"I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,"
answered the secular officer of the Church.

"Thou art thyself as strong a thief as ever rode," retorted Christie;
"and if the worms were once feasting on that fat carcass of thine I
might well hope to have thine office, by favour of these reverend
men."

"A cast of their office, and a cast of mine," answered the bailie; "a
cord and a confessor, that is all thou wilt have from us."

"Sirs," said the Sub-Prior, observing that his brethren began to take
more interest than was exactly decorous in this wrangling betwixt
justice and iniquity, "I pray you both to depart--Master Bailie,
retire with your halberdiers, and trouble not the man whom we have
dismissed.--And thou, Christie, or whatever be thy name, take thy
departure, and remember thou owest thy life to the Lord Abbot's
clemency."

"Nay, as to that," answered Christie, "I judge that I owe it to your
own; but impute it to whom ye list, I owe a life among ye, and there is
an end." And whistling as he went, he left the apartment, seeming as if
he held the life which he had forfeited not worthy further thanks.

"Obstinate even to brutality!" said Father Eustace; "and yet who
knows but some better ore may lie under so rude an exterior?"

"Save a thief from the gallows," said the Sacristan--"you know the rest
of the proverb; and admitting, as may Heaven grant, that our lives and
limbs are safe from this outrageous knave, who shall insure our meal and
our malt, our herds and our flocks?"

"Marry, that will I, my brethren," said an aged monk. "Ah, brethren,
you little know what may be made of a repentant robber. In Abbot
Ingilram's days--ay, and I remember them as it were yesterday--the
freebooters were the best welcome men that came to Saint Mary's. Ay,
they paid tithe of every drove that they brought over from the South,
and because they were something lightly come by, I have known them
make the tithe a seventh--that is, if their confessor knew his
business--ay, when we saw from the tower a score of fat bullocks, or a
drove of sheep, coming down the valley, with two or three stout
men-at-arms behind them with their glittering steel caps, and their
black-jacks, and their long lances, the good Lord Abbot Ingilram was
wont to say--he was a merry man--there come the tithes of the spoilers
of the Egyptians! Ay, and I have seen the famous John the Armstrang--a
fair man he was and a goodly, the more pity that hemp was ever heckled
for him--I have seen him come into the Abbey-church with nine tassels
of gold in his bonnet, and every tassel made of nine English nobles,
and he would go from chapel to chapel, and from image to image, and
from altar to altar, on his knees--and leave here a tassel, and there
a noble, till there was as little gold on his bonnet as on my
hood--you will find no such Border thieves now!"

"No, truly, Brother Nicolas," answered the Abbot; "they are more apt
to take any gold the Church has left, than to bequeath or bestow
any--and for cattle, beshrew me if I think they care whether beeves
have fed on the meadows of Lanercost Abbey or of Saint Mary's!"

"There is no good thing left in them," said Father Nicolas; "they are
clean naught--Ah, the thieves that I have seen!--such proper men! and
as pitiful as proper, and as pious as pitiful!"

"It skills not talking of it, Brother Nicolas," said the Abbot; "and I
will now dismiss you, my brethren, holding your meeting upon this our
inquisition concerning the danger of our reverend Sub-Prior, instead
of the attendance on the lauds this evening--Yet let the bells be duly
rung for the edification of the laymen without, and also that the
novices may give due reverence.--And now, benedicite, brethren! The
cellarer will bestow on each a grace-cup and a morsel as ye pass the
buttery, for ye have been turmoiled and anxious, and dangerous it is
to fall asleep in such case with empty stomach."

"_Gratias agimus quam maximas, Domine reverendissime_," replied the
brethren, departing in their due order.

But the Sub-Prior remained behind, and falling on his knees before the
Abbot, as he was about to withdraw, craved him to hear under the seal
of confession the adventures of the day. The reverend Lord Abbot
yawned, and would have alleged fatigue; but to Father Eustace, of all
men, he was ashamed to show indifference in his religious duties. The
confession, therefore, proceeded, in which Father Eustace told all the
extraordinary circumstances which had befallen him during the journey.
And being questioned by the Abbot, whether he was not conscious of any
secret sin, through which he might have been subjected for a time to
the delusions of evil spirits, the Sub-Prior admitted, with frank
avowal, that he thought he might have deserved such penance for having
judged with unfraternal rigour of the report of Father Philip the
Sacristan.

"Heaven," said the penitent, "may have been willing to convince me,
not only that he can at pleasure open a communication betwixt us and
beings of a different, and, as we word it, supernatural class, but
also to punish our pride of superior wisdom, or superior courage, or
superior learning."

It is well said that virtue is its own reward; and I question if duty
was ever more completely recompensed, than by the audience which the
reverend Abbot so unwillingly yielded to the confession of the
Sub-Prior. To find the object of his fear shall we say, or of his
envy, or of both, accusing himself of the very error with which he had
so tacitly charged him, was a corroboration of the Abbot's judgment, a
soothing of his pride, and an allaying of his fears. The sense of
triumph, however, rather increased than diminished his natural
good-humour; and so far was Abbot Boniface from being disposed to
tyrannize over his Sub-Prior in consequence of this discovery, that in
his exhortation he hovered somewhat ludicrously betwixt the natural
expression of his own gratified vanity, and his timid reluctance to
hurt the feelings of Father Eustace.

"My brother," said he, _ex cathedra_, "it cannot have escaped
your judicious observation, that we have often declined our own
judgment in favour of your opinion, even about those matters which
most nearly concerned the community. Nevertheless, grieved would we
be, could you think that we did this, either because we deemed our own
opinion less pregnant, or our wit more shallow, than that of our
brethren. For it was done exclusively to give our younger brethren,
such as your much esteemed self, my dearest brother, that courage
which is necessary to a free deliverance of your opinion,--we ofttimes
setting apart our proper judgment, that our inferiors, and especially
our dear brother the Sub-Prior, may be comforted and encouraged in
proposing valiantly his own thoughts.  Which our deference and
humility may, in some sort, have produced in your mind, most reverend
brother, that self-opinion of parts and knowledge, which hath led
unfortunately to your over-estimating your own faculties, and thereby
subjecting yourself, as is but too visible, to the japes and mockeries
of evil spirits.  For it is assured that Heaven always holdeth us in
the least esteem when we deem of ourselves most highly, and also, on
the other hand, it may be that we have somewhat departed from what
became our high seat in this Abbey, in suffering ourselves to be too
much guided, and even, as it were, controlled, by the voice of our
inferior. Wherefore," continued the Lord Abbot, "in both of us such
faults shall and must be amended--you hereafter presuming less upon
your gifts and carnal wisdom, and I taking heed not so easily to
relinquish mine own opinion for that of one lower in place and in
office. Nevertheless, we would not that we should thereby lose the
high advantage which we have derived, and may yet derive, from your
wise counsels, which hath been so often recommended to us by our most
reverend Primate. Wherefore, on affairs of high moment, we will call
you to our presence in private, and listen to your opinion, which, if
it shall agree with our own, we will deliver to the Chapter as
emanating directly from ourselves; thus sparing you, dearest brother,
that seeming victory which is so apt to engender spiritual pride, and
avoiding ourselves the temptation of falling into that modest facility
of opinion, whereby our office is lessened and our person (were that
of consequence) rendered less important in the eyes of the community
over which we preside."

Notwithstanding the high notions which, as a rigid Catholic, Father
Eustace entertained of the sacrament of confession, as his Church
calls it, there was some danger that a sense of the ridiculous might
have stolen on him, when he heard his Superior, with such simple
cunning, lay out a little plan for availing himself of the Sub-Prior's
wisdom and experience, while he should take the whole credit to
himself. Yet his conscience immediately told him he was right.

"I should have thought more," he reflected, "of the spiritual
Superior, and less of the individual. I should have spread my mantle
over the frailties of my spiritual father, and done what I might to
support his character, and, of course, to extend his utility among the
brethren, as well as with others. The Abbot cannot be humbled, but
what the community must be humbled in his person. Her boast is, that
over all her children, especially over those called to places of
distinction, she can diffuse those gifts which are necessary to render
them illustrious."

Actuated by these sentiments, Father Eustace frankly assented to the
charge which his Superior, even in that moment of authority, had
rather intimated than made, and signified his humble acquiescence in
any mode of communicating his counsel which might be most agreeable to
the Lord Abbot, and might best remove from himself all temptation to
glory in his own wisdom. He then prayed the reverend Father to assign
him such penance as might best suit his offence, intimating, at the
same time, that he had already fasted the whole day.

"And it is that I complain of," answered the Abbot, instead of giving
him credit for his abstinence; "it is these very penances, fasts, and
vigils, of which we complain; as tending only to generate airs and
fumes of vanity, which, ascending from the stomach into the head, do
but puff us up with vain-glory and self-opinion. It is meet and
beseeming that novices should undergo fasts and vigils; for some part
of every community must fast, and young stomachs may best endure it.
Besides, in them it abates wicked thoughts, and the desire of worldly
delights. But, reverend brother, for those to fast who are dead and
mortified to the world, as I and thou, is work of supererogation, and
is but the matter of spiritual pride. Wherefore, I enjoin thee, most
reverend brother, go to the buttery and drink two cups at least of
good wine, eating withal a comfortable morsel, such as may best suit
thy taste and stomach. And in respect that thine opinion of thy own
wisdom hath at times made thee less conformable to, and companionable
with, the weaker and less learned brethren, I enjoin thee, during the
said repast, to choose for thy companion, our reverend brother
Nicolas, and without interruption or impatience, to listen for a
stricken hour to his narration, concerning those things which befel in
the times of our venerable predecessor, Abbot Ingilram, on whose soul
may Heaven have mercy! And for such holy exercises as may farther
advantage your soul, and expiate the faults whereof you have
contritely and humbly avowed yourself guilty, we will ponder upon that
matter, and announce our will unto you the next morning."

It was remarkable, that after this memorable evening, the feelings of
the worthy Abbot towards his adviser were much more kindly and
friendly than when he deemed the Sub-Prior the impeccable and
infallible person, in whose garment of virtue and wisdom no flaw was
to be discerned. It seemed as if this avowal of his own imperfections
had recommended Father Eustace to the friendship of the Superior,
although at the same time this increase of benevolence was attended
with some circumstances, which, to a man of the Sub-Prior's natural
elevation of mind and temper, were more grievous than even undergoing
the legends of the dull and verbose Father Nicolas. For instance, the
Abbot seldom mentioned him to the other monks, without designing him
our beloved Brother Eustace, poor man!--and now and then he used to
warn the younger brethren against the snares of vainglory and
spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more rigidly righteous, with
such looks and demonstrations as did all but expressly designate the
Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time under such delusions. Upon
these occasions, it required all the votive obedience of a monk, all
the philosophical discipline of the schools, and all the patience of a
Christian, to enable Father Eustace to endure the pompous and
patronizing parade of his honest, but somewhat thick-headed Superior.
He began himself to be desirous of leaving the Monastery, or at least
he manifestly declined to interfere with its affairs, in that marked
and authoritative manner, which he had at first practised.


       *       *       *       *       *

Chapter the Eleventh.


    You call this education, do you not?
    Why 'tis the forced march of a herd of bullocks
    Before a shouting drover. The glad van
    Move on at ease, and pause a while to snatch
    A passing morsel from the dewy greensward,
    While all the blows, the oaths, the indignation,
    Fall on the croupe of the ill-fated laggard
    That cripples in the rear.
                                          OLD PLAY.

Two or three years glided on, during which the storm of the
approaching alteration in church government became each day louder and
more perilous. Owing to the circumstances which we have intimated in
the end of the last chapter, the Sub-Prior Eustace appeared to have
altered considerably his habits of life. He afforded, on all
extraordinary occasions, to the Abbot, whether privately, or in the
assembled Chapter, the support of his wisdom and experience; but in
his ordinary habits he seemed now to live more for himself, and less
for the community, than had been his former practice.

He often absented himself for whole days from the convent; and as the
adventure of Glendearg dwelt deeply on his memory, he was repeatedly
induced to visit that lonely tower, and to take an interest in the
orphans who had their shelter under its roof. Besides, he felt a deep
anxiety to know whether the volume which he had lost, when so
strangely preserved from the lance of the murderer, had again found
its way back to the Tower of Glendearg. "It was strange," he thought,
"that a spirit," for such he could not help judging the being whose
voice he had heard, "should, on the one side, seek the advancement of
heresy, and, on the other, interpose to save the life of a zealous
Catholic priest."

But from no inquiry which he made of the various inhabitants of the
Tower of Glendearg could he learn that the copy of the translated
Scriptures, for which he made such diligent inquiry, had again been
seen by any of them.

In the meanwhile, the good father's occasional visits were of no small
consequence to Edward Glendinning and to Mary Avenel. The former
displayed a power of apprehending and retaining whatever was taught
him, which tilled Father Eustace with admiration. He was at once acute
and industrious, alert and accurate; one of those rare combinations of
talent and industry, which are seldom united.

It was the earnest desire of Father Eustace that the excellent
qualities thus early displayed by Edward should be dedicated to the
service of the Church, to which he thought the youth's own consent
might be easily obtained, as he was of a calm, contemplative, retired
habit, and seemed to consider knowledge as the principal object, and
its enlargement as the greatest pleasure, in life. As to the mother,
the Sub-Prior had little doubt that, trained as she was to view the
monks of Saint Mary's with such profound reverence, she would be but
too happy in an opportunity of enrolling one of her sons in its
honoured community. But the good Father proved to be mistaken in both
these particulars.

When he spoke to Elspeth Glendinning of that which a mother best loves
to hear--the proficiency and abilities of her son--she listened with a
delighted ear. But when Father Eustace hinted at the duty of
dedicating to the service of the Church, talents which seemed fitted
to defend and adorn it, the dame endeavoured always to shift the
subject; and when pressed farther, enlarged on her own incapacity, as
a lone woman, to manage the feu; on the advantage which her neighbours
of the township were often taking of her unprotected state, and on the
wish she had that Edward might fill his father's place, remain in the
tower, and close her eyes.

On such occasions the Sub-Prior would answer, that even in a worldly
point of view the welfare of the family would be best consulted by one
of the sons entering into the community of Saint Mary's, as it was not
to be supposed that he would fail to afford his family the important
protection which he could then easily extend towards them. What could
be a more pleasing prospect than to see him high in honour? or what
more sweet than to have the last duties rendered to her by a son,
reverend for his holiness of life and exemplary manners? Besides, he
endeavoured to impress upon the dame, that her eldest son, Halbert,
whose bold temper and headstrong indulgence of a wandering humour,
rendered him incapable of learning, was, for that reason, as well as
that he was her eldest born, fittest to bustle through the affairs of
the world, and manage the little fief.

Elspeth durst not directly dissent from what was proposed, for fear of
giving displeasure, and yet she always had something to say against it.
Halbert, she said, was not like any of the neighbour boys--he was
taller by the head, and stronger by the half, than any boy of his
years within the Halidome. But he was fit for no peaceful work that
could be devised.  If he liked a book ill, he liked a plough or a
pattle worse. He had scoured his father's old broadsword--suspended it
by a belt round his waist, and seldom stirred without it. He was a
sweet boy and a gentle if spoken fair, but cross him and he was a born
devil. "In a word," she said, bursting into tears, "deprive me of
Edward, good father, and ye bereave my house of prop and pillar; for
my heart tells me that Halbert will take to his father's gates, and
die his father's death."

When the conversation came to this crisis, the good-humoured monk was
always content to drop the discussion for the time, trusting some
opportunity would occur of removing her prejudices, for such he
thought them, against Edward's proposed destination.

When, leaving the mother, the Sub-Prior addressed himself to the son,
animating his zeal for knowledge, and pointing out how amply it might
be gratified should he agree to take holy orders, he found the same
repugnance which Dame Elspeth had exhibited. Edward pleaded a want of
sufficient vocation to so serious a profession--his reluctance to
leave his mother, and other objections, which the Sub-Prior treated as
evasive.

"I plainly perceive," he said one day, in answer to them, "that the
devil has his factors as well as Heaven, and that they are equally,
or, alas! the former are perhaps more active, in bespeaking for their
master the first of the market. I trust, young man, that neither
idleness, nor licentious pleasure, nor the love of worldly gain and
worldly grandeur, the chief baits with which the great Fisher of souls
conceals his hook, are the causes of your declining the career to
which I would incite you. But above all I trust--above all I
hope--that the vanity of superior knowledge--a sin with which those
who have made proficiency in learning are most frequently beset--has
not led you into the awful hazard of listening to the dangerous
doctrines which are now afloat concerning religion. Better for you
that you were as grossly ignorant as the beasts which perish, that
that the pride of knowledge should induce you to lend an ear to the
voice of heretics." Edward Glendinning listened to the rebuke with a
downcast look, and failed not, when it was concluded, earnestly to
vindicate himself from the charge of having pushed his studies into
any subjects which the Church inhibited; and so the monk was left to
form vain conjectures respecting the cause of his reluctance to
embrace the monastic state.

It is an old proverb, used by Chaucer, and quoted by Elizabeth, that
"the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;" and it is as true as if
the poet had not rhymed, or the queen reasoned on it. If Father
Eustace had not had his thoughts turned so much to the progress of
heresy, and so little to what was passing in the tower, he might have
read, in the speaking eyes of Mary Avenel, now a girl of fourteen or
fifteen, reasons which might disincline her youthful companion towards
the monastic vows. I have said, that she also was a promising pupil of
the good father, upon whom her innocent and infantine beauty had an
effect of which he was himself, perhaps, unconscious. Her rank and
expectations entitled her to be taught the arts of reading and
writing;--and each lesson which the monk assigned her was conned over
in company with Edward, and by him explained and re-explained, and
again illustrated, until she became perfectly mistress of it.

In the beginning of their studies, Halbert had been their school
companion.  But the boldness and impatience of his disposition soon
quarrelled with an occupation in which, without assiduity and
unremitted attention, no progress was to be expected. The Sub-Prior's
visits were at regular intervals, and often weeks would intervene
between them, in which case Halbert was sure to forget all that had
been prescribed for him to learn, and much which he had partly
acquired before. His deficiencies on these occasions gave him pain,
but it was not of that sort which produces amendment.

For a time, like all who are fond of idleness, he endeavoured to
detach the attention of his brother and Mary Avenel from their task,
rather than to learn his own, and such dialogues as the following
would ensue:

"Take your bonnet, Edward, and make haste--the Laird of Colmslie is
at the head of the glen with his hounds."

"I care not, Halbert," answered the younger brother; "two brace of dogs
may kill a deer without my being there to see them, and I must help Mary
Avenel with her lesson."

"Ay! you will labour at the monk's lessons till you turn monk yourself,"
answered Halbert.--"Mary, will you go with me, and I will show you the
cushat's nest I told you of?"

"I cannot go with you, Halbert," answered Mary, "because I must study
this lesson--it will take me long to learn it--I am sorry I am so
dull, for if I could get my task as fast as Edward, I should like to
go with you."

"Should you indeed?" said Halbert; "then I will wait for you--and,
what is more, I will try to get my lesson also."

With a smile and a sigh he took up the primer, and began heavily to
con over the task which had been assigned him. As if banished from the
society of the two others, he sat sad and solitary in one of the deep
window-recesses, and after in vain struggling with the difficulties of
his task, and his disinclination to learn it, he found himself
involuntarily engaged in watching the movements of the other two
students, instead of toiling any longer.

The picture which Halbert looked upon was delightful in itself, but
somehow or other it afforded very little pleasure to him. The
beautiful girl, with looks of simple, yet earnest anxiety, was bent on
disentangling those intricacies which obstructed her progress to
knowledge, and looking ever and anon to Edward for assistance, while,
seated close by her side, and watchful to remove every obstacle from
her way, he seemed at once to be proud of the progress which his pupil
made, and of the assistance which he was able to render her. There was
a bond betwixt them, a strong and interesting tie, the desire of
obtaining knowledge, the pride of surmounting difficulties.

Feeling most acutely, yet ignorant of the nature and source of his own
emotions, Halbert could no longer endure to look upon this quiet
scene, but, starting up, dashed his book from him, and exclaimed
aloud, "To the fiend I bequeath all books, and the dreamers that make
them!--I would a score of Southrons would come up the glen, and we
should learn how little all this muttering and scribbling is worth."

Mary Avenol and his brother started, and looked at Halbert with
surprise, while he went on with great animation, his features
swelling, and the tears starting into his eyes as he spoke.--"Yes,
Mary--I wish a score of Southrons came up the glen this very day; and
you should see one good hand, and one good sword, do more to protect
you, than all the books that were ever opened, and all the pens that
ever grew on a goose's wing."

Mary looked a little surprised and a little frightened at his
vehemence, but instantly replied affectionately, "You are vexed,
Halbert, because you do not get your lesson so fast as Edward can; and
so am I, for I am as stupid as you--But come, and Edward shall sit
betwixt us and teach us."

"He shall not teach _me_," said Halbert, in the same angry mood;
"I never can teach _him_ to do any thing that is honourable and
manly, and he shall not teach _me_ any of his monkish tricks.--I
hate the monks, with their drawling nasal tone like so many frogs, and
their long black petticoats like so many women, and their reverences,
and their lordships, and their lazy vassals that do nothing but peddle
in the mire with plough and harrow from Yule to Michaelmas. I will
call none lord, but him who wears a sword to make his title good; and
I will call none man, but he that can bear himself manlike and
masterful."

"For Heaven's sake, peace, brother!" said Edward; "if such words were
taken up and reported out of the house, they would be our mother's
ruin."

"Report them yourself, then, and they will be _your_ making, and
nobody's marring save mine own. Say that Halbert Glendinning will
never be vassal to an old man with a cowl and shaven crown, while
there are twenty barons who wear casque and plume that lack bold
followers. Let them grant you these wretched acres, and much meal may
they bear you to make your _brachan_." He left the room hastily,
but instantly returned, and continued to speak with the same tone of
quick and irritated feeling. "And you need not think so much, neither
of you, and especially you, Edward, need not think so much of your
parchment book there, and your cunning in reading it. By my faith, I
will soon learn to read as well as you; and--for I know a better
teacher than your grim old monk, and a better book than his printed
breviary; and since you like scholarcraft so well, Mary Avenel, you
shall see whether Edward or I have most of it." He left the apartment,
and came not again.

"What can be the matter with him?" said Mary, following Halbert with
her eyes from the window, as with hasty and unequal steps he ran up the
wild glen--"Where can your brother be going, Edward?--what book?--
what teacher does he talk of?"

"It avails not guessing," said Edward. "Halbert is angry, he knows not
why, and speaks of he knows not what; let us go again to our lessons,
and he will come home when he has tired himself with scrambling among
the crags as usual."

But Mary's anxiety on account of Halbert seemed more deeply rooted.
She declined prosecuting the task in which they had been so pleasingly
engaged, under the excuse of a headache; nor could Edward prevail upon
her to resume it again that morning.

Meanwhile Halbert, his head unbonneted, his features swelled with
jealous anger, and the tear still in his eye, sped up the wild and
upper extremity of the little valley of Glendearg with the speed of a
roebuck, choosing, as if in desperate defiance of the difficulties of
the way, the wildest and most dangerous paths, and voluntarily
exposing himself a hundred times to dangers which he might have
escaped by turning a little aside from them.  It seemed as if he
wished his course to be as straight as that of the arrow to its mark.

He arrived at length in a narrow and secluded _cleuch_, or deep
ravine, which ran down into the valley, and contributed a scanty
rivulet to the supply of the brook with which Glendearg is watered. Up
this he sped with the same precipitate haste which had marked his
departure from the tower, nor did he pause and look around until he
had reached the fountain from which the rivulet had its rise.

Here Halbert stopt short, and cast a gloomy, and almost a frightened
glance around him. A huge rock rose in front, from a cleft of which
grew a wild holly-tree, whose dark green branches rustled over the
spring which arose beneath. The banks on either hand rose so high, and
approached each other so closely, that it was only when the sun was at
its meridian height, and during the summer solstice, that its rays
could reach the bottom of the chasm in which he stood. But it was now
summer, and the hour was noon, so that the unwonted reflection of the
sun was dancing in the pellucid fountain.

"It is the season and the hour," said Halbert to himself; "and now
I--I might soon become wiser than Edward with all his pains! Mary
should see whether he alone is fit to be consulted, and to sit by her
side, and hang over her as she reads, and point out every word and
every letter.  And she loves me better than him--I am sure she
does--for she comes of noble blood, and scorns sloth and
cowardice.--And do I myself not stand here slothful and cowardly as
any priest of them all?--Why should I fear to call upon this
form--this shape?--Already have I endured the vision, and why not
again? What can it do to me, who am a man of lith and limb, and have
by my side my father's sword? Does my heart beat--do my hairs bristle,
at the thought of calling up a painted shadow, and how should I face a
band of Southrons in flesh and blood? By the soul of the first
Glendinning, I will make proof of the charm!"

He cast the leathern brogue or buskin from his right foot, planted
himself in a firm posture, unsheathed his sword, and first looking
around to collect his resolution, he bowed three times deliberately
towards the holly-tree, and as often to the little fountain, repeating
at the same time, with a determined voice, the following rhyme:

  "Thrice to the holly brake--
  Thrice to the well:--
  I bid thee awake,
  White Maid of Avenel!

  "Noon gleams on the Lake--
  Noon glows on the Fell--
  Wake thee, O wake,
  White Maid of Avenel!"

These lines were hardly uttered, when there stood the figure of a female
clothed in white, within three steps of Halbert Glendinning.

  "I guess'twas frightful there to see
  A lady richly clad as she--
  Beautiful exceedingly." [Footnote: Coleridge's Christabelle.]

       *       *       *       *      *



Chapter the Twelfth.


  There's something in that ancient superstition,
  Which, erring as it is, our fancy loves.
  The spring that, with its thousand crystal bubbles,
  Bursts from the bosom of some desert rock
  In secret solitude, may well be deem'd
  The haunt of something purer, more refined,
  And mightier than ourselves.
              OLD PLAY.

Young Halbert Glendinning had scarcely pronounced the mystical rhymes,
than, as we have mentioned in the conclusion of the last chapter, an
appearance, as of a beautiful female, dressed in white, stood within
two yards of him. His terror for the moment overcame his natural
courage, as well as the strong resolution which he had formed, that
the figure which he had now twice seen should not a third time daunt
him. But it would seem there is something thrilling and abhorrent to
flesh and blood, in the consciousness that we stand in presence of a
being in form like to ourselves, but so different in faculties and
nature, that we can neither understand its purposes, nor calculate its
means of pursuing them.

Halbert stood silent and gasped for breath, his hairs erecting
themselves on his head---his mouth open--his eyes fixed, and, as the
sole remaining sign of his late determined purpose, his sword pointed
towards the apparition.  At length with a voice of ineffable
sweetness, the White Lady, for by that name we shall distinguish this
being, sung, or rather chanted, the following lines:--

  "Youth of the dark eye, wherefore didst thou call me?
  Wherefore art thou here, if terrors can appal thee?
  He that seeks to deal with us must know no fear nor failing!
  To coward and churl our speech is dark, our gifts are unavailing.
  The breeze that brought me hither now, must sweep Egyptian ground,
  The fleecy cloud on which I ride for Araby is bound;
  The fleecy cloud is drifting by, the breeze sighs for my stay,
  For I must sail a thousand miles before the close of day."

The astonishment of Halbert began once more to give way to his
resolution, and he gained voice enough to say, though with a faltering
accent, "In the name of God, what art thou?" The answer was in melody
of a different tone and measure:--

  "What I am I must not show--
  What I am thou couldst not know--
  Something betwixt heaven and hell--
  Something that neither stood nor fell--
  Something that through thy wit or will
  May work thee good--may work thee ill.
  Neither substance quite nor shadow,
  Haunting lonely moor and meadow,
  Dancing; by the haunted spring,
  Riding on the whirlwind's wing;
  Aping in fantastic fashion
  Every change of human passion,

  While o'er our frozen minds they pass,
  Like shadows from the mirror'd glass.
  Wayward, fickle is our mood,
  Hovering betwixt bad and good,
  Happier than brief-dated man,
  Living twenty times his span;
  Far less happy, for we have
  Help nor hope beyond the grave!
  Man awakes to joy or sorrow;
  Ours the sleep that knows no morrow.
  This is all that I can show--
  This is all that thou mayest know."

The White Lady paused, and appeared to await an answer; but, as Halbert
hesitated how to frame his speech, the vision seemed gradually to fade,
and became more and more incorporeal. Justly guessing this to be a
symptom of her disappearance, Halbert compelled himself to say,--"Lady,
when I saw you in the glen, and when you brought back the black book of
Mary Avenel, thou didst say I should one day learn to read it."

The White Lady replied,

  "Ay! and I taught thee the word and the spell,
  To waken me here by the Fairies' Well,
  But thou hast loved the heron and hawk,
  More than to seek my haunted walk;
  And thou hast loved the lance and the sword,
  More than good text and holy word;
  And thou hast loved the deer to track,
  More than the lines and the letters black;
  And thou art a ranger of moss and of wood,
  And scornest the nurture of gentle blood."

"I will do so no longer, fair maiden," said Halbert; "I desire to
learn; and thou didst promise me, that when I did so desire, thou
wouldst be my helper; I am no longer afraid of thy presence, and I am
no longer regardless of instruction." As he uttered these words, the
figure of the White Maiden grew gradually as distinct as it had been
at first; and what had well-nigh faded into an ill-defined and
colourless shadow, again assumed an appearance at least of corporeal
consistency, although the hues were less vivid, and the outline of the
figure less distinct and defined--so at least it seemed to
Halbert--than those of an ordinary inhabitant of earth. "Wilt thou
grant my request," he said, "fair Lady, and give to my keeping the
holy book which Mary of Avenel has so often wept for?"

The White Lady replied:

  "Thy craven fear my truth accused,
  Thine idlehood my trust abused;
  He that draws to harbour late,
  Must sleep without, or burst the gate.

  There is a star for thee which burn'd.
  Its influence wanes, its course is turn'd;
  Valour and constancy alone
  Can bring thee back the chance that's flown."

"If I have been a loiterer, Lady," answered young Glendinning, "thou
shalt now find me willing to press forward with double speed. Other
thoughts have filled my mind, other thoughts have engaged my heart,
within a brief period--and by Heaven, other occupations shall
henceforward fill up my time. I have lived in this day the space of
years--I came hither a boy--I will return a man--a man, such as may
converse not only with his own kind, but with whatever God permits to
be visible to him. I will learn the contents of that mysterious
volume--I will learn why the Lady of Avenel loved it--why the priests
feared, and would have stolen it--why thou didst twice recover it
from their hands.--What mystery is wrapt in it?--Speak, I conjure
thee!" The lady assumed an air peculiarly sad and solemn, as drooping
her head, and folding her arms on her bosom, she replied:

  "Within that awful volume lies
  The mystery of mysteries!
  Happiest they of human race,
  To whom God has granted grace

  To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
  To lift the latch, and force the way;
  And better had they ne'er been born,
  Who read, to doubt, or read to scorn."

"Give me the volume, Lady," said young Glendinning. "They call me
idle--they call me dull--in this pursuit my industry shall not fail,
nor, with God's blessing, shall my understanding. Give me the volume."
The apparition again replied:

  "Many a fathom dark and deep
  I have laid the book to sleep;
  Ethereal fires around it glowing--
  Ethereal music ever flowing--
    The sacred pledge of Heav'n
      All things revere.
      Each in his sphere,
    Save man for whom 'twas giv'n:
  Lend thy hand, and thou shalt spy
  Things ne'er seen by mortal eye."

Halbert Glendinning boldly reached his hand to the White Lady.

"Fearest thou to go with me?" she said, as his hand trembled at the soft
and cold touch of her own--

  "Fearest thou to go with me?
  Still it is free to thee
    A peasant to dwell:
  Thou mayst drive the dull steer,
  And chase the king's deer,
  But never more come near
  This haunted well."

"If what thou sayest be true," said the undaunted boy, "my destinies
are higher than thine own. There shall be neither well nor wood which I
dare not visit. No fear of aught, natural or supernatural, shall bar my
path through my native valley."

He had scarce uttered the words, when they both descended through the
earth with a rapidity which took away Halbert's breath and every other
sensation, saving that of being hurried on with the utmost velocity. At
length they stopped with a shock so sudden, that the mortal journeyer
through this unknown space must have been thrown down with violence,
had he not been upheld by his supernatural companion.

It was more than a minute, ere, looking around him, he beheld a
grotto, or natural cavern, composed of the most splendid spars and
crystals, which returned in a thousand prismatic hues the light of a
brilliant flame that glowed on an altar of alabaster. This altar, with
its fire, formed the central point of the grotto, which was of a round
form, and very high in the roof, resembling in some respects the dome
of a cathedral. Corresponding to the four points of the compass, there
went off four long galleries, or arcades, constructed of the same
brilliant materials with the dome itself, and the termination of which
was lost in darkness.

No human imagination can conceive, or words suffice to describe, the
glorious radiance which, shot fiercely forth by the flame, was
returned from so many hundred thousand points of reflection, afforded
by the sparry pillars and their numerous angular crystals. The fire
itself did not remain steady and unmoved, but rose and fell, sometimes
ascending in a brilliant pyramid of condensed flame half way up the
lofty expanse, and again fading into a softer and more rosy hue, and
hovering, as it were, on the surface of the altar to collect its
strength for another powerful exertion.  There was no visible fuel by
which it was fed, nor did it emit either smoke or vapour of any kind.

What was of all the most remarkable, the black volume so often
mentioned lay not only unconsumed, but untouched in the slightest
degree, amid this intensity of fire, which, while it seemed to be of
force sufficient to melt adamant, had no effect whatever on the sacred
book thus subjected to its utmost influence.

The White Lady, having paused long enough to let young Glendinning
take a complete survey of what was around him, now said in her usual
chant,

  "Here lies the volume thou boldly hast sought;
  Touch it, and take it,--'twill dearly be bought!"

Familiarized in some degree with marvels, and desperately desirous of
showing the courage he had boasted, Halbert plunged his hand, without
hesitation, into the flame, trusting to the rapidity of the motion, to
snatch out the volume before the fire could greatly affect him. But he
was much disappointed. The flame instantly caught upon his sleeve, and
though he withdrew his hand immediately, yet his arm was so dreadfully
scorched, that he had well-nigh screamed with pain. He suppressed the
natural expression of anguish, however, and only intimated the agony
which he felt by a contortion and a muttered groan. The White Lady
passed her cold hand over his arm, and, ere she had finished the
following metrical chant, his pain had entirely gone, and no mark of
the scorching was visible:

          "Rash thy deed,
          Mortal weed
    To immortal flames applying;
          Rasher trust
          Has thing of dust,
    On his own weak worth relying:
  Strip thee of such fences vain,
  Strip, and prove thy luck, again."

Obedient to what he understood to be the meaning of his conductress,
Halbert bared his arm to the shoulder, throwing down the remains of
his sleeve, which no sooner touched the floor on which he stood than
it collected itself together, shrivelled itself up, and was without
any visible fire reduced to light tinder, which a sudden breath of
wind dispersed into empty space. The White Lady, observing the
surprise of the youth, immediately repeated--

  "Mortal warp and mortal woof.
  Cannot brook this charmed roof;
  All that mortal art hath wrought,
  In our cell returns to nought.
  The molten gold returns to clay,
  The polish'd diamond melts away.
  All is alter'd, all is flown,
  Nought stands fast but truth alone.
  Not for that thy quest give o'er:
  Courage! prove thy chance once more."

Imboldened by her words, Halbert Glendinning made a second effort,
and, plunging his bare arm into the flame, took out the sacred volume
without feeling either heat or inconvenience of any kind. Astonished,
and almost terrified at his own success, he beheld the flame collect
itself, and shoot up into one long and final stream, which seemed as
if it would ascend to the very roof of the cavern, and then, sinking
as suddenly, became totally extinguished. The deepest darkness ensued;
but Halbert had no time to consider his situation, for the White Lady
had already caught his hand, and they ascended to upper air with the
same velocity with which they had sunk into the earth.

They stood by the fountain in the Corri-nan-shian when they emerged
from the bowels of the earth; but on casting a bewildered glance
around him, the youth was surprised to observe, that the shadows had
fallen far to the east, and that the day was well-nigh spent. He gazed
on his conductress for explanation, but her figure began to fade
before his eyes--her cheeks grew paler, her features less distinct,
her form became shadowy, and blended itself with the mist which was
ascending the hollow ravine.  What had late the symmetry of form, and
the delicate, yet clear hues of feminine beauty, now resembled the
flitting and pale ghost of some maiden who has died for love, as it is
seen indistinctly and by moonlight, by her perjured lover.

"Stay, spirit!" said the youth, imboldened by his success in the
subterranean dome, "thy kindness must not leave me, as one encumbered
with a weapon he knows not how to wield. Thou must teach me the art to
read, and to understand this volume; else what avails it me that I
possess it?"

But the figure of the White Lady still waned before his eye, until it
became an outline as pale and indistinct as that of the moon, when the
winter morning is far advanced, and ere she had ended the following
chant, she was entirely invisible:--

  "Alas! alas!
  Not ours the grace
  These holy characters to trace:
      Idle forms of painted air,
      Not to us is given to share
  The boon bestow'd on Adam's race!
      With patience bide.
      Heaven will provide
  The fitting time, the fitting guide."

The form was already gone, and now the voice itself had melted away in
melancholy cadence, softening, as if the Being who spoke had been slowly
wafted from the spot where she had commenced her melody.

It was at this moment that Halbert felt the extremity of the terror
which he had hitherto so manfully suppressed. The very necessity of
exertion had given him spirit to make it, and the presence of the
mysterious Being, while it was a subject of fear in itself, had
nevertheless given him the sense of protection being near to him. It
was when he could reflect with composure on what had passed, that a
cold tremor shot across his limbs, his hair bristled, and he was
afraid to look around lest he should find at his elbow something more
frightful than the first vision. A breeze arising suddenly, realized
the beautiful and wild idea of the most imaginative of our modern
bards [Footnote: Coleridge.]--

  It fann'd his cheek, it raised his hair,
    Like a meadow pale in spring;
  It mingled strangely with his fears,
    Yet it fell like a welcoming.

The youth stood silent and astonished for a few minutes. It seemed to
him that the extraordinary Being he had seen, half his terror, half
his protectress, was still hovering on the gale which swept past him,
and that she might again make herself sensible to his organs of sight.
"Speak!" he said, wildly tossing his arms, "speak yet again--be once
more present, lovely vision!--thrice have I now seen thee, yet the
idea of thy invisible presence around or beside me, makes my heart
beat faster than if the earth yawned and gave up a demon."

But neither sound nor appearance indicated the presence of the White
Lady, and nothing preternatural beyond what he had already witnessed,
was again audible or visible. Halbert, in the meanwhile, by the very
exertion of again inviting the presence of this mysterious Being, had
recovered his natural audacity. He looked around once more, and
resumed his solitary path down the valley into whose recesses he had
penetrated.

Nothing could be more strongly contrasted than the storm of passion
with which he had bounded over stock and crag, in order to plunge
himself into the Corri-nan-shian, and the sobered mood in which he now
returned homeward, industriously seeking out the most practicable
path, not from a wish to avoid danger, but that he might not by
personal toil distract his attention, deeply fixed on the
extraordinary scene which he had witnessed. In the former case, he had
sought by hazard and bodily exertion to indulge at once the fiery
excitation of passion, and to banish the cause of the excitement from
his recollection; while now he studiously avoided all interruption to
his contemplative walk, lest the difficulty of the way should
interfere with, or disturb, his own deep reflections. Thus slowly
pacing forth his course, with the air of a pilgrim rather than of a
deer-hunter, Halbert about the close of the evening regained his
paternal tower.




Chapter the Thirteenth.


  The Miller was of manly make,
    To meet him was na mows;
  There durst na ten come him to take,
    Sae noited he their pows.
            CHRIST'S KIRK ON THE GREEN.

It was after sunset, as we have already stated, when Halbert
Glendinning returned to the abode of his father. The hour of dinner
was at noon, and that of supper about an hour after sunset at this
period of the year.  The former had passed without Halbert's
appearing; but this was no uncommon circumstance, for the chase, or
any other pastime which occurred, made Halbert a frequent neglecter of
hours; and his mother, though angry and disappointed when she saw him
not at table, was so much accustomed to his occasional absence, and
knew so little how to teach him more regularity, that a testy
observation was almost all the censure with which such omissions were
visited.

On the present occasion, however, the wrath of good Dame Elspeth
soared higher than usual. It was not merely on account of the special
tup's head and trotters, the haggis and the side of mutton, with which
her table was set forth, but also because of the arrival of no less a
person than Hob Miller, as he was universally termed, though the man's
name was Happer.

The object of the Miller's visit to the Tower of Glendearg was like
the purpose of those embassies which potentates send to each other's
courts, partly ostensible, partly politic. In outward show, Hob came
to visit his friends of the Halidome, and share the festivity common
among country folk, after the barn-yard has been filled, and to renew
old intimacies by new conviviality. But in very truth he also came to
have an eye upon the contents of each stack, and to obtain such
information respecting the extent of the crop reaped and gathered in
by each feuar, as might prevent the possibility of _abstracted
multures_.

All the world knows that the cultivators of each barony or regality,
temporal or spiritual, in Scotland, are obliged to bring their corn to
be grinded at the mill of the territory, for which they pay a heavy
charge, called the _intown multures_. I could speak to the
thirlage of _invecta et illata_ too, but let that pass. I have
said enough to intimate that I talk not without book.  Those of the
_Sucken_, or enthralled ground, were liable in penalties, if,
deviating from this thirlage, (or thraldom,) they carried their grain
to another mill. Now such another mill, erected on the lands of a
lay-baron, lay within a tempting and convenient distance of Glendearg;
and the Miller was so obliging, and his charges so moderate, that it
required Hob Miller's utmost vigilance to prevent evasions of his
right of monopoly.