“Good luck to your fishing.”
And checking himself in the strain with difficulty, he exclaimed, “It is
too certain--I am but a lost priest! Swim we merrily--I shall sing it at
the very mass--Wo is me! I shall sing all the remainder of my life, and
yet never be able to change the tune!”
The honest Abbot replied, “he knew many a good fellow in the same
condition;” and concluded the remark with “ho! ho! ho!” for his
reverence, as the reader may partly have observed, was one of those dull
folks who love a quiet joke.
The Sacristan, well acquainted with his Superior's humour, endeavoured
to join in the laugh, but his unfortunate canticle came again across his
imagination, and interrupted the hilarity of his customary echo.
“By the rood, Brother Philip,” said the Abbot, much moved, “you become
altogether intolerable! and I am convinced that such a spell could not
subsist over a person of religion, and in a religious house, unless
he were under mortal sin. Wherefore, say the seven penitentiary
psalms--make diligent use of thy scourge and hair-cloth--refrain for
three days from all food, save bread and water--I myself will shrive
thee, and we will see if this singing devil may be driven out of
thee; at least I think Father Eustace himself could devise no better
exorcism.”
The Sacristan sighed deeply, but knew remonstrance was vain. He retired
therefore to his cell, to try how far psalmody might be able to drive
off the sounds of the syren tune which haunted his memory.
Meanwhile, Father Eustace proceeded to the drawbridge, in his way to the
lonely valley of Glendearg. In a brief conversation with the churlish
warder, he had the address to render him more tractable in the
controversy betwixt him and the convent. He reminded him that his father
had been a vassal under the community; that his brother was childless;
and that their possession would revert to the church on his death,
and might be either granted to himself the warder, or to some greater
favourite of the Abbot, as matters chanced to stand betwixt them at the
time. The Sub-Prior suggested to him also, the necessary connexion of
interests betwixt the Monastery and the office which this man enjoyed.
He listened with temper to his rude and churlish answers; and by keeping
his own interest firm pitched in his view, he had the satisfaction to
find that Peter gradually softened his tone, and consented to let every
pilgrim who travelled upon foot pass free of exaction until Pentocost
next; they who travelled on horseback or otherwise, contenting to pay
the ordinary custom. Having thus accommodated a matter in which the weal
of the convent was so deeply interested, Father Eustace proceeded on his
journey.
Chapter the Eighth.
Nay, dally not with time, the wise man's treasure,
Though fools are lavish on't--the fatal Fisher
Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
OLD PLAY.
A November mist overspread the little valley, up which slowly but
steadily rode the Monk Eustace. He was not insensible to the feeling of
melancholy inspired by the scene and by the season. The stream seemed to
murmur with a deep and oppressed note, as if bewailing the departure
of autumn. Among the scattered copses which here and there fringed its
banks, the oak-trees only retained that pallid green that precedes their
russet hue. The leaves of the willows were most of them stripped from
the branches, lay rustling at each breath, and disturbed by every step
of the mule; while the foliage of other trees, totally withered, kept
still precarious possession of the boughs, waiting the first wind to
scatter them.
The monk dropped into the natural train of pensive thought which these
autumnal emblems of mortal hopes are peculiarly calculated to inspire.
“There,” he said, looking at the leaves which lay strewed around, “lie
the hopes of early youth, first formed that they may soonest wither, and
loveliest in spring to become most contemptible in winter; but you,
ye lingerers,” he added, looking to a knot of beeches which still bore
their withered leaves, “you are the proud plans of adventurous manhood,
formed later, and still clinging to the mind of age, although it
acknowledges their inanity! None lasts--none endures, save the foliage
of the hardy oak, which only begins to show itself when that of the rest
of the forest has enjoyed half its existence. A pale and decayed hue is
all it possesses, but still it retains that symptom of vitality to the
last.--So be it with Father Eustace! The fairy hopes of my youth I have
trodden under foot like those neglected rustlers--to the prouder dreams
of my manhood I look back as to lofty chimeras, of which the pith and
essence have long since faded; but my religious vows, the faithful
profession which I have made in my maturer age, shall retain life while
aught of Eustace lives. Dangerous it may be--feeble it must be--yet live
it shall, the proud determination to serve the Church of which I am
a member, and to combat the heresies by which she is assailed.” Thus
spoke, at least thus thought, a man zealous according to his imperfect
knowledge, confounding the vital interests of Christianity with the
extravagant and usurped claims of the Church of Rome, and defending his
cause with an ardour worthy of a better.
While moving onward in this contemplative mood, he could not help
thinking more than once, that he saw in his path the form of a female
dressed in white, who appeared in the attitude of lamentation. But the
impression was only momentary, and whenever he looked steadily to the
point where he conceived the figure appeared, it always proved that
he had mistaken some natural object, a white crag, or the trunk of a
decayed birch-tree with its silver bark, for the appearance in question.
Father Eustace had dwelt too long in Rome to partake the superstitious
feelings of the more ignorant Scottish clergy; yet he certainly thought
it extraordinary, that so strong an impression should have been made
on his mind by the legend of the Sacristan. “It is strange,” he said to
himself, “that this story, which doubtless was the invention of Brother
Philip to cover his own impropriety of conduct, should run so much in my
head, and disturb my more serious thoughts--I am wont, I think, to have
more command over my senses. I will repeat my prayers, and banish such
folly from my recollection.”
The monk accordingly began with devotion to tell his beads, in pursuance
of the prescribed rule of his order, and was not again disturbed by any
wanderings of the imagination, until he found himself beneath the little
fortalice of Glendearg.
Dame Glendinning, who stood at the gate, set up a shout of surprise and
joy at seeing the good father. “Martin,” she said, “Jasper, where be a'
the folk?--help the right reverend Sub-Prior to dismount, and take his
mule from him.--O father! God has sent you in our need--I was just going
to send man and horse to the convent, though I ought to be ashamed to
give so much trouble to your reverences.”
“Our trouble matters not, good dame,” said Father Eustace; “in what can
I pleasure you? I came hither to visit the Lady of Avenel.”
“Well-a-day!” said Dame Alice, “and it was on her part that I had the
boldness to think of summoning you, for the good lady will never be able
to wear over the day!--Would it please you to go to her chamber?”
“Hath she not been shriven by Father Philip?” said the monk.
“Shriven she was,” said the Dame of Glendearg, “and by Father Philip,
as your reverence truly says--but--I wish it may have been a clean
shrift--Methought Father Philip looked but moody upon it--and there was
a book which he took away with him, that--” She paused as if unwilling
to proceed.
“Speak out, Dame Glendinning,” said the Father; “with us it is your duty
to have no secrets.”
“Nay, if it please your reverence, it is not that I would keep anything
from your reverence's knowledge, but I fear I should prejudice the lady
in your opinion; for she is an excellent lady--months and years has she
dwelt in this tower, and none more exemplary than she; but this matter,
doubtless, she will explain it herself to your reverence.”
“I desire first to know it from you, Dame Glendinning,” said the monk;
“and I again repeat, it is your duty to tell it to me.”
“This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed
from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,”
said the good widow.
“Returned!” said the monk; “how mean you?”
“I mean,” answered Dame Glendinning, “that it was brought back to the
tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how--that same book which
Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is
my tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the
pasture--for we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be
Saint Waldave, and thanks to the holy Monastery--”
The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman of
the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on
untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by
flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. “But, to speak no more of
the cows, your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were
tied to a stake, the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that
is my Halbert and my Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on
holidays, and especially Halbert,--for you patted him on the head and
gave him a brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet,--and
little Mary Avenel, that is the lady's daughter, they ran all after the
cattle, and began to play up and down the pasture as young folk will,
your reverence. And at length they lost sight of Martin and the
cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh which we call
_Corri-nan-Shian_, where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn, and
they saw there--Good guide us!--a White Woman sitting on the burnside
wringing her hands--so the bairns were frighted to see a strange woman
sitting there, all but Halbert, who will be sixteen come Whitsuntide;
and, besides, he never feared ony thing--and when they went up to
her--behold she was passed away!”
“For shame, good woman!” said Father Eustace; “a woman of your sense to
listen to a tale so idle!--the young folk told you a lie, and that was
all.”
“Nay, sir, it was more than that,” said the old dame; “for, besides that
they never told me a lie in their lives, I must warn you that on the
very ground where the White Woman was sitting, they found the Lady of
Avenel's book, and brought it with them to the tower.”
“That is worthy of mark at least,” said the monk. “Know you no other
copy of this volume within these bounds?”
“None, your reverence,” returned Elspeth; “why should there?--no one
could read it were there twenty.”
“Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father
Philip?” said the monk.
“As sure as that I now speak with your reverence.”
“It is most singular!” said the monk; and he walked across the room in a
musing posture.
“I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say,”
continued Dame Glendinning, “respecting this matter--There is nothing
I would not do for the Lady of Avenel and her family, and that has been
proved, and for her servants to boot, both Martin and Tibb, although
Tibb is not so civil sometimes as altogether I have a right to expect;
but I cannot think it beseeming to have angels, or ghosts, or fairies,
or the like, waiting upon a leddy when she is in another woman's house,
in respect it is no ways creditable. Ony thing she had to do was always
done to her hand, without costing her either pains or pence, as a
country body says; and besides the discredit, I cannot but think that
there is no safety in having such unchancy creatures about ane. But I
have tied red thread round the bairns's throats,” (so her fondness still
called them,) “and given ilka ane of them a riding-wand of rowan-tree,
forby sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their doublets; and I wish to
know of your reverence if there be ony thing mair that a lone woman can
do in the matter of ghosts and fairies?--Be here! that I should have
named their unlucky names twice ower!”
“Dame Glendinning,” answered the monk, somewhat abruptly, when the good
woman had finished her narrative, “I pray you, do you know the miller's
daughter?”
“Did I know Kate Happer?” replied the widow; “as well as the beggar
knows his dish--a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain
maybe twenty years syne.”
“She cannot be the wench I mean,” said Father Eustace; “she after whom
I inquire is scarce fifteen, a black-eyed girl--you may have seen her at
the kirk.”
“Your reverence must be in the right; and she is my cummer's nie'ce,
doubtless, that you are pleased to speak of: but I thank God I have
always been too duteous in attention to the mass, to know whether young
wenches have black eyes or green ones.”
The good father had so much of the world about him, that he was unable
to avoid smiling, when the dame boasted her absolute resistance to a
temptation, which was not quite so liable to beset her as those of the
other sex.
“Perhaps, then,” he said, “you know her usual dress, Dame Glendinning?”
“Ay, ay, father,” answered the dame readily enough, “a white kirtle the
wench wears, to hide the dust of the mill, no doubt--and a blue hood,
that might weel be spared, for pridefulness.”
“Then, may it not be she,” said the father, “who has brought back this
book, and stepped out of the way when the children came near her?”
The dame paused--was unwilling to combat the solution suggested by the
monk--but was at a loss to conceive why the lass of the mill should come
so far from home into so wild a corner merely to leave an old book with
three children, from whose observation she wished to conceal herself.
Above all, she could not understand why, since she had acquaintances in
the family, and since the Dame Glendinning had always paid her multure
and knaveship duly, the said lass of the mill had not come in to rest
herself and eat a morsel, and tell her the current news of the water.
These very objections satisfied the monk that his conjectures were
right. “Dame,” he said, “you must be cautious in what you say. This is
an instance--I would it were the sole one--of the power of the Enemy
in these days. The matter must be sifted--with a curious and a careful
hand.”
“Indeed,” said Elspeth, trying to catch and chime in with the ideas
of the Sub-Prior, “I have often thought the miller's folk at the
Monastery-mill were far over careless in sifting our melder, and in
bolting it too--some folk say they will not stick at whiles to put in a
handful of ashes amongst Christian folk's corn-meal.”
“That shall be looked after also, dame,” said the Sub-Prior, not
displeased to see that the good old woman went off on a false scent;
“and now, by your leave, I will see this lady--do you go before, and
prepare her to see me.”
Dame Glendinning left the lower apartment accordingly, which the monk
paced in anxious reflection, considering how he might best discharge,
with humanity as well as with effect, the important duty imposed on him.
He resolved to approach the bedside of the sick person with reprimands,
mitigated only by a feeling for her weak condition--he determined, in
case of her reply, to which late examples of hardened heretics might
encourage her, to be prepared with answers to the customary scruples.
High fraught, also, with zeal against her unauthorized intrusion into
the priestly function, by study of the Sacred Scriptures, he imagined
to himself the answers which one of the modern school of heresy might
return to him--the victorious refutation which should lay the disputant
prostrate at the Confessor's mercy--and the healing, yet awful
exhortation, which, under pain of refusing the last consolations of
religion, he designed to make to the penitent, conjuring her, as she
loved her own soul's welfare, to disclose to him what she knew of the
dark mystery of iniquity, by which heresies were introduced into the
most secluded spots of the very patrimony of the Church herself--what
agents they had who could thus glide, as it were unseen, from place to
place, bring back the volume which the Church had interdicted to the
spots from which it had been removed under her express auspices; and,
who, by encouraging the daring and profane thirst after knowledge
forbidden and useless to the laity, had encouraged the fisher of souls
to use with effect his old bait of ambition and vain-glory.
Much of this premeditated disputation escaped the good father, when
Elspeth returned, her tears flowing faster than her apron could dry
them, and made him a signal to follow her. “How,” said the monk, “is she
then so near her end?--nay, the Church must not break or bruise,
when comfort is yet possible;” and forgetting his polemics, the good
Sub-Prior hastened to the little apartment, where, on the wretched bed
which she had occupied since her misfortunes had driven her to the Tower
of Glendearg, the widow of Walter Avenel had rendered up her spirit
to her Creator. “My God!” said the Sub-Prior, “and has my unfortunate
dallying suffered her to depart without the Church's consolation! Look
to her, dame,” he exclaimed, with eager impatience; “is there not yet a
sparkle of the life left?--may she not be recalled--recalled but for
a moment?--Oh! would that she could express, but by the most imperfect
word--but by the most feeble motion, her acquiescence in the needful
task of penitential prayer!--Does she not breathe?--Art thou sure she
doth not?”
“She will never breathe more,” said the matron. “Oh! the poor fatherless
girl--now motherless also--Oh, the kind companion I have had these many
years, whom I shall never see again! But she is in heaven for certain,
if ever woman went there; for a woman of better life----”
“Wo to me,” said the good monk, “if indeed she went not hence in good
assurance--wo to the reckless shepherd, who suffered the wolf to carry
a choice one from the flock, while he busied himself with trimming
his sling and his staff to give the monster battle! Oh! if in the long
Hereafter, aught but weal should that poor spirit share, what has my
delay cost?--the value of an immortal soul!”
He then approached the body, full of the deep remorse natural to a
good man of his persuasion, who devoutly believed the doctrines of the
Catholic Church. “Ay,” said he, gazing on the pallid corpse, from which
the spirit had parted so placidly as to leave a smile upon the thin blue
lips, which had been so long wasted by decay that they had parted
with the last breath of animation without the slightest convulsive
tremor--“Ay,” said Father Eustace, “there lies the faded tree, and, as
it fell, so it lies--awful thought for me, should my neglect have left
it to descend in an evil direction!” He then again and again conjured
Dame Glendinning to tell him what she knew of the demeanour and ordinary
walk of the deceased.
All tended to the high honour of the deceased lady; for her companion,
who admired her sufficiently while alive, notwithstanding some trifling
points of jealousy, now idolized her after her death, and could think of
no attribute of praise with which she did not adorn her memory.
Indeed, the Lady of Avenel, however she might privately doubt some of
the doctrines announced by the Church of Rome, and although she had
probably tacitly appealed from that corrupted system of Christianity
to the volume on which Christianity itself is founded, had nevertheless
been regular in her attendance on the worship of the Church, not,
perhaps, extending her scruples so far as to break off communion. Such
indeed was the first sentiment of the earlier reformers, who seemed to
have studied, for a time at least, to avoid a schism, until the violence
of the Pope rendered it inevitable.
Father Eustace, on the present occasion, listened with eagerness to
everything which could lead to assure him of the lady's orthodoxy in the
main points of belief; for his conscience reproached him sorely, that,
instead of protracting conversation with the Dame of Glendearg, he had
not instantly hastened where his presence was so necessary. “If,” he
said, addressing the dead body, “thou art yet free from the utmost
penalty due to the followers of false doctrine--if thou dost but suffer
for a time, to expiate faults done in the body, but partaking of mortal
frailty more than of deadly sin, fear not that thy abode shall be long
in the penal regions to which thou mayest be doomed--if vigils--if
masses--if penance--if maceration of my body, till it resembles
that extenuated form which the soul hath abandoned, may assure thy
deliverance. The Holy Church--the godly foundation--our blessed
Patroness herself, shall intercede for one whose errors were
counter-balanced by so many virtues.--Leave me, dame--here, and by her
bed-side, will I perform those duties--which this piteous case demands!”
Elspeth left the monk, who employed himself in fervent and sincere,
though erroneous prayers, for the weal of the departed spirit. For an
hour he remained in the apartment of death, and then returned to the
hall, where he found the still weeping friend of the deceased.
But it would be injustice to Mrs. Glendinning's hospitality, if we
suppose her to have been weeping during this long interval, or rather if
we suppose her so entirely absorbed by the tribute of sorrow which she
paid frankly and plentifully to her deceased friend, as to be incapable
of attending to the rights of hospitality due to the holy visitor--who
was confessor at once, and Sub-Prior--mighty in all religious and
secular considerations, so far as the vassals of the Monastery were
interested.
Her barley-bread had been toasted--her choicest cask of home-brewed ale
had been broached--her best butter had been placed on the hall-table,
along with her most savoury ham, and her choicest cheese, ere she
abandoned herself to the extremity of sorrow; and it was not till she
had arranged her little repast neatly on the board, that she sat down in
the chimney corner, threw her checked apron over her head, and gave
way to the current of tears and sobs. In this there was no grimace
or affectation. The good dame held the honours of her house to be as
essential a duty, especially when a monk was her visitant, as any
other pressing call upon her conscience; nor until these were suitably
attended to did she find herself at liberty to indulge her sorrow for
her departed friend.
When she was conscious of the Sub-Prior's presence, she rose with the
same attention to his reception; but he declined all the offers of
hospitality with which she endeavoured to tempt him. Not her butter,
as yellow as gold, and the best, she assured him, that was made in the
patrimony of St. Mary--not the barley scones, which “the departed saint,
God sain her! used to say were so good”--not the ale, nor any other
cates which poor Elspeth's stores afforded, could prevail on the
Sub-Prior to break his fast. “This day,” he said, “I must not taste
food until the sun go down, happy if, in so doing, I can expiate my own
negligence--happier still, if my sufferings of this trifling nature,
undertaken in pure faith and singleness of heart, may benefit the soul
of the deceased. Yet, dame,” he added, “I may not so far forget the
living in my cares for the dead, as to leave behind me that book, which
is to the ignorant what, to our first parents, the tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil unhappily proved-excellent indeed in itself, but fatal
because used by those to whom it is prohibited.”
“Oh, blithely, reverend father,” said the widow of Simon Glendinning,
“will I give you the book, if so be I can while it from the bairns; and
indeed, poor things, as the case stands with them even now, you might
take the heart out of their bodies, and they never find it out, they are
sae begrutten.” [Footnote: _Begrutten_--over-weeped]
“Give them this missal instead, good dame,” said the father, drawing
from his pocket one which was curiously illuminated with paintings, “and
I will come myself, or send one at a fitting time, and teach them the
meaning of these pictures.”
“The bonny images!” said Dame Glendinning, forgetting for an instant
her grief in her admiration, “and weel I wot,” added she, “it is another
sort of a book than the poor Lady of Avenel's; and blessed might we have
been this day, if your reverence had found the way up the glen, instead
of Father Philip, though the Sacristan is a powerful man too, and speaks
as if he would ger the house fly abroad, save that the walls are gey
thick. Simon's forebears (may he and they be blessed!) took care of
that.”
The monk ordered his mule, and was about to take his leave; and the good
dame was still delaying him with questions about the funeral, when a
horseman, armed and accoutred, rode into the little court-yard which
surrounded the Keep.
Chapter the Ninth.
For since they rode among our doors
With splent on spauld and rusty spurs,
There grows no fruit into our furs;
Thus said John Up-on-land.
DANNATYNE MS.
The Scottish laws, which were as wisely and judiciously made as they
were carelessly and ineffectually executed, had in vain endeavoured
to restrain the damage done to agriculture, by the chiefs and landed
proprietors retaining in their service what were called jack-men, from
the _jack_, or doublet, quilted with iron which they wore as defensive
armour. These military retainers conducted themselves with great
insolence towards the industrious part of the community--lived in a
great measure by plunder, and were ready to execute any commands of
their master, however unlawful. In adopting this mode of life, men
resigned the quiet hopes and regular labours of industry, for an
unsettled, precarious, and dangerous trade, which yet had such charms
for those once accustomed to it, that they became incapable of following
any other. Hence the complaint of John Upland, a fictitious character,
representing a countryman, into whose mouth the poets of the day put
their general satires upon men and manners.
They ride about in such a rage,
By forest, frith, and field,
With buckler, bow, and brand.
Lo! where they ride out through the rye!
The Devil mot save the company,
Quoth John Up-on-land.
Christie of the Clinthill, the horseman who now arrived at the little
Tower of Glendearg, was one of the hopeful company of whom the poet
complains, as was indicated by his “splent on spauld,” (iron-plates on
his shoulder,) his rusted spurs, and his long lance. An iron skull-cap,
none of the brightest, bore for distinction a sprig of the holly, which
was Avenel's badge. A long two-edged straight sword, having a handle
made of polished oak, hung down by his side. The meagre condition of
his horse, and the wild and emaciated look of the rider, showed their
occupation could not be accounted an easy or a thriving one. He saluted
Dame Glendinning with little courtesy, and the monk with less; for the
growing, disrespect to the religious orders had not failed to extend
itself among a class of men of such disorderly habits, although it may
be supposed they were tolerably indifferent alike to the new or the
ancient doctrines.
“So, our lady is dead, Dame Glendinning?” said the jack-man; “my master
has sent you even now a fat bullock for her mart--it may serve for
her funeral. I have left him in the upper cleugh, as he is somewhat
kenspeckle, [Footnote: _Kenspeckle_--that which is easily recognized
by the eye.] and is marked both with cut and birn--the sooner the
skin is off, and he is in saultfat, the less like you are to have
trouble--you understand me? Let me have a peck of corn for my horse, and
beef and beer for myself, for I must go on to the Monastery--though I
think this monk hero might do mine errand.”
“Thine errand, rude man!” said the Sub-Prior, knitting his brows--
“For God's sake” cried poor Dame Glendinning, terrified at the idea of
a quarrel between them,--“O Christie!---it is the Sub-Prior--O reverend
sir, it is Christie of the Clinthill, the laird's chief jack-man; ye
know that little havings can be expected from the like o' them.”
“Are you a retainer of the Laird of Avenel?” said the monk, addressing
himself to the horseman, “and do you speak thus rudely to a Brother of
Saint Mary's, to whom thy master is so much beholden?”
“He means to be yet more beholden to your house, Sir Monk,” answered the
fellow; “for hearing his sister-in-law, the widow of Walter of Avenel,
was on her death-bed, he sent me to say to the Father Abbot and the
brethren, that he will hold the funeral-feast at their convent, and
invites himself thereto, with a score of horse and some friends, and
to abide there for three days and three nights,--having horse-meat and
men's-meat at the charge of the community; of which his intention he
sends due notice, that fitting preparation may be timeously made.”
“Friend,” said the Sub-Prior, “believe not that I will do to the Father
Abbot the indignity of delivering such an errand.--Think'st thou the
goods of the church were bestowed upon her by holy princes and pious
nobles, now dead and gone, to be consumed in revelry by every profligate
layman who numbers in his train more followers than he can support
by honest means, or by his own incomings? Tell thy master, from the
Sub-Prior of Saint Mary's, that the Primate hath issued his commands to
us that we submit no longer to this compulsory exaction of hospitality
on slight or false pretences. Our lands and goods were given to relieve
pilgrims and pious persons, not to feast bands of rude soldiers.”
“This to me!” said the angry spearman, “this to me and to my
master--Look to yourself then, Sir Priest, and try if _Ave_ and _Credo_
will keep bullocks from wandering, and hay-stacks from burning.”
“Dost thou menace the Holy Church's patrimony with waste and
fire-raising,” said the Sub-Prior, “and that in the face of the sun? I
call on all who hear me to bear witness to the words this ruffian has
spoken. Remember how the Lord James drowned such as you by scores in the
black pool at Jeddart.-To him and to the Primate will I complain.” The
soldier shifted the position of his lance, and brought it down to a
level with the monk's body.
Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. “Tibb Tacket! Martin!
where be ye all?--Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man of
Holy Kirk!”
“I care not for his spear,” said the Sub-Prior; “if I am slain in
defending the rights and privileges of my community, the Primate will
know how to take vengeance.”
“Let him look to himself,” said Christie, but at the same time
depositing his lance against the wall of the tower; “if the Fife men
spoke true who came hither with the Governor in the last raid, Norman
Leslie has him at feud, and is like to set him hard. We know Norman a
true bloodhound, who will never quit the slot. But I had no design to
offend the holy father,” he added, thinking perhaps he had gone a little
too far; “I am a rude man, bred to lance and stirrup, and not used to
deal with book-learned men and priests; and I am willing to ask his
forgiveness--and his blessing, if I have said aught amiss.”
“For God's sake! your reverence,” said the widow of Glendearg apart to
the Sub-Prior, “bestow on him your forgiveness--how shall we poor folk
sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with
such men as he is?”
“You are right, dame,” said the Sub-Prior, “your safety should, and must
be, in the first instance consulted.--Soldier, I forgive thee, and may
God bless thee and send thee honesty.”
Christie of the Clinthill made an unwilling inclination with his
head, and muttered apart, “that is as much as to say, God send thee
starvation, But now to my master's demand, Sir Priest? What answer am I
to return?”
“That the body of the widow of Walter of Avenel,” answered the Father,
“shall be interred as becomes her rank, and in the tomb of her valiant
husband. For your master's proffered visit of three days, with such
a company and retinue, I have no authority to reply to it; you must
intimate your Chief's purpose to the Reverend Lord Abbot.”
“That will cost me a farther ride,” said the man, “but it is all in the
day's work.--How now, my lad,” said he to Halbert, who was handling
the long lance which he had laid aside; “how do you like such a
plaything?--will you go with me and be a moss-trooper?”
“The Saints in their mercy forbid!” said the poor mother; and then,
afraid of having displeased Christie by the vivacity of her exclamation,
she followed it up by explaining, that since Simon's death she could
not look on a spear or a bow, or any implement of destruction without
trembling.
“Pshaw!” answered Christie, “thou shouldst take another husband, dame,
and drive such follies out of thy thoughts--what sayst thou to such a
strapping lad as I? Why, this old tower of thine is fensible enough, and
there is no want of clenchs, and crags, and bogs, and thickets, if one
was set hard; a man might bide here and keep his half-score of lads, and
as many geldings, and live on what he could lay his hand on, and be kind
to thee, old wench.”
“Alas! Master Christie,” said the matron, “that you should talk to a
lone woman in such a fashion, and death in the house besides!”
“Lone woman!--why, that is the very reason thou shouldst take a mate.
Thy old friend is dead, why, good--choose thou another of somewhat
tougher frame, and that will not die of the pip like a young
chicken.--Better still--Come, dame, let me have something to eat, and we
will talk more of this.”
Dame Elspeth, though she well knew the character of the man, whom in
fact she both disliked and feared, could not help simpering at the
personal address which he thought proper to make to her. She whispered
to the Sub-Prior, “ony thing just to keep him quiet,” and went into the
tower to set before the soldier the food he desired, trusting betwixt
good cheer and the power of her own charms, to keep Christie of the
Clinthill so well amused, that the altercation betwixt him and the holy
father should not be renewed.
The Sub-Prior was equally unwilling to hazard any unnecessary rupture
between the community and such a person as Julian of Avenel. He was
sensible that moderation, as well as firmness, was necessary to support
the tottering cause of the Church of Rome; and that, contrary to former
times, the quarrels betwixt the clergy and laity had, in the present,
usually terminated to the advantage of the latter. He resolved,
therefore, to avoid farther strife by withdrawing, but failed not, in
the first place, to possess himself of the volume which the Sacristan
carried off the evening before, and which had been returned to the glen
in such a marvellous manner.
Edward, the younger of Dame Elspeth's boys, made great objections to the
book's being removed, in which Mary would probably have joined, but that
she was now in her little sleeping-chamber with Tibb, who was exerting
her simple skill to console the young lady for her mother's death. But
the younger Glendinning stood up in defence of her property, and, with a
positiveness which had hitherto made no part of his character, declared,
that now the kind lady was dead, the book was Mary's, and no one but
Mary should have it.
“But if it is not a fit book for Mary to read, my dear boy,” said the
father, gently, “you would not wish it to remain with her?”
“The lady read it,” answered the young champion of property; “and so it
could not be wrong--it shall not be taken away.--I wonder where Halbert
is?--listening to the bravading tales of gay Christie, I reckon,--he is
always wishing for fighting, and now he is out of the way.”
“Why, Edward, you would not fight with me, who am both a priest and old
man?”
“If you were as good a priest as the Pope,” said the boy, “and as old
as the hills to boot, you shall not carry away Mary's book without her
leave. I will do battle for it.”
“But see you, my love,” said the monk, amused with the resolute
friendship manifested by the boy, “I do not take it; I only borrow it;
and I leave in its place my own gay missal, as a pledge I will bring it
again.”
Edward opened the missal with eager curiosity, and glanced at
the pictures with which it was illustrated. “Saint George and the
dragon--Halbert will like that; and Saint Michael brandishing his sword
over the head of the Wicked One--and that will do for Halbert too. And
see the Saint John leading his lamb in the wilderness, with his
little cross made of reeds, and his scrip and staff--that shall be
my favourite; and where shall we find one for poor Mary?--here is a
beautiful woman weeping and lamenting herself.”
“This is Saint Mary Magdalen repenting of her sins, my dear boy,” said
the father.
“That will not suit _our_ Mary; for she commits no faults, and is never
angry with us, but when we do something wrong.”
“Then,” said the father, “I will show you a Mary, who will protect her
and you, and all good children. See how fairly she is represented, with
her gown covered with golden stars.”
The boy was lost in wonder at the portrait of the Virgin, which the
Sub-Prior turned up to him.
“This,” he said, “is really like our sweet Mary; and I think I will let
you take away the black book, that has no such goodly shows in it, and
leave this for Mary instead. But you must promise to bring back the
book, good father--for now I think upon it, Mary may like that best
which was her mother's.”
“I will certainly return,” said the monk, evading his answer, “and
perhaps I may teach you to write and read such beautiful letters as you
see there written, and to paint them blue, green, and yellow, and to
blazon them with gold.”
“Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially
these two Marys?” said the boy.
“With their blessing,” said the Sub-Prior, “I can teach you that art
too, so far as I am myself capable of showing, and you of learning it.”
“Then,” said Edward, “will I paint Mary's picture--and remember you are
to bring back the black book; that you must promise me.”
The Sub-Prior, anxious to get rid of the boy's pertinacity, and to
set forward on his return to the convent, without having any further
interview with Christie the galloper, answered by giving the promise
Edward required, mounted his mule, and set forth on his return homeward.
The November day was well spent ere the Sub-Prior resumed his journey;
for the difficulty of the road, and the various delays which he had met
with at the tower, had detained him longer than he proposed. A chill
easterly wind was sighing among the withered leaves, and stripping them
from the hold they had yet retained on the parent trees.
“Even so,” said the monk, “our prospects in this vale of time grow more
disconsolate as the stream of years passes on. Little have I gained by
my journey, saving the certainty that heresy is busy among us with more
than his usual activity, and that the spirit of insulting religious
orders, and plundering the Church's property, so general in the eastern
districts of Scotland, has now come nearer home.”
The tread of a horse which came up behind him, interrupted his reverie,
and he soon saw he was mounted by the same wild rider whom he had left
at the tower.
“Good even, my son, and benedicite,” said the Sub-Prior as he passed;
but the rude soldier scarce acknowledged the greeting, by bending his
head; and dashing the spurs into his horse, went on at a pace which soon
left the monk and his mule far behind. And there, thought the Sub-Prior,
goes another plague of the times--a fellow whose birth designed him
to cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and
unchristian divisions of the country, into a daring and dissolute
robber. The barons of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and
ruffians, oppressing the poor by violence, and wasting the Church, by
extorting free-quarters from abbeys and priories, without either shame
or reason. I fear me I shall be too late to counsel the Abbot to make a
stand against these daring _sorners_ [Footnote: To _sorne_, in Scotland,
is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is
declared equivalent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The
great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very much by exactions of
this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of
Angus, I think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once
a year, with a train of a thousand horse, and abiding till the whole
winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.]--“I must make haste.”
He struck his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of
mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from the path, and the
rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.
“Art thou, too, infected with the spirit of the times?” said the
Sub-Prior; “thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as
restive as any wild jack-man or stubborn heretic of them all.”
While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of
a female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,
“Good evening-. Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill.
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
The volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back.”
The Sub-Prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which
could conceal an ambushed songstress. “May Our Lady have mercy on me!”
he said; “I trust my senses have not forsaken me--yet how my thoughts
should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music which
I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice
in ears, in which its melody has been so long indifferent, baffles my
comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the Sacristan.
Come, good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our
judgment serves us.”
But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed from the
point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid
close into her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets,
testified that she was under great terror.
While the Sub-Prior, by alternate threats and soothing, endeavoured to
reclaim the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again
heard close beside him.
“What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here
To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier?
Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise,
Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize.
Back, back.
There's death in the track!
In the name of my master I bid thee bear back.”
“In the name of MY Master,” said the astonished monk, “that name before
which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art
that hauntest me thus?”
The same voice replied,
“That which is neither ill nor well.
That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell,
A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,
'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream;
A form that men spy
With the half-shut eye.
In the beams of the setting sun, am I.”
“This is more than simple fantasy,” said the Sub-Prior, rousing himself;
though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the
sensible presence of a supernatural being so near him, failed not to
make his blood run cold, and his hair bristle. “I charge thee,” he said
aloud, “be thine errand what it will, to depart and trouble me no
more! False spirit, thou canst not appal any save those who do the work
negligently.” The voice immediately answered:
“Vainly, Sir Prior, wouldst thou bar me my right!
Like the star when it shoots, I can dart through the night;
I can dance on the torrent and ride on the air,
And travel the world with the bonny night-mare.
Again, again,
At the crook of the glen,
Where bickers the burnie, I'll meet thee again.”
The road was now apparently left open; for the mule collected herself,
and changed from her posture of terror to one which promised advance,
although a profuse perspiration, and general trembling of the joints,
indicated the bodily terror she had undergone.
“I used to doubt the existence of Cabalists and Rosicrucians,” thought
the Sub-Prior, “but, by my Holy Order, I know no longer what to say!--My
pulse beats temperately--my hand is cool--I am fasting from everything
but sin, and possessed of my ordinary faculties--Either some fiend is
permitted to bewilder me, or the tales of Cornelius Agrippa,
Paracelsus, and others who treat of occult philosophy, are not without
foundation.--At the crook of the glen? I could have desired to avoid a
second meeting, but I am on the service of the Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against me.”
He moved around accordingly, but with precaution, and not without fear;
for he neither knew the manner in which, or the place where his journey
might be next interrupted by his invisible attendant. He descended the
glen without interruption for about a mile farther, when, just at the
spot where the brook approached the steep hill, with a winding so
abrupt as to leave scarcely room for a horse to pass, the mule was again
visited with the same symptoms of terror which had before interrupted
her course. Better acquainted than before with the cause of her
restiveness, the Priest employed no effort to make her proceed, but
addressed himself to the object, which he doubted not was the same that
had formerly interrupted him, in the words of solemn exorcism prescribed
by the Church of Rome on such occasions.