The vesper service in the Monastery Church of Saint Mary's was now over.
The Abbot had disrobed himself of his magnificent vestures of ceremony,
and resumed his ordinary habit, which was a black gown, worn over a
white cassock, with a narrow scapulary; a decent and venerable dress,
which was calculated to set off to advantage the portly mien of Abbot
Boniface.
In quiet times no one could have filled the state of a mitred Abbot, for
such was his dignity, more respectably than this worthy prelate. He had,
no doubt, many of those habits of self-indulgence which men are apt to
acquire who live for themselves alone. He was vain, moreover; and when
boldly confronted, had sometimes shown symptoms of timidity, not very
consistent with the high claims which he preferred as an eminent member
of the church, or with the punctual deference which he exacted from his
religious brethren, and all who were placed under his command. But
he was hospitable, charitable, and by no means of himself disposed to
proceed with severity against any one. In short, he would in other times
have slumbered out his term of preferment with as much credit as
any other “purple Abbot,” who lived easily, but at the same time
decorously--slept soundly, and did not disquiet himself with dreams.
But the wide alarm spread through the whole Church of Rome by the
progress of the reformed doctrines, sorely disturbed the repose of Abbot
Boniface, and opened to him a wide field of duties and cares which he
had never so much as dreamed of. There were opinions to be combated
and refuted--practices to be inquired into--heretics to be detected
and punished--the fallen off to be reclaimed--the wavering to be
confirmed--scandal to be removed from the clergy, and the vigour of
discipline to be re-established. Post upon post arrived at the Monastery
of Saint Mary's--horses reeking, and riders exhausted--this from the
Privy Council, that from the Primate of Scotland, and this other again
from the Queen Mother, exhorting, approving, condemning, requesting
advice upon this subject, and requiring information upon that.
These missives Abbot Boniface received with an important air of
helplessness, or a helpless air of importance,--whichever the reader
may please to term it, evincing at once gratified vanity, and profound
trouble of mind. The sharp-witted Primate of Saint Andrews had foreseen
the deficiencies of the Abbot of St. Mary's, and endeavoured to provide
for them by getting admitted into his Monastery as Sub-Prior a brother
Cistercian, a man of parts and knowledge, devoted to the service of
the Catholic Church, and very capable not only to advise the Abbot on
occasions of difficulty, but to make him sensible of his duty in case he
should, from good-nature or timidity, be disposed to shrink from it.
Father Eustace played the same part in the Monastery as the old general
who, in foreign armies, is placed at the elbow of the Prince of the
Blood, who nominally commands in chief, on condition of attempting
nothing without the advice of his dry-nurse; and he shared the fate of
all such dry-nurses, being heartily disliked as well as feared by his
principal. Still, however, the Primate's intention was fully answered.
Father Eustace became the constant theme and often the bugbear of the
worthy Abbot, who hardly dared to turn himself in his bed without,
considering what Father Eustace would think of it. In every case of
difficulty, Father Eustace was summoned, and his opinion asked; and no
sooner was the embarrassment removed, than the Abbot's next thought was
how to get rid of his adviser. In every letter which he wrote to those
in power, he recommended Father Eustace to some high church preferment,
a bishopric or an abbey; and as they dropped one after another, and were
otherwise conferred, he began to think, as he confessed to the Sacristan
in the bitterness of his spirit, that the Monastery of St. Mary's had
got a life-rent lease of their Sub-Prior.
Yet more indignant he would have been, had he suspected that Father
Eustace's ambition was fixed upon his own mitre, which, from some
attacks of an apoplectic nature, deemed by the Abbot's friends to be
more serious than by himself, it was supposed might be shortly vacant.
But the confidence which, like other dignitaries, he reposed in his
own health, prevented Abbot Boniface from imagining that it held any
concatenation, with the motions of Father Eustace.
The necessity under which he found himself of consulting with his
grand adviser, in cases of real difficulty, rendered the worthy Abbot
particularly desirous of doing without him in all ordinary cases of
administration, though not without considering what Father Eustace would
have said of the matter. He scorned, therefore, to give a hint to the
Sub-Prior of the bold stroke by which he had dispatched Brother Philip
to Glendearg; but when the vespers came without his reappearance he
became a little uneasy, the more as other matters weighed upon his
mind. The feud with the warder or keeper of the bridge threatened to be
attended with bad consequences, as the man's quarrel was taken up by
the martial baron under whom he served; and pressing letters of an
unpleasant tendency had just arrived from the Primate. Like a gouty
man, who catches hold of his crutch while he curses the infirmity that
induces him to use if, the Abbot, however reluctant, found himself
obliged to require Eustace's presence, after the service was over, in
his house, or rather palace, which was attached to, and made part of,
the Monastery.
Abbot Boniface was seated in his high-backed chair, the grotesque carved
back of which terminated in a mitre, before a fire where two or three
large logs were reduced to one red glowing mass of charcoal. At his
elbow, on an oaken stand, stood the remains of a roasted capon, on which
his reverence had made his evening meal, flanked by a goodly stoup of
Bordeaux of excellent flavour. He was gazing indolently on the fire,
partly engaged in meditation on his past and present fortunes, partly
occupied by endeavouring to trace towers and steeples in the red embers.
“Yes,” thought the Abbot to himself, “in that red perspective I could
fancy to myself the peaceful towers of Dundrennan, where I passed my
life ere I was called to pomp and to trouble. A quiet brotherhood we
were, regular in our domestic duties; and when the frailties of humanity
prevailed over us, we confessed, and were absolved by each other, and
the most formidable part of the penance was the jest of the convent on
the culprit. I can almost fancy that I see the cloister garden, and
the pear-trees which I grafted with my own hands. And for what have I
changed all this, but to be overwhelmed with business which concerns me
not, to be called My Lord Abbot, and to be tutored by Father Eustace? I
would these towers were the Abbey of Aberbrothwick, and Father Eustace
the Abbot,--or I would he were in the fire on any terms, so I were rid
of him! The Primate says our Holy Father, the Pope hath an adviser--I am
sure he could not live a week with such a one as mine. Then there is
no learning what Father Eustace thinks till you confess your own
difficulties--No hint will bring forth his opinion--he is like a miser,
who will not unbuckle his purse to bestow a farthing, until the wretch
who needs it has owned his excess of poverty, and wrung out the boon
by importunity. And thus I am dishonoured in the eyes of my religious
brethren, who behold me treated like a child which hath no sense of
its own--I will bear it no longer!--Brother Bennet,”--(a lay brother
answered to his call)--” tell Father Eustace that I need not his
presence.”
“I came to say to your reverence, that the holy father is entering even
now from the cloisters.”
“Be it so,” said the Abbot, “he is welcome,--remove these things--or
rather, place a trencher, the holy father may be a little hungry--yet,
no--remove them, for there is no good fellowship in him--Let the stoup
of wine remain, however, and place another cup.”
The lay brother obeyed these contradictory commands in the way he judged
most seemly--he removed the carcass of the half-sacked capon, and placed
two goblets beside the stoup of Bourdeaux. At the same instant entered
Father Eustace.
He was a thin, sharp-faced, slight-made little man, whose keen grey eyes
seemed almost to look through the person to whom he addressed himself.
His body was emaciated not only with the fasts which he observed with
rigid punctuality, but also by the active and unwearied exercise of his
sharp and piercing intellect;--
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the puny body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
He turned with conventual reverence to the Lord Abbot; and as they stood
together, it was scarce possible to see a more complete difference of
form and expression. The good-natured rosy face and laughing eye of the
Abbot, which even his present anxiety could not greatly ruffle, was a
wonderful contrast to the thin pallid cheek and quick penetrating glance
of the monk, in which an eager and keen spirit glanced through eyes to
which it seemed to give supernatural lustre.
The Abbot opened the conversation by motioning to his monk to take a
stool, and inviting to a cup of wine. The courtesy was declined with
respect, yet not without a remark, that the vesper service was past.
“For the stomach's sake, brother,” said the Abbot, colouring a
little--“You know the text.”
“It is a dangerous one,” answered the monk, “to handle alone, or at
late hours. Out off from human society, the juice of the grape becomes a
perilous companion of solitude, and therefore I ever shun it.”
Abbot Boniface had poured himself out a goblet which might hold
about half an English pint; but, either struck with the truth of the
observation, or ashamed to act in direct opposition to it, he suffered
it to remain untasted before him, and immediately changed the subject.
“The Primate hath written to us,” said he, “to make strict search within
our bounds after the heretical persons denounced in this list, who have
withdrawn themselves from the justice which their opinions deserve. It
is deemed probable that they will attempt to retire to England by our
Borders, and the Primate requireth me to watch with vigilance, and what
not.”
“Assuredly,” said the monk, “the magistrate should not bear the sword in
vain--those be they that turn the world upside down--and doubtless your
reverend wisdom will with due diligence second the exertions of the
Right Reverend Father in God, being in the peremptory defence of the
Holy Church.”
“Ay, but how is this to be done?” answered the Abbot; “Saint Mary aid
us! The Primate writes to me as if I were a temporal baron--a man under
command, having soldiers under him! He says, send forth--scour the
country--guard the passes--Truly these men do not travel as those who
would give their lives for nothing--the last who went south passed the
dry-march at the Riding-burn with an escort of thirty spears, as our
reverend brother the Abbot of Kelso did write unto us. How are cowls and
scapularies to stop the way?”
“Your bailiff is accounted a good man at arms, holy father,” said
Eustace; “your vassals are obliged to rise for the defence of the Holy
Kirk--it is the tenure on which they hold their lands--if they will not
come forth for the Church which gives them bread, let their possessions
be given to others.”
“We shall not be wanting,” said the Abbot, collecting himself with
importance, “to do whatever may advantage Holy Kirk--thyself shall
hear the charge to our Bailiff and our officials--but here again is
our controversy with the warden of the bridge and the Baron of
Meigallot--Saint Mary! vexations do so multiply upon the House, and upon
the generation, that a man wots not where to turn to! Thou didst say,
Father Eustace, thou wouldst look into our evidents touching this free
passage for the pilgrims?”
“I have looked into the Chartulary of the House, holy father,” said
Eustace, “and therein I find a written and formal grant of all
duties and customs payable at the drawbridge of Brigton, not only by
ecclesiastics of this foundation, but by every pilgrim truly designed to
accomplish his vows at this House, to the Abbot Allford, and the monks
of the House of Saint Mary in Kennaquhair, from that time and for ever.
The deed is dated on Saint Bridget's Even, in the year of Redemption,
1137, and bears the sign and seal of the granter, Charles of Meigallot,
great-great-grandfather of this baron, and purports to be granted for
the safety of his own soul, and for the weal of the souls of his father
and mother, and of all his predecessors and successors, being Barons of
Meigallot.”
“But he alleges,” said the Abbot, “that the bridge-wards have been in
possession of these dues, and have rendered them available for more than
fifty years--and the baron threatens violence--meanwhile, the journey of
the pilgrims is interrupted, to the prejudice of their own souls and the
diminution of the revenues of Saint Mary. The Sacristan advised us to
put on a boat; but the warden, whom thou knowest to be a godless man,
has sworn the devil tear him, but that if they put on a boat on the
laird's stream, he will rive her board from board--and then some say
we should compound the claim for a small sum in silver.” Here the Abbot
paused a moment for a reply, but receiving none, he added, “But what
thinkest thou, Father Eustace? why art thou silent?”
“Because I am surprised at the question which the Lord Abbot of Saint
Mary's asks at the youngest of his brethren.”
“Youngest in time of your abode with us, Brother Eustace,” said the
Abbot, “not youngest in years, or I think in experience. Sub-Prior also
of this convent.”
“I am astonished,” continued Eustace, “that the Abbot of this venerable
house should ask of any one whether he can alienate the patrimony of
our holy and divine patroness, or give up to an unconscientious, and
perhaps, a heretic baron, the rights conferred on this church by his
devout progenitor. Popes and councils alike prohibit it--the honour of
the living, and the weal of departed souls, alike forbid it--it may not
be. To force, if he dare use it, we must surrender; but never by our
consent should we see the goods of the church plundered, with as little
scruple as he would drive off a herd of English beeves. Rouse yourself,
Reverend father, and doubt nothing but that the good cause shall
prevail. Whet the spiritual sword, and direct it against the wicked
who would usurp our holy rights. Whet the temporal sword, if it be
necessary, and stir up the courage and zeal of your loyal vassals.”
The Abbot sighed deeply. “All this,” he said, “is soon spoken by him who
hath to act it not; but--” He was interrupted by the entrance of Bennet
rather hastily. “The mule on which the Sacristan had set out in the
morning had returned,” he said, “to the convent stable all over wet, and
with the saddle turned round beneath her belly.”
“Sancta Maria!” said the Abbot, “our dear brother hath perished by the
way!”
“It may not be,” said Eustace, hastily--“let the bell be tolled--cause
the brethren to get torches--alarm the village--hurry down to the
river--I myself will be the foremost.”
The real Abbot stood astonished and agape, when at once he beheld his
office filled, and saw all which he ought to have ordered, going forward
at the dictates of the youngest monk in the convent. But ere the
orders of Eustace, which nobody dreamed of disputing, were carried into
execution, the necessity was prevented by the sudden apparition of the
Sacristan, whose supposed danger excited all the alarm.
Chapter the Seventh.
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
Cleanse the foul bosom of the perilous stuff
That weighs upon the heart.
MACBETH.
What betwixt cold and fright the afflicted Sacristan stood before his
Superior, propped on the friendly arm of the convent miller, drenched
with water, and scarce able to utter a syllable.
After various attempts to speak, the first words he uttered were,
“Swim we merrily--the moon shines bright.”
“Swim we merrily!” retorted the Abbot, indignantly; “a merry night have
ye chosen for swimming, and a becoming salutation to your Superior!”
“Our brother is bewildered,” said Eustace;--“speak, Father Philip, how
is it with you?”
“Good luck to your fishing,”
continued the Sacristan, making a most dolorous attempt at the tune of
his strange companion.
“Good luck to your fishing!” repeated the Abbot, still more surprised
than displeased; “by my halidome he is drunken with wine, and comes to
our presence with his jolly catches in his throat! If bread and water
can cure this folly--”
“With your pardon, venerable father,” said the Sub-Prior, “of water
our brother has had enough; and methinks, the confusion of his eye, is
rather that of terror, than of aught unbecoming his profession. Where
did you find him, Hob Miller?”
“An it please your reverence, I did but go to shut the sluice of the
mill--and as I was going to shut the sluice, I heard something groan
near to me; but judging it was one of Giles Fletcher's hogs--for so
please you he never shuts his gate--I caught up my lever, and was
about--Saint Mary forgive me!--to strike where I heard the sound, when,
as the saints would have it, I heard the second groan just like that of
a living man. So I called up my knaves, and found the Father Sacristan
lying wet and senseless under the wall of our kiln. So soon as we
brought him to himself a bit, he prayed to be brought to your reverence,
but I doubt me his wits have gone a bell-wavering by the road. It was
but now that he spoke in somewhat better form.”
“Well!” said Brother Eustace, “thou hast done well, Hob Miller; only
begone now, and remember a second time to pause, ere you strike in the
dark.”
“Please your reverence, it shall be a lesson to me,” said the miller,
“not to mistake a holy man for a hog again, so long as I live.” And,
making a bow, with profound humility, the miller withdrew.
“And now that this churl is gone, Father Philip,” said Eustace,
“wilt thou tell our venerable Superior what ails thee? art thou _vino
gravatus,_ man? if so we will have thee to thy cell.”
“Water! water! not wine,” muttered the exhausted Sacristan.
“Nay,” said the monk, “if that be thy complaint, wine may perhaps cure
thee;” and he reached him a cup, which the patient drank off to his
great benefit.
“And now,” said the Abbot, “let his garments be changed, or rather
let him be carried to the infirmary; for it will prejudice our health,
should we hear his narrative while he stands there, steaming like a
rising hoar-frost.”
“I will hear his adventure,” said Eustace, “and report it to your
reverence.” And, accordingly, he attended the Sacristan to his cell. In
about half an hour he returned to the Abbot.
“How is it with Father Philip?” said the Abbot; “and through what came
he into such a state?”
“He comes from Glendearg, reverend sir,” said Eustace; “and for the
rest, he telleth such a legend, as has not been heard in this Monastery
for many a long day.” He then gave the Abbot the outlines of the
Sacristan's adventures in the homeward journey, and added, that for some
time he was inclined to think his brain was infirm, seeing he had sung,
laughed, and wept all in the same breath.
“A wonderful thing it is to us,” said the Abbot, “that Satan has been
permitted to put forth his hand thus far on one of our sacred brethren!”
“True,” said Father Eustace; “but for every text there is a paraphrase;
and I have my suspicions, that if the drenching of Father Philip cometh
of the Evil one, yet it may not have been altogether without his own
personal fault.”
“How!” said the Father Abbot; “I will not believe that thou makest doubt
that Satan, in former days, hath been permitted to afflict saints and
holy men, even as he afflicted the pious Job?”
“God forbid I should make question of it,” said the monk, crossing
himself; “yet, where there is an exposition of the Sacristan's tale,
which is less than miraculous, I hold it safe to consider it at least,
if not to abide by it. Now, this Hob the Miller hath a buxom daughter.
Suppose--I say only suppose--that our Sacristan met her at the ford on
her return from her uncle's on the other side, for there she hath this
evening been--suppose, that, in courtesy, and to save her stripping
hose and shoon, the Sacristan brought her across behind him-suppose he
carried his familiarities farther than the maiden was willing to admit;
and we may easily suppose, farther, that this wetting was the result of
it.”
“And this legend invented to deceive us!” said the Superior, reddening
with wrath; “but most strictly shall it be sifted and inquired into; it
is not upon us that Father Philip must hope to pass the result of his
own evil practices for doings of Satan. To-morrow cite the wench to
appear before us--we will examine, and we will punish.”
“Under your reverence's favour,” said Eustace, “that were but poor
policy. As things now stand with us, the heretics catch hold of each
flying report which tends to the scandal of our clergy. We must abate
the evil, not only by strengthening discipline, but also by suppressing
and stifling the voice of scandal. If my conjectures are true, the
miller's daughter will be silent for her own sake; and your reverence's
authority may also impose silence on her father, and on the Sacristan.
If he is again found to afford room for throwing dishonour on his order,
he can be punished with severity, but at the same time with secrecy. For
what say the Decretals! Facinora ostendi dum punientur, flagitia autem
abscondi debent.”
A sentence of Latin, as Eustace had before observed, had often much
influence on the Abbot, because he understood it not fluently, and was
ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance. On these terms they parted for the
night.
The next day, Abbot Boniface strictly interrogated Philip on the real
cause of his disaster of the previous night. But the Sacristan stood
firm to his story; nor was he found to vary from any point of it,
although the answers he returned were in some degree incoherent, owing
to his intermingling with them ever and anon snatches of the strange
damsel's song, which had made such deep impression on his imagination,
that he could not prevent himself from imitating it repeatedly in the
course of his examination. The Abbot had compassion with the Sacristan's
involuntary frailty, to which something supernatural seemed annexed,
and finally became of opinion, that Father Eustace's more natural
explanation was rather plausible than just. And, indeed, although
we have recorded the adventure as we find it written down, we cannot
forbear to add that there was a schism on the subject in the convent,
and that several of the brethren pretended to have good reason for
thinking that the miller's black-eyed daughter was at the bottom of the
affair after all. Whichever way it might be interpreted, all agreed
that it had too ludicrous a sound to be permitted to get abroad, and
therefore the Sacristan was charged, on his vow of obedience, to say no
more of his ducking; an injunction which, having once eased his mind by
telling his story, it may be well conjectured that he joyfully obeyed.
The attention of Father Eustace was much less forcibly arrested by the
marvellous tale of the Sacristan's danger, and his escape, than by the
mention of the volume which he had brought with him from the Tower of
Glendearg. A copy of the Scriptures, translated into the vulgar tongue,
had found its way even into the proper territory of the church, and had
been discovered in one of the most hidden and sequestered recesses of
the Halidome of Saint Mary's.
He anxiously requested to see the volume. In this the Sacristan was
unable to gratify him, for he had lost it, as far as he recollected,
when the supernatural being, as he conceived her to be, took her
departure from him. Father Eustace went down to the spot in person, and
searched all around it, in hopes of recovering the volume in question;
but his labour was in vain. He returned to the Abbot, and reported
that it must have fallen into the river or the mill-stream; “for I will
hardly believe,” he said, “that Father Philip's musical friend would fly
off with a copy of the Holy Scriptures.”
“Being,” said the Abbot, “as it is, an heretical translation, it may be
thought that Satan may have power over it.”
“Ay!” said Father Eustace, “it is indeed his chiefest magazine of
artillery, when he inspireth presumptuous and daring men to set forth
their own opinions and expositions of Holy Writ. But though thus abused,
the Scriptures are the source of our salvation, and are no more to
be reckoned unholy, because of these rash men's proceedings, than a
powerful medicine is to be contemned, or held poisonous, because bold
and evil leeches have employed it to the prejudice of their patients.
With the permission of your reverence, I would that this matter were
looked into more closely. I will myself visit the Tower of Glendearg ere
I am many hours older, and we shall see if any spectre or white woman
of the wild will venture to interrupt my journey or return. Have I your
reverend permission and your blessing?” he added, but in a tone that
appeared to set no great store by either.
“Thou hast both, my brother,” said the Abbot; but no sooner had Eustace
left the apartment, than Boniface could not help breaking on the willing
ear of the Sacristan his sincere wish, that any spirit, black, white,
or gray, would read the adviser such a lesson, as to cure him of his
presumption in esteeming himself wiser than the whole community.
“I wish him no worse lesson,” said the Sacristan, “than to go swimming
merrily down the river with a ghost behind, and Kelpies, night-crows,
and mud-eels, all waiting to have a snatch at him.
Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright!
Good luck to your fishing, whom watch you to-night?”
“Brother Philip,” said the Abbot, “we exhort thee to say thy prayers,
compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;--it is but
a deception of the devil's.”
“I will essay, reverend Father,” said the Sacristan, “but the tune
hangs by my memory like a bur in a beggar's rags; it mingles with the
psalter--the very bells of the convent seem to repeat the words, and
jingle to the tune; and were you to put me to death at this very moment,
it is my belief I should die singing it--'Now swim we merrily'--it is as
it were a spell upon me.”