Sir Walter Scott - "The Monastery"

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v1"

Charles Lyell - "The Antiquity of Man"

Octave Feuillet - "Monsieur de Camors, v3"

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Books: The Monastery

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Monastery




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.

In reply to his demand, the voice again sung;--

"Men of good are bold as sackless,[Footnote: Sackless--Innocent.]
Men of rude are wild and reckless,
Lie thou still
In the nook of the hill.
For those be before thee that wish thee ill."

While the Sub-Prior listened, with his head turned in the direction
from which the sounds seemed to come, he felt as if something rushed
against him; and ere he could discover the cause, he was pushed from
his saddle with gentle but irresistible force. Before he reached the
ground his senses were gone, and he lay long in a state of
insensibility; for the sunset had not ceased to gild the top of the
distant hill when he fell,--and when he again became conscious of
existence, the pale moon was gleaming on the landscape. He awakened in
a state of terror, from which, for a few minutes, he found it
difficult to shake himself free. At length he sate upon the grass, and
became sensible, by repeated exertion, that the only personal injury
which he had sustained was the numbness arising from extreme cold. The
motion of something near him made the blood again run to his heart,
and by a sudden effort he started up, and, looking around, saw to his
relief that the noise was occasioned by the footsteps of his own mule.
The peaceable animal had remained quietly beside her master during his
trance, browsing on the grass which grew plentifully in that
sequestered nook.

With some exertion he collected himself, remounted the animal, and
meditating upon his wild adventure, descended the glen till its
junction with the broader valley through which the Tweed winds. The
drawbridge was readily dropped at his first summons; and so much had
he won upon the heart of the churlish warden, that Peter appeared
himself with a lantern to show the Sub-Prior his way over the perilous
pass.

"By my sooth, sir," he said, holding the light up to Father Eustace's
face, "you look sorely travelled and deadly pale--but a little matter
serves to weary out you men of the cell. I now who speak to you--I
have ridden--before I was perched up here on this pillar betwixt wind
and water--it may be thirty Scots miles before I broke my fast, and
have had the red of a bramble rose in my cheek all the while--But will
you taste some food, or a cup of distilled waters?"

"I may not," said Father Eustace, "being under a vow; but I thank you
for your kindness, and pray you to give what I may not accept to the
next poor pilgrim who comes hither pale and fainting, for so it shall
be the better both with him here, and with you hereafter."

"By my faith, and I will do so," said Peter Bridge-Ward, "even for thy
sake--It is strange now, how this Sub-Prior gets round one's heart
more than the rest of these cowled gentry, that think of nothing but
quaffing and stuffing!--Wife, I say--wife, we will give a cup of
distilled waters and a crust of bread unto the next pilgrim that comes
over; and ye may keep for [Footnote: An old-fashioned name for an
earthen jar for holding spirits.] the purpose the grunds of the last
greybeard, and the ill-baked bannock which the bairns couldna eat."

While Peter issued these charitable, and, at the same time, prudent
injunctions, the Sub-Prior, whose mild interference had awakened the
Bridge-Ward to such an act of unwonted generosity, was pacing onward
to the Monastery. In the way, he had to commune with and subdue his
own rebellious heart, an enemy, he was sensible, more formidable than
any which the external powers of Satan could place in his way.

Father Eustace had indeed strong temptation to suppress the
extraordinary incident which had befallen him, which he was the more
reluctant to confess, because he had passed so severe a judgment upon
Father Philip, who, as he was not unwilling to allow, had, on his
return from Glendearg, encountered obstacles somewhat similar to his
own. Of this the Sub-Prior was the more convinced, when, feeling in
his bosom for the Book which he had brought off from the Tower of
Glendearg, he found it was amissing, which he could only account for
by supposing it had been stolen from him during his trance.

"If I confess this strange visitation," thought the Sub-Prior, "I
become the ridicule of all my brethren--I whom the Primate sent hither
to be a watch, as it were, and a check upon their follies. I give the
Abbot an advantage over me which I shall never again recover, and
Heaven only knows how he may abuse it, in his foolish simplicity, to
the dishonour and loss of Holy Kirk.--But then, if I make not true
confession of my shame, with what face can I again presume to admonish
or restrain others?--Avow, proud heart," continued he, addressing
himself, "that the weal of Holy Church interests thee less in this
matter than thine own humiliation--Yes, Heaven has punished thee even
in that point in which thou didst deem thyself most strong, in thy
spiritual pride and thy carnal wisdom. Thou hast laughed at and
derided the inexperience of thy brethren--stoop thyself in turn to
their derision--tell what they may not believe--affirm that which they
will ascribe to idle fear, or perhaps to idle falsehood--sustain the
disgrace of a silly visionary, or a wilful deceiver.--Be it so, I will
do my duty, and make ample confession to my Superior. If the discharge
of this duty destroys my usefulness in this house, God and Our Lady
will send me where I can better serve them."

There was no little merit in the resolution thus piously and
generously formed by Father Eustace. To men of any rank the esteem of
their order is naturally most dear; but in the monastic establishment,
cut off, as the brethren are, from other objects of ambition, as well
as from all exterior friendship and relationship, the place which they
hold in the opinion of each other is all in all.

But the consciousness how much he should rejoice the Abbot and most of
the other monks of Saint Mary's, who were impatient of the
unauthorized, yet irresistible control, which he was wont to exercise
in the affairs of the convent, by a confession which would put him in
a ludicrous, or perhaps even in a criminal point of view, could not
weigh with Father Eustace in comparison with the task which his belief
enjoined.

As, strong in his feelings of duty, he approached the exterior gate of
the Monastery, he was surprised to see torches gleaming, and men
assembled around it, some on horseback, some on foot, while several of
the monks, distinguished through the night by their white scapularies,
were making themselves busy among the crowd. The Sub-Prior was
received with a unanimous shout of joy, which at once made him
sensible that he had himself been the object of their anxiety.

"There he is! there he is! God be thanked--there he is, hale and
fear!" exclaimed the vassals; while the monks exclaimed, "_Te Deum
laudamus_--the blood of thy servants is precious in thy sight!"

"What is the matter, children? what is the matter, my brethren?" said
Father Eustace, dismounting at the gate.

"Nay, brother, if thou know'st not, we will not tell thee till thou
art in the refectory," answered the monks; "suffice it that the Lord
Abbot had ordered these, our zealous and faithful vassals, instantly
to set forth to guard thee from imminent peril--Ye may ungirth your
horses, children, and dismiss; and to-morrow, each who was at this
rendezvous may send to the convent kitchen for a quarter of a yard of
roast beef, and a black-jack full of double ale." [Footnote: It was
one of the few reminiscences of Old Parr, or Henry Jenkins, I forget
which, that, at some convent in the veteran's neighbourhood, the
community, before the dissolution, used to dole out roast-beef in the
measure of feet and yards.]

The vassals dispersed with joyful acclamation, and the monks, with equal
jubilee, conducted the Sub-Prior into the refectory.




Chapter the Tenth.


Here we stand--
Woundless and well, may Heaven's high name be bless'd for't!
As erst, ere treason couch'd a lance against us.
Decker.

No sooner was the Sub-Prior hurried into the refectory by his
rejoicing companions, than the first person on whom he fixed his eye
proved to be Christie of the Clinthill. He was seated in the
chimney-corner, fettered and guarded, his features drawn into that air
of sulky and turbid resolution with which those hardened in guilt are
accustomed to view the approach of punishment. But as the Sub-Prior
drew near to him, his face assumed a more wild and startled
expression, while he exclaimed--"The devil! the devil himself, brings
the dead back upon the living."

"Nay," said a monk to him, "say rather that Our Lady foils the
attempts of the wicked on her faithful servants--our dear brother
lives and moves."

"Lives and moves!" said the ruffian, rising and shuffling towards the
Sub-Prior as well as his chains would permit; "nay, then, I will never
trust ashen shaft and steel point more--It is even so," he added, as he
gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound--not
as much as a rent in his frock!"

"And whence should my wound have come?" said Father Eustace.

"From the good lance that never failed me before," replied Christie of
the Clinthill.

"Heaven absolve thee for thy purpose!" said the Sub-Prior; "wouldst
thou have slain a servant of the altar?"

"To choose!" answered Christie; "the Fifemen say, an the whole pack
of ye were slain, there were more lost at Flodden."

"Villain! art thou heretic as well as murderer?"

"Not I, by Saint Giles," replied the rider; "I listened blithely
enough to the Laird of Monance, when he told me ye were all cheats and
knaves; but when he would have had me go hear one Wiseheart, a
gospeller as they call him, he might as well have persuaded the wild
colt that had flung one rider to kneel down and help another into the
saddle."

"There is some goodness about him yet," said the Sacristan to the Abbot,
who at that moment entered--"He refused to hear a heretic preacher."

"The better for him in the next world," answered the Abbot. "Prepare
for death, my son,--we deliver thee over to the secular arm of our
bailie, for execution on the Gallow-hill by peep of light."

"Amen!" said the ruffian; "'tis the end I must have come by sooner or
later--and what care I whether I feed the crows at Saint Mary's or at
Carlisle?"

"Let me implore your reverend patience for an instant," said the
Sub-Prior; "until I shall inquire--"

"What!" exclaimed the Abbot, observing him for the first time--"Our
dear brother restored to us when his life was unhoped for!--nay, kneel
not to a sinner like me--stand up--thou hast my blessing. When this
villain came to the gate, accused by his own evil conscience, and
crying out he had murdered thee, I thought that the pillar of our main
aisle had fallen--no more shall a life so precious be exposed to such
risks as occur in this border country; no longer shall one beloved and
rescued of Heaven hold so low a station in the church as that of a
poor Sub-Prior--I will write by express to the Primate for thy speedy
removal and advancement."

"Nay, but let me understand," said the Sub-Prior; "did this soldier say
he had slain me?"

"That he had transfixed you," answered the Abbot, "in full career with
his lance--but it seems he had taken an indifferent aim. But no sooner
didst thou fall to the ground mortally gored, as he deemed, with his
weapon, than our blessed Patroness appeared to him, as he averred--"

"I averred no such thing," said the prisoner; "I said a woman in white
interrupted me, as I was about to examine the priest's cassock, for
they are usually well lined--she had a bulrush in her hand, with one
touch of which she struck me from my horse, as I might strike down a
child of four years old with an iron mace--and then, like a singing
fiend as she was, she sung to me.

'Thank the holly-bush
That nods on thy brow;
Or with this slender rush
I had strangled thee now.'

I gathered myself up with fear and difficulty, threw myself on my horse,
and came hither like a fool to get myself hanged for a rogue."

"Thou seest, honoured brother," said the Abbot to the Sub-Prior, "in
what favour thou art with our blessed Patroness, that she herself
becomes the guardian of thy paths--Not since the days of our blessed
founder hath she shown such grace to any one. All unworthy were we to
hold spiritual superiority over thee, and we pray thee to prepare for
thy speedy removal to Aberbrothwick."

"Alas! my lord and father," said the Sub-Prior, "your words pierce my
very soul. Under the seal of confession will I presently tell thee why
I conceive myself rather the baffled sport of a spirit of another
sort, than the protected favourite of the heavenly powers. But first
let me ask this unhappy man a question or two."

"Do as ye list," replied the Abbot--"but you shall not convince me
that it is fitting you remain in this inferior office in the convent
of Saint Mary."

"I would ask of this poor man," said Father Eustace, "for what purpose
he nourished the thought of putting to death one who never did him
evil?"

"Ay! but thou didst menace me with evil," said the ruffian, "and no
one but a fool is menaced twice. Dost thou not remember what you said
touching the Primate and Lord James, and the black pool of Jedwood?
Didst thou think me fool enough to wait till thou hadst betrayed me to
the sack and the fork! There were small wisdom in that, methinks--as
little as in coming hither to tell my own misdeeds--I think the devil
was in me when I took this road--I might have remembered the proverb,
'Never Friar forgot feud.'"

"And it was solely for that--for that only hasty word of mine, uttered
in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?" said
Father Eustace.

"Ay! for that, and--for the love of thy gold crucifix," said Christie of
the Clinthill.

"Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal--the glittering earth--
so far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?--Father
Abbot, I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to
my mercy."

"Nay, brother," interposed the Sacristan, "to your doom, if you will,
not to your mercy--Remember, we are not all equally favoured by our
blessed Lady, nor is it likely that every frock in the Convent will
serve as a coat of proof when a lance is couched against it."

"For that very reason," said the Sub-Prior, "I would not that for my
worthless self the community were to fall at feud with Julian of Avenel,
this man's master."

"Our Lady forbid!" said the Sacristan, "he is a second Julian the
Apostate."

"With our reverend father the Abbot's permission, then," said Father
Eustace, "I desire this man be freed from his chains, and suffered to
depart uninjured;--and here, friend," he added, giving him the golden
crucifix, "is the image for which thou wert willing to stain thy hands
with murder. View it well, and may it inspire thee with other and
better thoughts than those which referred to it as a piece of bullion!
Part with it, nevertheless, if thy necessities require, and get thee
one of such coarse substance that Mammon shall have no share in any of
the reflections to which it gives rise. It was the bequest of a dear
friend to me; but dearer service can it never do than that of winning
a soul to Heaven."

The Borderer, now freed from his chains, stood gazing alternately on
the Sub-Prior, and on the golden crucifix. "By Saint Giles," said he,
"I understand ye not!--An ye give me gold for couching my lance at
thee, what would you give me to level it at a heretic?"

"The Church," said the Sub-Prior, "will try the effect of her
spiritual censures to bring these stray sheep into the fold, ere she
employ the edge of the sword of Saint Peter."

"Ay, but," said the ruffian, "they say the Primate recommends a little
strangling and burning in aid of both censure and of sword. But fare ye
weel, I owe you a life, and it may be I will not forget my debt."

The bailie now came bustling in, dressed in his blue coat and
bandaliers, and attended by two or three halberdiers. "I have been a
thought too late in waiting upon your reverend lordship. I am grown
somewhat fatter since the field of Pinkie, and my leathern coat slips
not on so soon as it was wont; but the dungeon is ready, and though,
as I said, I have been somewhat late--"

Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the officer's nose, to
his great amazement.

"You have been indeed somewhat late, bailie," said he, "and I am
greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put
it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner,
I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish
you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in
which you have much the air of a hog in armour."

Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire--"An it
were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave--"

"Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions," said Christie of the Clinthill,
"I will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well."

"Hardened wretch!" said Father Eustace, "art thou but this instant
delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of
slaughter?"

"I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave," said the bailie,
"and teach thee thine Oremus."

"I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day," said he
of the Clinthill.

"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."