter-house, worthy sister--yes, in
the Chapter-house--for the election of an Abbott.--Ah, Benedicite! there
must be no ringing of bells--no high mass--no opening of the great gates
now, that the people might see and venerate their spiritual Father! Our
Fathers must hide themselves rather like robbers who choose a leader,
than godly priests who elect a mitred Abbot.”
“Regard not that, my brother,” answered Magdalen Graeme; “the first
successors of Saint Peter himself were elected, not in sunshine, but
in tempests--not in the halls of the Vatican, but in the subterranean
vaults and dungeons of heathen Rome--they were not gratulated with
shouts and salvos of cannon-shot and of musketry, and the display of
artificial fire--no, my brother--but by the hoarse summons of Lictors
and Praetors, who came to drag the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom.
From such adversity was the Church once raised, and by such will it
now be purified.--And mark me, brother! not in the proudest days of the
mitred Abbey, was a Superior ever chosen, whom his office shall so much
honour, as _he_ shall be honoured, who now takes it upon him in these
days of tribulation. On whom, my brother, will the choice fall?”
“On whom can it fall--or, alas! who would dare to reply to the call,
save the worthy pupil of the Sainted Eustatius--the good and valiant
Father Ambrose?”
“I know it,” said Magdalen; “my heart told me long ere your lips had
uttered his name. Stand forth, courageous champion, and man the fatal
breach!--Rise, bold and experienced pilot, and seize the helm while
the tempest rages!--Turn back the battle, brave raiser of the fallen
standard!--Wield crook and slang, noble shepherd of a scattered flock!”
“I pray you, hush, my sister!” said the porter, opening a door which led
into the great church, “the brethren will be presently here to celebrate
their election with a solemn mass--I must marshal them the way to the
high altar--all the offices of this venerable house have now devolved on
one poor decrepit old man.”
He left the church, and Magdalen and Roland remained alone in that great
vaulted space, whose style of rich, yet chaste architecture, referred
its origin to the early part of the fourteenth century, the best period
of Gothic building. But the niches were stripped of their images in the
inside as well as the outside of the church; and in the pell-mell havoc,
the tombs of warriors and of princes had been included in the demolition
of the idolatrous shrines. Lances and swords of antique size, which had
hung over the tombs of mighty warriors of former days, lay now strewed
among relics, with which the devotion of pilgrims had graced those of
their peculiar saints; and the fragments of the knights and dames, which
had once lain recumbent, or kneeled in an attitude of devotion, where
their mortal relics were reposed, were mingled with those of the saints
and angels of the Gothic chisel, which the hand of violence had sent
headlong from their stations.
The most fatal symptom of the whole appeared to be, that, though this
violence had now been committed for many months, the Fathers had lost so
totally all heart and resolution, that they had not adventured even upon
clearing away the rubbish, or restoring the church to some decent degree
of order. This might have been done without much labour. But terror had
overpowered the scanty remains of a body once so powerful, and, sensible
they were only suffered to remain in this ancient seat by connivance and
from compassion, they did not venture upon taking any step which might
be construed into an assertion of their ancient rights, contenting
themselves with the secret and obscure exercise of their religious
ceremonial, in as unostentatious a manner as was possible.
Two or three of the more aged brethren had sunk under the pressure of
the times, and the ruins had been partly cleared away to permit their
interment. One stone had been laid over Father Nicholas, which recorded
of him in special, that he had taken the vows during the incumbency of
Abbot Ingelram, the period to which his memory so frequently recurred.
Another flag-stone, yet more recently deposited, covered the body of
Philip the Sacristan, eminent for his aquatic excursion with the phantom
of Avenel, and a third, the most recent of all, bore the outline of a
mitre, and the words _Hic jacet Eustatius Abbas_; for no one dared to
add a word of commendation in favour of his learning, and strenuous zeal
for the Roman Catholic faith.
Magdalen Graeme looked at and perused the brief records of these
monuments successively, and paused over that of Father Eustace. “In
a good hour for thyself,” she said, “but oh! in an evil hour for the
Church, wert thou called from us. Let thy spirit be with us, holy
man--encourage thy successor to tread in thy footsteps--give him thy
bold and inventive capacity, thy zeal and thy discretion--even _thy_
piety exceeds not his.” As she spoke, a side door, which closed a
passage from the Abbot's house into the church, was thrown open, that
the Fathers might enter the choir, and conduct to the high altar the
Superior whom they had elected.
In former times, this was one of the most splendid of the many pageants
which the hierarchy of Rome had devised to attract the veneration of
the faithful. The period during which the Abbacy remained vacant, was
a state of mourning, or, as their emblematical phrase expressed it,
of widowhood; a melancholy term, which was changed into rejoicing and
triumph when a new Superior was chosen. When the folding doors were on
such solemn occasions thrown open, and the new Abbot appeared on the
threshold in full-blown dignity, with ring and mitre, and dalmatique
and crosier, his hoary standard-bearers and his juvenile dispensers of
incense preceding him, and the venerable train of monks behind him, with
all besides which could announce the supreme authority to which he was
now raised, his appearance was a signal for the magnificent _jubilate_
to rise from the organ and music-loft, and to be joined by the
corresponding bursts of Alleluiah from the whole assembled congregation.
Now all was changed. In the midst of rubbish and desolation, seven or
eight old men, bent and shaken as much by grief and fear as by age,
shrouded hastily in the proscribed dress of their order, wandered like
a procession of spectres, from the door which had been thrown open, up
through the encumbered passage, to the high altar, there to instal their
elected Superior a chief of ruins. It was like a band of bewildered
travellers choosing a chief in the wilderness of Arabia; or a
shipwrecked crew electing a captain upon the barren island on which fate
has thrown them.
They who, in peaceful times, are most ambitious of authority among
others, shrink from the competition at such eventful periods, when
neither ease nor parade attend the possession of it, and when it gives
only a painful pre-eminence both in danger and in labour, and exposes
the ill-fated chieftain to the murmurs of his discontented associates,
as well as to the first assault of the common enemy. But he on whom the
office of the Abbot of Saint Mary's was now conferred, had a mind fitted
for the situation to which he was called. Bold and enthusiastic, yet
generous and forgiving--wise and skilful, yet zealous and prompt--he
wanted but a better cause than the support of a decaying superstition,
to have raised him to the rank of a truly great man. But as the end
crowns the work, it also forms the rule by which it must be ultimately
judged; and those who, with sincerity and generosity, fight and fall in
an evil cause, posterity can only compassionate as victims of a generous
but fatal error. Amongst these, we must rank Ambrosius, the last Abbot
of Kennaqubair, whose designs must be condemned, as their success would
have riveted on Scotland the chains of antiquated superstition and
spiritual tyranny; but whose talents commanded respect, and whose
virtues, even from the enemies of his faith, extorted esteem.
The bearing of the new Abbot served of itself to dignify a ceremonial
which was deprived of all other attributes of grandeur. Conscious of
the peril in which they stood, and recalling, doubtless, the better days
they had seen, there hung over his brethren an appearance of mingled
terror, and grief, and shame, which induced them to hurry over the
office in which they were engaged, as something at once degrading and
dangerous.
But not so Father Ambrose. His features, indeed, expressed a deep
melancholy, as he walked up the centre aisle, amid the ruin of things
which he considered as holy, but his brow was undejected, and his step
firm and solemn. He seemed to think that the dominion which he was about
to receive, depended in no sort upon the external circumstances under
which it was conferred; and if a mind so firm was accessible to sorrow
or fear, it was not on his own account, but on that of the Church to
which he had devoted himself.
At length he stood on the broken steps of the high altar, barefooted, as
was the rule, and holding in his hand his pastoral staff, for the gemmed
ring and jewelled mitre had become secular spoils. No obedient vassals
came, man after man, to make their homage, and to offer the tribute
which should provide their spiritual Superior with palfrey and
trappings. No Bishop assisted at the solemnity, to receive into the
higher ranks of the Church nobility a dignitary, whose voice in the
legislature was as potential as his own. With hasty and maimed rites,
the few remaining brethren stepped forward alternately to give their new
Abbot the kiss of peace, in token of fraternal affection and spiritual
homage. Mass was then hastily performed, but in such precipitation as if
it had been hurried over rather to satisfy the scruples of a few youths,
who were impatient to set out on a hunting party, than as if it made the
most solemn part of a solemn ordination. The officiating priest faltered
as he spoke the service, and often looked around, as if he expected to
be interrupted in the midst of his office; and the brethren listened to
that which, short as it was, they wished yet more abridged.[Footnote:
In Catholic countries, in order to reconcile the pleasures of the great
with the observances of religion, it was common, when a party was bent
for the chase, to celebrate mass, abridged and maimed of its rites,
called a hunting-mass, the brevity of which was designed to correspond
with the impatience of the audience.]
These symptoms of alarm increased as the ceremony proceeded, and, as it
seemed, were not caused by mere apprehension alone; for, amid the pauses
of the hymn, there were heard without sounds of a very different sort,
beginning faintly and at a distance, but at length approaching close to
the exterior of the church, and stunning with dissonant clamour those
engaged in the service. The winding of horns, blown with no regard to
harmony or concert; the jangling of bells, the thumping of drums,
the squeaking of bagpipes, and the clash of cymbals--the shouts of a
multitude, now as in laughter, now as in anger--the shrill tones of
female voices, and of those of children, mingling with the deeper
clamour of men, formed a Babel of sounds, which first drowned, and then
awed into utter silence, the official hymns of the Convent. The cause
and result of this extraordinary interruption will be explained in the
next chapter.
Chapter the Fourteenth.
Not the wild billow, when it breaks its barrier--
Not the wild wind, escaping from its cavern--
Not the wild fiend, that mingles both together,
And pours their rage upon the ripening harvest,
Can match the wild freaks of this mirthful meeting--
Comic, yet fearful--droll, and yet destructive.
THE CONSPIRACY.
The monks ceased their song, which, like that of the choristers in the
legend of the Witch of Berkley, died away in a quaver of consternation;
and, like a flock of chickens disturbed by the presence of the
kite, they at first made a movement to disperse and fly in different
directions, and then, with despair, rather than hope, huddled themselves
around their new Abbot; who, retaining the lofty and undismayed look
which had dignified him through the whole ceremony, stood on the higher
step of the altar, as if desirous to be the most conspicuous mark on
which danger might discharge itself, and to save his companions by his
self-devotion, since he could afford them no other protection.
Involuntarily, as it were, Magdalen Graeme and the page stepped from the
station which hitherto they had occupied unnoticed, and approached to
the altar, as desirous of sharing the fate which approached the monks,
whatever that might be. Both bowed reverently low to the Abbot; and
while Magdalen seemed about to speak, the youth, looking towards the
main entrance, at which the noise now roared most loudly, and which was
at the same time assailed with much knocking, laid his hand upon his
dagger.
The Abbot motioned to both to forbear: “Peace, my sister,” he said, in a
low tone, but which, being in a different key from the tumultuary sounds
without, could be distinctly heard, even amidst the tumult;--“Peace,” he
said, “my sister; let the new Superior of Saint Mary's himself receive
and reply to the grateful acclamations of the vassals, who come to
celebrate his installation.--And thou, my son, forbear, I charge thee,
to touch thy earthly weapon;--if it is the pleasure of our protectress,
that her shrine be this day desecrated by deeds of violence, and
polluted by blood-shedding, let it not, I charge thee, happen through
the deed of a Catholic son of the church.”
The noise and knocking at the outer gate became now every moment louder;
and voices were heard impatiently demanding admittance. The Abbot, with
dignity, and with a step which even the emergency of danger rendered
neither faltering nor precipitate, moved towards the portal, and
demanded to know, in a tone of authority, who it was that disturbed
their worship, and what they desired?
There was a moment's silence, and then a loud laugh from without. At
length a voice replied, “We desire entrance into the church; and when
the door is opened you will soon see who we are.”
“By whose authority do you require entrance?” said the Father.
“By authority of the right reverend Lord Abbot of Unreason.”
[Footnote: We learn from no less authority than that of Napoleon
Bonaparte, that there is but a single step between the sublime and
ridiculous; and it is a transition from one extreme to another; so very
easy, that the vulgar of every degree are peculiarly captivated with it.
Thus the inclination to laugh becomes uncontrollable, when the solemnity
and gravity of time, place, and circumstances, render it peculiarly
improper. Some species of general license, like that which inspired the
ancient Saturnalia, or the modern Carnival, has been commonly indulged
to the people at all times and in almost all countries. But it was, I
think, peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church, that while they studied
how to render their church rites imposing and magnificent, by all that
pomp, music, architecture, and external display could add to them, they
nevertheless connived, upon special occasions, at the frolics of the
rude vulgar, who, in almost all Catholic countries, enjoyed, or at least
assumed, the privilege of making: some Lord of the revels, who, under
the name of the Abbot of Unreason, the Boy Bishop, or the President
of Fools, occupied the churches, profaned the holy places by a mock
imitation of the sacred rites, and sung indecent parodies on hymns of
the church. The indifference of the clergy, even when their power was
greatest, to the indecent exhibitions which they always tolerated, and
sometimes encouraged, forms a strong contrast to the sensitiveness with
which they regarded any serious attempt, by preaching or writing, to
impeach any of the doctrines of the church. It could only be compared to
the singular apathy with which they endured, and often admired the gross
novels which Chaucer, Dunbar, Boccacio, Bandello, and others, composed
upon the bad morals of the clergy. It seems as if the churchmen in both
instances had endeavoured to compromise with the laity, and allowed them
occasionally to gratify their coarse humour by indecent satire, provided
they would abstain from any grave question concerning the foundation
of the doctrines on which was erected such an immense fabric of
ecclesiastical power.
But the sports thus licensed assumed a very different appearance, so
soon as the Protestant doctrines began to prevail; and the license which
their forefathers had exercised in mere gaiety of heart, and without
the least intention of dishonouring religion by their frolics, were now
persevered in by the common people as a mode of testifying their utter
disregard for the Roman priesthood and its ceremonies.
I may observe, for example, the case of an apparitor sent to Borthwick
from the Primate of Saint Andrews, to cite the lord of that castle, who
was opposed by an Abbot of Unreason, at whose command the officer of the
spiritual court was appointed to be ducked in a mill-dam, and obliged to
eat up his parchment citation.