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Books: The Monastery

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Monastery




"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."