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Books: The Monastery

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Monastery




The Miller, who was now hastening his journey homewards, promised to
send up some salmon by his own servant. Dame Elspeth, who by this time
thought she had guests enough, had begun to repent of her invitation
to poor Mysie, and was just considering by what means, short of giving
offence, she could send off the Maid of the Mill behind her father,
and adjourn all her own aerial architecture till some future
opportunity, when this unexpected generosity on the part of the sire
rendered any present attempt to return his daughter on his hands too
highly ungracious to be farther thought on. So the Miller departed
alone on his homeward journey.

Dame Elspeth's sense of hospitality proved in this instance its own
reward; for Mysie had dwelt too near the Convent to be altogether
ignorant of the noble art of cookery, which her father patronized to
the extent of consuming on festival days such dainties as his daughter
could prepare in emulation of the luxuries of the Abbot's kitchen.
Laying aside, therefore, her holiday kirtle, and adopting a dress more
suitable to the occasion, the good-humored maiden bared her snowy arms
above the elbows; and, as Elspeth acknowledged, in the language of the
time and country, took "entire and aefauld part with her" in the
labours of the day; showing unparalleled talent, and indefatigable
industry, in the preparation of _mortreux_, _blanc-manger_,
and heaven knows what delicacies besides, which Dame Glendinning,
unassisted by her skill, dared not even have dreamt of presenting.
Leaving this able substitute in the kitchen, and regretting that Mary
Avenel was so brought up, that she could intrust nothing to her care,
unless it might be seeing the great chamber strewed with rushes, and
ornamented with such flowers and branches as the season afforded, Dame
Elspeth hastily donned her best attire, and with a beating heart
presented herself at the door of her little tower, to make her
obeisance to the Lord Abbot as he crossed her humble threshold. Edward
stood by his mother, and felt the same palpitation, which his
philosophy was at a loss to account for. He was yet to learn how long
it is ere our reason is enabled to triumph over the force of external
circumstances, and how much our feelings are affected by novelty, and
blunted by use and habit.

On the present occasion, he witnessed with wonder and awe the approach
of some half-score of riders, sober men upon sober palfreys, muffled
in their long black garments, and only relieved by their white
scapularies, showing more like a funeral procession than aught else,
and not quickening their pace beyond that which permitted easy
conversation and easy digestion. The sobriety of the scene was indeed
somewhat enlivened by the presence of Sir Piercie Shafton, who, to
show that his skill in the manege was not inferior to his other
accomplishments, kept alternately pressing and checking his gay
courser, forcing him to piaffe, to caracole, to passage, and to do all
the other feats of the school, to the great annoyance of the Lord
Abbot, the wonted sobriety of whose palfrey became at length
discomposed by the vivacity of its companion, while the dignitary kept
crying out in bodily alarm, "I do pray you--Sir Knight--good now, Sir
Piercie--Be quiet, Benedict, there is a good steed--soh, poor fellow"
and uttering all the other precatory and soothing exclamations by
which a timid horseman usually bespeaks the favour of a frisky
companion, or of his own unquiet nag, and concluding the bead-roll
with a sincere _Deo gratias_ so soon as he alighted in the
court-yard of the Tower of Glendearg.

The inhabitants unanimously knelt down to kiss the hand of the Lord
Abbot, a ceremony which even the monks were often condemned to. Good
Abbot Boniface was too much fluttered by the incidents of the latter
part of his journey, to go through this ceremony with much solemnity,
or indeed with much patience. He kept wiping his brow with a
snow-white handkerchief with one hand, while another was abandoned to
the homage of his vassals; and then signing the cross with his
outstretched arm, and exclaiming, "Bless ye--bless ye, my children" he
hastened into the house, and murmured not a little at the darkness and
steepness of the rugged winding stair, whereby he at length scaled the
spence destined for his entertainment, and, overcome with fatigue,
threw himself, I do not say into an easy chair, but into the easiest
the apartment afforded.




Chapter the Sixteenth.


A courtier extraordinary, who by diet
Of meats and drinks, his temperate exercise,
Choice music, frequent bath, his horary shifts
Of shirts and waistcoats, means to immortalize
Mortality itself, and makes the essence
Of his whole happiness the trim of court.
MAGNETIC LADY.


When the Lord Abbot had suddenly and superciliously vanished from the
eyes of his expectant vassals, the Sub-Prior made amends for the
negligence of his principal, by the kind and affectionate greeting
which he gave to all the members of the family, but especially to Dame
Elspeth, her foster-daughter, and her son Edward. "Where," he even
condescended to inquire, "is that naughty Nimrod, Halbert?--He hath
not yet, I trust, turned, like his great prototype, his hunting-spear
against man!"

"O no, an it please your reverence," said Dame Glendinning, "Halbert
is up at the glen to get some venison, or surely he would not have been
absent when such a day of honour dawned upon me and mine."

"Oh, to get savoury meat, such as our soul loveth," muttered the
Sub-Prior; "it has been at times an acceptable gift.--I bid you good
morrow, my good dame, as I must attend upon his lordship the Father
Abbot."

"And O, reverend sir," said the good widow, detaining him, "if it
might be your pleasure to take part with us if there is any thing
wrong; and if there is any thing wanted, to say that it is just
coming, or to make some excuses your learning best knows how. Every
bit of vassail and silver work have we been spoiled of since Pinkie
Cleuch, when I lost poor Simon Glendinning, that was the warst of a'."

"Never mind--never fear," said the Sub-Prior, gently extricating his
garment from the anxious grasp of Dame Elspeth, "the Refectioner has
with him the Abbot's plate and drinking cups; and I pray you to believe
that whatever is short in your entertainment will be deemed amply made
up in your good-will."

So saying, he escaped from her and went into the spence, where such
preparations as haste permitted were making for the noon collation of
the Abbot and the English knight. Here he found the Lord Abbot, for
whom a cushion, composed of all the plaids in the house, had been
unable to render Simon's huge elbow-chair a soft or comfortable place
of rest.

"Benedicite!" said Abbot Boniface, "now marry fie upon these hard
benches with all my heart--they are as uneasy as the _scabella_
of our novices. Saint Jude be with us, Sir Knight, how have you
contrived to pass over the night in this dungeon? An your bed was no
softer than your seat, you might as well have slept on the stone couch
of Saint Pacomius. After trotting a full ten miles, a man needs a
softer seat than has fallen to my hard lot."

With sympathizing faces, the Sacristan and the Refectioner ran to
raise the Lord Abbot, and to adjust his seat to his mind, which was at
length accomplished in some sort, although he continued alternately to
bewail his fatigue, and to exult in the conscious sense of having
discharged an arduous duty. "You errant cavaliers," said he,
addressing the knight, "may now perceive that others have their
travail and their toils to undergo as well as your honoured faculty.
And this I will say for myself and the soldiers of Saint Mary, among
whom I may be termed captain, that it is not our wont to flinch from
the heat of the service, or to withdraw from the good fight. No, by
Saint Mary!--no sooner did I learn that you were here, and dared
not for certain reasons come to the Monastery, where, with as good
will, and with more convenience, we might have given you a better
reception, than, striking the table with my hammer, I called a
brother--Timothy, said I, let them saddle Benedict--let them saddle my
black palfrey, and bid the Sub-Prior and some half-score of attendants
be in readiness tomorrow after matins--we would ride to
Glendearg.--Brother Timothy stared, thinking, I imagine, that his ears
had scarce done him justice--but I repeated my commands, and said, Let
the Kitchener and Refectioner go before to aid the poor vassals to
whom the place belongs in making a suitable collation. So that you
will consider, good Sir Piercie, our mutual in commodities, and
forgive whatever you may find amiss"

"By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to
forgive--If you spiritual warriors have to submit to the grievous
incommodities which your lordship narrates, it would ill become me, a
sinful and secular man, to complain of a bed as hard as a board, of
broth which relished as if made of burnt wool, of flesh, which, in its
sable and singed shape, seemed to put me on a level with Richard
Coeur-de-Lion,--when he ate up the head of a Moor carbonadoed, and of
other viands savouring rather of the rusticity of this northern
region."

"By the good Saints, sir," said the Abbot, somewhat touched in point
of his character for hospitality, of which he was in truth a most
faithful and zealous professor, "it grieves me to the heart that you
have found our vassals no better provided for your reception--Yet I
crave leave to observe, that if Sir Piercie Shafton's affairs had
permitted him to honour with his company our poor house of Saint
Mary's, he might have had less to complain of in respect of
easements."

"To give your lordship the reasons," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "why I
could not at this present time approach your dwelling, or avail myself
of its well-known and undoubted hospitality, craves either some delay,
or," looking around him, "a limited audience."

The Lord Abbot immediately issued his mandate to the Refectioner: "Hie
thee to the kitchen, Brother Hilarius, and there make inquiry of our
brother the Kitchener, within what time he opines that our collation
may be prepared, since sin and sorrow it were, considering the
hardships of this noble and gallant knight, no whit mentioning
or--weighing those we ourselves have endured, if we were now either to
advance or retard the hour of refection beyond the time when the
viands are fit to be set before us."

Brother Hilarius parted with an eager alertness to execute the will of
his Superior, and returned with the assurance, that punctually at one
afternoon would the collation be ready.

"Before that time," said the accurate Refectioner, "the wafers,
flamms, and pastry-meat, will scarce have had the just degree of fire
which learned pottingers prescribe as fittest for the body; and if it
should be past one o'clock, were it but ten minutes, our brother the
Kitchener opines, that the haunch of venison would suffer in spite of
the skill of the little turn-broche whom he has recommended to your
holiness by his praises."

"How!" said the Abbot, "a haunch of venison!--from whence comes that
dainty? I remember not thou didst intimate its presence in thy hamper
of vivers."

"So please your holiness and lordship," said the Refectioner, "he is a
son of the woman of the house who has shot it and sent it in--killed
but now; yet, as the animal heat hath not left the body, the Kitchener
undertakes it shall eat as tender as a young chicken--and this youth
hath a special gift in shooting deer, and never misses the heart or
the brain; so that the blood is not driven through the flesh, as
happens too often with us. It is a hart of grease--your holiness has
seldom seen such a haunch."

"Silence, Brother Hilarius," said the Abbot, wiping his mouth; "it is
not beseeming our order to talk of food so earnestly, especially as we
must oft have our animal powers exhausted by fasting, and be
accessible (as being ever mere mortals) to those signs of longing" (he
again wiped his mouth) "which arise on the mention of victuals to an
hungry man.--Minute down, however, the name of that youth--it is
fitting merit should be rewarded, and he shall hereafter be a
_frater ad succurrendum_ in the kitchen and buttery."

"Alas! reverend Father and my good lord," replied the Refectioner, "I
did inquire after the youth, and I learn he is one who prefers the
casque to the cowl, and the sword of the flesh to the weapons of the
spirit."

"And if it be so," said the Abbot, "see that thou retain him as a
deputy-keeper and man-at-arms, and not as a lay brother of the
Monastery--for old Tallboy, our forester, waxes dim-eyed, and hath
twice spoiled a noble buck, by hitting him unwarily on the haunch. Ah!
'tis a foul fault, the abusing by evil-killing, evil-dressing,
evil-appetite, or otherwise, the good creatures indulged to us for our
use. Wherefore, secure us the service of this youth, Brother Hilarius,
in the way that may best suit him.--And now, Sir Piercie Shafton,
since the fates have assigned us a space of well-nigh an hour, ere we
dare hope to enjoy more than the vapour or savour of our repast, may I
pray you, of your courtesy, to tell me the cause of this visit; and,
above all, to inform us, why you will not approach our more pleasant
and better furnished _hospitium_?"

"Reverend Father, and my very good lord," said Sir Piercie Shafton,
"it is well known to your wisdom, that there are stone walls which
have ears, and that secrecy is to be looked to in matters which
concern a man's head." The Abbot signed to his attendants, excepting
the Sub-Prior, to leave the room, and then said, "Your valour, Sir
Piercie, may freely unburden yourself before our faithful friend and
counsellor Father Eustace, the benefits of whose advice we may too
soon lose, inasmuch as his merits will speedily recommend him to an
higher station, in which we trust he may find the blessing of a friend
and adviser as valuable as himself, since I may say of him, as our
claustral rhyme goeth,[Footnote: The rest of this doggerel rhyme may
be found in Fosbrooke's Learned work on British Monachism.]

'Dixit Abbas ad Prioris,
Tu es homo boni moris,
Quia semper sanioris
Mihi das concilia.'

Indeed," he added, "the office of Sub-Prior is altogether beneath our
dear brother; nor can we elevate him unto that of Prior, which, for
certain reasons, is at present kept vacant amongst us. Howbeit, Father
Eustace is fully possessed of my confidence, and worthy of yours, and
well may it be said of him, _Intravit in secretis nostris_."

Sir Piercie Shafton bowed to the reverend brethren, and, heaving a
sigh, as if he would burst his steel cuirass, he thus commenced his
speech:--

"Certes, reverend sirs, I may well heave such a suspiration, who have,
as it were, exchanged heaven for purgatory, leaving the lightsome
sphere of the royal court of England for a remote nook in this
inaccessible desert--quitting the tilt-yard, where I was ever ready
among my compeers to splinter a lance, either for the love of honour,
or for the honour of love, in order to couch my knightly spear against
base and pilfering besognios and marauders--exchanging the lighted
halls, wherein I used nimbly to pace the swift coranto, or to move
with a loftier grace in the stately galliard, for this rugged and
decayed dungeon of rusty-coloured stone--quitting the gay theatre, for
the solitary chimney-nook of a Scottish dog-house--bartering the
sounds of the soul-ravishing lute, and the love-awaking viol-de-gamba,
for the discordant squeak of a northern bagpipe--above all, exchanging
the smiles of those beauties, who form a gay galaxy around the throne
of England, for the cold courtesy of an untaught damsel, and the
bewildered stare of a miller's maiden. More might I say of the
exchange of the conversation of gallant knights and gay courtiers of
mine own order and capacity, whose conceits are bright and vivid as
the lightning, for that of monks and churchmen--but it were
discourteous to urge that topic."

The Abbot listened to this list of complaints with great round eyes,
which evinced no exact intelligence of the orator's meaning; and when
the knight paused to take breath, he looked with a doubtful and
inquiring eye at the Sub-Prior, not well knowing in what tone he
should reply to an exordium so extraordinary. The Sub-Prior
accordingly stepped in to the relief of his principal.

"We deeply sympathize with you, Sir Knight, in the several
mortifications and hardships to which fate has subjected you,
particularly in that which has thrown you into the society of those,
who, as they were conscious they deserved not such an honour, so
neither did they at all desire it. But all this goes little way to
expound the cause of this train of disasters, or, in plainer words,
the reason which has compelled you into a situation having so few
charms for you."

"Gentle and reverend sir," replied the knight, "forgive an unhappy
person, who, in giving a history of his miseries, dilateth upon them
extremely, even as he who, having fallen from a precipice, looketh
upward to measure the height from which he hath been precipitated."

"Yea, but," said Father Eustace, "methinks it were wiser in him to tell
those who come to lift him up, which of his bones have been broken."

"You, reverend sir," said the knight, "have, in the encounter of our
wits, made a fair attaint; whereas I may be in some sort said to have
broken my staff across. [Footnote: _Attaint_ was a term of
tilting used to express the champion's having _attained_ his
mark, or, in other words, struck his lance straight and fair against
the helmet or breast of his adversary. Whereas to break the lance
across, intimated a total failure in directing the point of the weapon
on the object of his aim.] Pardon me, grave sir, that I speak in the
language of the tilt-yard, which is doubtless strange to your reverend
years.--Ah! brave resort of the noble, the fair and the gay!--Ah!
throne of love, and citadel of honour!--Ah! celestial beauties, by
whose bright eyes it is graced! Never more shall Piercie Shafton
advance, as the centre of your radiant glances, couch his lance, and
spur his horse at the sound of the spirit-stirring trumpets, nobly
called the voice of war--never more shall he baffle his adversary's
encounter boldly, break his spear dexterously, and ambling around the
lovely circle, receive the rewards with which beauty honours
chivalry!"

Here he paused, wrung his hands, looked upwards, and seemed lost in
contemplation of his own fallen fortunes.

"Mad, very mad," whispered the Abbot to the Sub-Prior; "I would we
were fairly rid of him; for, of a truth, I expect he will proceed from
raving to mischief--Were it not better to call up the rest of the
brethren?"

But the Sub-Prior knew better than his Superior how to distinguish the
jargon of affectation from the ravings of insanity, and although the
extremity of the knight's passion seemed altogether fantastic, yet he
was not ignorant to what extravagancies the fashion of the day can
conduct its votaries.

Allowing, therefore, two minutes' space to permit the knight's
enthusiastic feelings to exhaust themselves, he again gravely reminded
him that the Lord Abbot had taken a journey, unwonted to his age and
habits, solely to learn in what he could serve Sir Piercie
Shafton--that it was altogether impossible he could do so without his
receiving distinct information of the situation in which he had now
sought refuge in Scotland.--"The day wore on," he observed, looking at
the window; "and if the Abbot should be obliged to return to the
Monastery without obtaining the necessary intelligence, the regret
might be mutual, but the inconvenience was like to be all on Sir
Piercie's own side."

The hint was not thrown away.

"O, goddess of courtesy!" said the knight, "can I so far have
forgotten thy behests as to make this good prelate's ease and time a
sacrifice to my vain complaints! Know, then, most worthy, and not less
worshipful, that I, your poor visitor and guest, am by birth nearly
bound to the Piercie of Northumberland, whose fame is so widely blown
through all parts of the world where English worth hath been known.
Now, this present Earl of Northumberland, of whom I propose to give
you the brief history----"

"It is altogether unnecessary," said the Abbot; "we know him to be a
good and true nobleman, and a sworn upholder of our Catholic faith, in
the spite of the heretical woman who now sits upon the throne of
England. And it is specially as his kinsman, and as knowing that ye
partake with him in such devout and faithful belief and adherence to
our holy Mother Church, that we say to you, Sir Piercie Shafton, that
ye be heartily welcome to us, and that, and we wist how, we would
labour to do you good service in your extremity."

"For such kind offer I rest your most humble debtor," said Sir
Piercie, "nor need I at this moment say more than that my Right
Honourable Cousin of Northumberland, having devised with me and some
others, the choice and picked spirits of the age, how and by what
means the worship of God, according to the Catholic Church, might be
again introduced into this distracted kingdom of England, (even as one
deviseth, by the assistance of his friend, to catch and bridle a
runaway steed,) it pleased him so deeply to intrust me in those
communications, that my personal safety becomes, as it were, entwined
or complicated therewith. Natheless, as we have had sudden reason to
believe, this Princess Elizabeth, who maintaineth around her a sort of
counsellors skilful in tracking whatever schemes may be pursued for
bringing her title into challenge, or for erecting again the
discipline of the Catholic Church, has obtained certain knowledge of
the trains which we had laid before we could give fire unto them.
Wherefore, my Right Honourable Cousin of Northumberland, thinking it
best belike that one man should take both blame and shame for the
whole, did lay the burden of all this trafficking upon my back; which
load I am the rather content to bear, in that he hath always shown
himself my kind and honourable kinsman, as well as that my estate, I
wot not how, hath of late been somewhat insufficient to maintain the
expense of those braveries, wherewith it is incumbent on us, who are
chosen and selected spirits, to distinguish ourselves from the
vulgar."

"So that possibly," said the Sub-Prior, "your private affairs rendered a
foreign journey less incommodious to you than it might have been to the
noble earl, your right worthy cousin?"

"You are right, reverend sir," answered the courtier; "_rem
acu_--you have touched the point with a needle--My cost and
expenses had been indeed somewhat lavish at the late triumphs and
tourneys, and the flat-capp'd citizens had shown themselves unwilling
to furnish my pocket for new gallantries for the honour of the nation,
as well as for mine own peculiar glory--and, to speak truth, it was in
some part the hope of seeing these matters amended that led me to
desire a new world in England."

"So that the miscarriage of your public enterprise, with the
derangement of your own private affairs," said the Sub-Prior, "have
induced you to seek Scotland as a place of refuge?"

"_Rem acu_, once again," said Sir Piercie; and not without good
cause, since my neck, if I remained, might have been brought within
the circumstances of a halter--and so speedy was my journey northward,
that I had but time to exchange my peach-coloured doublet of Genoa
velvet, thickly laid over with goldsmith's work, for this cuirass,
which was made by Bonamico of Milan, and travelled northward with all
speed, judging that I might do well to visit my Right Honourable
Cousin of Northumberland, at one of his numerous castles. But as I
posted towards Alnwick, even with the speed of a star, which, darting
from its native sphere, shoots wildly downwards, I was met at
Northallerton by one Henry Vaughan, a servant of my right honourable
kinsman, who showed me, that as then I might not with safety come to
his presence, seeing that, in obedience to orders from his court, he
was obliged to issue out letters for my incarceration."

"This," said the Abbot, "seems but hard measure on the part of your
honourable kinsman."

"It might be so judged, my lord," replied Sir Piercie; "nevertheless,
I will stand to the death for the honour of my Right Honourable Cousin
of Northumberland. Also, Henry Vaughan gave me, from my said cousin, a
good horse, and a purse of gold, with two Border-prickers, as they are
called, for my guides, who conducted me, by such roads and by-paths as
have never been seen since the days of Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristrem,
into this kingdom of Scotland, and to the house of a certain baron, or
one who holds the style of such, called Julian Avenel, with whom I
found such reception as the place and party could afford."