Anna Katherine Green - "The Mill Mystery"

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Thomas Hobbes - "Leviathan"

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Books: The Monastery

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Monastery




"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>/I>--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.