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Books: The Monastery

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Monastery




But Halbert Glendinning did not pause to consider who the traveller
might be, or what might be the purpose of his journey. To know that he
saw a human being, and might receive, in the extremity of his
distress, the countenance and advice of a fellow-creature, was enough
for him at the moment. He threw himself from the pinnacle of the cliff
once more into the arms of the projecting oak-tree, whose boughs waved
in middle air, anchored by the roots in a huge rift or chasm of the
rock. Catching at the branch which was nearest to him, he dropped
himself from that height upon the ground; and such was the athletic
springiness of his youthful sinews, that he pitched there as lightly,
and with as little injury, as the falcon stooping from her wheel.

To resume his race at full speed up the glen, was the work of an
instant; and as he turned angle after angle of the indented banks of
the valley, without meeting that which he sought, he became half
afraid that the form which he had seen at such a distance had already
melted into thin air, and was either a deception of his own
imagination, or of the elementary spirits by which the valley was
supposed to be haunted.

But to his inexpressible joy, as he turned round the base of a huge
and distinguished crag, he saw, straight before and very near to him,
a person, whose dress, as he viewed it hastily, resembled that of a
pilgrim.

He was a man of advanced life, and wearing a long beard, having on his
head a large slouched hat, without either band or brooch. His dress
was a tunic of black serge, which, like those commonly called
hussar-cloaks, had an upper part, which covered the arms and fell down
on the lower; a small scrip and bottle, which hung at his back, with a
stout staff in his hand, completed his equipage. His step was feeble,
like that of one exhausted by a toilsome journey.

"Save ye, good father!" said the youth. "God and Our Lady have sent
you to my assistance."

"And in what, my son, can so frail a creature as I am, be of service
to you?" said the old man, not a little surprised at being thus
accosted by so handsome a youth, his features discomposed by anxiety,
his face flushed with exertion, his hands and much of his dress
stained with blood. "A man bleeds to death in the valley here, hard
by. Come with me--come with me! You are aged--you have
experience--you have at least your senses--and mine have well nigh
left me."

"A man--and bleeding to death--and here in this desolate spot!" said
the stranger.

"Stay not to question it, father," said the youth, "but come instantly
to his rescue. Follow me,--follow me, without an instant's delay."

"Nay, but, my son," said the old man, "we do not lightly follow the
guides who present themselves thus suddenly in the bosom of a howling
wilderness. Ere I follow thee, thou must expound to me thy name, thy
purpose, and thy cause."

"There is no time to expound any thing," said Halbert; "I tell thee a
man's life is at stake, and thou must come to aid him, or I will carry
thee thither by force!"

"Nay, thou shalt not need," said the traveller; "if it indeed be as
thou sayest, I will follow thee of free-will--the rather that I am not
wholly unskilled in leech-craft, and have in my scrip that which may
do thy friend a service--Yet walk more slowly, I pray thee, for I am
already well-nigh forespent with travel."

With the indignant impatience of the fiery steed when compelled by his
rider to keep pace with some slow drudge upon the highway, Halbert
accompanied the wayfarer, burning with anxiety which he endeavoured to
subdue, that he might not alarm his companion, who was obviously
afraid to trust him. When they reached the place where they were to
turn off the wider glen into the Corri, the traveller made a doubtful
pause, as if unwilling to leave the broader path--"Young man," he
said, "if thou meanest aught but good to these gray hairs, thou wilt
gain little by thy cruelty--I have no earthly treasure to tempt either
robber or murderer."

"And I," said the youth, "am neither--and yet--God of Heaven!--I
_may_ be a murderer, unless your aid comes in time to this
wounded wretch!"

"Is it even so," said the traveller; "and do human passions disturb the
breast of nature, even in her deepest solitude?--Yet why should I marvel
that where darkness abides the works of darkness should abound?--By its
fruits is the tree known--Lead on, unhappy youth--I follow thee!"

And with better will to the journey than he had evinced hitherto, the
stranger exerted himself to the uttermost, and seemed to forget his own
fatigue in his efforts to keep pace with his impatient guide.

What was the surprise of Halbert Glendinning, when, upon arriving at
the fatal spot, he saw no appearance of the body of Sir Piercie
Shafton! The traces of the fray were otherwise sufficiently visible.
The knight's cloak had indeed vanished as well as his body, but his
doublet remained where he had laid it down, and the turf on which he
had been stretched was stained with blood in many a dark crimson spot.

As he gazed round him in terror and astonishment, Halbert's eyes fell
upon the place of sepulture which had so lately appeared to gape for a
victim. It was no longer open, and it seemed that earth had received
the expected tenant; for the usual narrow hillock was piled over what
had lately been an open grave, and the green sod was adjusted over all
with the accuracy of an experienced sexton. Halbert stood aghast. The
idea rushed on his mind irresistibly, that the earth-heap before him
enclosed what had lately been a living, moving, and sentient
fellow-creature, whom, on little provocation, his fell act had reduced
to a clod of the valley, as senseless and as cold as the turf under
which he rested. The hand that scooped the grave had completed its
word; and whose hand could it be save that of the mysterious being of
doubtful quality, whom his rashness had invoked, and whom he had
suffered to intermingle in his destinies?

As he stood with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, bitterly ruing his
rashness, he was roused by the voice of the stranger, whose suspicions
of his guide had again been awakened by finding the scene so different
from what Halbert had led him to expect.--"Young man," he said, "hast
thou baited thy tongue with falsehood to cut perhaps only a few days
from the life of one whom Nature will soon call home, without guilt on
thy part to hasten his journey?"

"By the blessed Heaven!--by our dear Lady!" ejaculated Halbert--

"Swear not at all!" said the stranger, interrupting him, "neither by
Heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by earth, for it is his
footstool--nor by the creatures whom he hath made, for they are but
earth and clay as we are. Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay. Tell
me in a word, why and for what purpose thou hast feigned a tale, to
lead a bewildered traveller yet farther astray?"

"As I am a Christian man," said Glendinning, "I left him here bleeding
to death--and now I nowhere spy him, and much I doubt that the tomb
that thou seest has closed on his mortal remains."

"And who is he for whose fate thou art so anxious?" said the stranger;
"or how is it possible that this wounded man could have been either
removed from, or interred in, a place so solitary?"

"His name," said Halbert, after a moment's pause, "is Piercie
Shafton--there, on that very spot I left him bleeding; and what power
has conveyed him hence, I know no more than thou dost."

"Piercie Shafton?" said the stranger; "Sir Piercie Shafton of
Wilverton, a kinsman, as it is said, of the great Piercie of
Northumberland? If thou hast slain him, to return to the territories
of the proud Abbot is to give thy neck to the gallows. He is well
known, that Piercie Shafton; the meddling tool of wiser plotters--a
harebrained trafficker in treason--a champion of the Pope, employed as
a forlorn hope by those more politic heads, who have more will to work
mischief, than valour to encounter danger.--Come with me, youth, and
save thyself from the evil consequences of this deed--Guide me to the
Castle of Avenel, and thy reward shall be protection and safety."

Again Halbert paused, and summoned his mind to a hasty council. The
vengeance with which the Abbot was likely to visit the slaughter of
Shafton, his friend, and in some measure his guest, was likely to be
severe; yet, in the various contingencies which he had considered
previous to their duel, he had unaccountably omitted to reflect what
was to be his line of conduct in case of Sir Piercie falling by his
hand. If he returned to Glendearg, he was sure to draw on his whole
family, including Mary Avenel, the resentment of the Abbot and
community, whereas it was possible that flight might make him be
regarded as the sole author of the deed, and might avert the
indignation of the monks from the rest of the inhabitants of his
paternal tower. Halbert recollected also the favour expressed for the
household, and especially for Edward, by the Sub-Prior; and he
conceived that he could, by communicating his own guilt to that worthy
ecclesiastic, when at a distance from Glendearg, secure his powerful
interposition in favour of his family. These thoughts rapidly passed
through his mind, and he determined on flight. The stranger's company
and his promised protection came in aid of that resolution; but he was
unable to reconcile the invitation which the old man gave him to
accompany him for safety to the Castle of Avenel, with the connexions
of Julian, the present usurper of that inheritance.

"Good father," he said, "I fear that you mistake the man with whom you
wish me to harbour. Avenel guided Piercie Shafton into Scotland, and
his henchman, Christie of the Clinthill, brought the Southron hither."

"Of that," said the old man, "I am well aware. Yet if thou wilt trust
to me, as I have shown no reluctance to confide in thee, thou shalt
find with Julian Avenel welcome, or at least safety."

"Father," replied Halbert, "though I can ill reconcile what thou
sayest with what Julian Avenel hath done, yet caring little about the
safety of a creature so lost as myself, and as thy words seem those of
truth and honesty, and finally, as thou didst render thyself frankly
up to my conduct, I will return the confidence thou hast shown, and
accompany thee to the Castle of Avenel by a road which thou thyself
couldst never have discovered." He led the way, and the old man
followed for some time in silence.

* * * * *



Chapter the Twenty-Third.


'Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold.
The warrior first feels pain--'tis when the heat
And fiery fever of his soul is pass'd,
The sinner feels remorse.
OLD PLAY.

The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited
upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and
country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short
certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by
better religious precepts, and more strictly trained under social
laws; but still they were deep and severely felt, and divided in
Halbert's heart even the regret with which he parted from Mary Avenel
and the tower of his fathers.

The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then
addressed him.--"My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or
die--Why art thou so much cast down?--Tell me thy unhappy tale, and it
may be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young
life."

"Alas !" said Halbert Glendinning, "can you wonder why I am cast
down?--I am at this instant a fugitive from my father's house, from my
mother, and from my friends, and I bear on my head the blood of a man
who injured me but in idle words, which I have thus bloodily requited.
My heart now tells me I have done evil--it were harder than these
rocks if it could bear unmoved the thought, that I have sent this man
to a long account, unhousled and unshrieved."

"Pause there, my son," said the traveller. "That thou hast defaced
God's image in thy neighbour's person--that thou hast sent dust to
dust in idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest
dye--that thou hast cut short the space which Heaven might have
allowed him for repentance, makes it yet more deadly--but for all this
there is balm in Gilead."

"I understand you not, father," said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone
which was assumed by his companion.

The old man proceeded. "Thou hast slain thine enemy--it was a cruel
deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins--it is a fearful
aggravation. Do yet by my counsel, and in lieu of him whom thou hast
perchance consigned to the kingdom of Satan, let thine efforts wrest
another subject from the reign of the Evil One."

"I understand you, father," said Halbert; "thou wouldst have me atone
for my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary--But how
may this be? I have no money to purchase masses, and gladly would I
go barefoot to the Holy Land to free his spirit from purgatory, only
that--"

"My son," said the old man, interrupting him, "the sinner for whose
redemption I entreat you to labour, is not the dead but the living. It
is not for the soul of thine enemy I would exhort thee to pray--that
has already had its final doom from a Judge as merciful as he is just;
nor, wert thou to coin that rock into ducats, and obtain a mass for
each one, would it avail the departed spirit. Where the tree hath
fallen, it must lie. But the sapling, which hath in it yet the vigour
and juice of life, may be bended to the point to which it ought to
incline."

"Art thou a priest, father?" said the young man, "or by what commission
dost thou talk of such high matters?"

"By that of my Almighty Master," said the traveller, "under whose
banner I am an enlisted soldier."

Halbert's acquaintance with religious matters was no deeper than could
be derived from the Archbishop of Saint Andrew's Catechism, and the
pamphlet called the Twapennie Faith, both which were industriously
circulated and recommended by the monks of Saint Mary's. Yet, however
indifferent and superficial a theologian, he began to suspect that he
was now in company with one of the gospellers, or heretics, before
whose influence the ancient system of religion now tottered to the
very foundation. Bred up, as may well be presumed, in a holy horror
against these formidable sectaries, the youth's first feelings were
those of a loyal and devoted church vassal. "Old man," he said, "wert
thou able to make good with thy hand the words that thy tongue hath
spoken against our Holy Mother Church, we should have tried upon this
moor which of our creeds hath the better champion."

"Nay," said the stranger, "if thou art a true soldier of Rome, thou
wilt not pause from thy purpose because thou hast the odds of years
and of strength on thy side. Hearken to me, my son. I have showed thee
how to make thy peace with Heaven, and thou hast rejected my proffer.
I will now show thee how thou shalt make thy reconciliation with the
powers of this world. Take this gray head from the frail body which
supports it, and carry it to the chair of proud Abbot Boniface; and
when thou tellest him thou hast slain Piercie Shafton, and his ire
rises at the deed, lay the head of Henry Warden at his foot, and thou
shalt have praise instead of censure."

Halbert Glendinning stepped back in surprise. "What! are you that
Henry Warden so famous among the heretics, that even Knox's name is
scarce more frequently in their mouths? Art thou he, and darest thou to
approach the Halidome of Saint Mary's?"

"I am Henry Warden, of a surety," said the old man, "far unworthy to
be named in the same breath with Knox, but yet willing to venture on
whatever dangers my master's service may call me to."

"Hearken to me, then," said Halbert; "to slay thee, I have no
heart--to make thee prisoner, were equally to bring thy blood on my
head--to leave thee in this wild without a guide, were little better.
I will conduct thee, as I promised, in safety to the Castle of Avenel;
but breathe not, while we are on the journey, a word against the
doctrines of the holy church of which I am an unworthy--but though an
ignorant, a zealous member.--When thou art there arrived, beware of
thyself--there is a high price upon thy head, and Julian Avenel loves
the glance of gold bonnet-pieces." [Footnote: A gold coin of James V.,
the most beautiful of the Scottish series; so called because the
effigy of the sovereignty is represented wearing a bonnet.]

"Yet thou sayest not," answered the Protestant preacher, for such he
was, "that for lucre he would sell the blood of his guest?"

"Not if thou comest an invited stranger, relying on his faith," said
the youth; "evil as Julian may be, he dare not break the rites of
hospitality; for, loose as we on these marches may be in all other
ties, these are respected amongst us even to idolatry, and his nearest
relations would think it incumbent on them to spill his blood
themselves, to efface the disgrace such treason would bring upon their
name and lineage. But if thou goest self-invited, and without
assurance of safety, I promise thee thy risk is great."

"I am in God's hand," answered the preacher; "it is on His errand that
I traverse these wilds amidst dangers of every kind; while I am useful
for my master's service, they shall not prevail against me, and when,
like the barren fig-tree, I can no longer produce fruit, what imports
it when or by whom the axe is laid to the root?"

"Your courage and devotion," said Glendinning, "are worthy of a better
cause."

"That," said Warden, "cannot be--mine is the very best."

They continued their journey in silence, Halbert Glendinning tracing
with the utmost accuracy the mazes of the dangerous and intricate
morasses and hills which divided the Halidome from the barony of
Avenel. From time to time he was obliged to stop, in order to assist
his companion to cross the black intervals of quaking bog, called in
the Scottish dialect _hags_, by which the firmer parts of the
morass were intersected.

"Courage, old man," said Halbert, as he saw his companion almost
exhausted with fatigue, "we shall soon be upon hard ground. And yet
soft as this moss is, I have seen the merry falconers go through it as
light as deer when the quarry was upon the flight."

"True, my son," answered Warden, "for so I will still call you, though
you term me no longer father; and even so doth headlong youth pursue its
pleasures, without regard to the mire and the peril of the paths through
which they are hurried."

"I have already told thee," answered Halbert Glendinning, sternly, "that
I will hear nothing from thee that savours of doctrine."

"Nay, but, my son," answered Warden, "thy spiritual father himself
would surely not dispute the truth of what I have now spoken for your
edification!"

Glendinning stoutly replied, "I know not how that may be--but I wot
well it is the fashion of your brotherhood to bait your hook with fair
discourse, and to hold yourselves up as angels of light, that you may
the better extend the kingdom of darkness."

"May God," replied the preacher, "pardon those who have thus reported
of his servants! I will not offend thee, my son, by being instant out of
season--thou speakest but as thou art taught--yet sure I trust that so
goodly a youth will be still rescued, like a brand from the burning."

While he thus spoke, the verge of the morass was attained, and their
path lay on the declivity. Green-sward it was, and, viewed from a
distance, chequered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown
heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so easily
traced when they were walking on it. [Footnote: This sort of path,
visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you
are upon it, is called on the Border by the significant name of a
Blind-road.] The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease;
and, unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion
for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his
conversation was still grave, moral, and instructive. He had travelled
much, and knew both the language and manners of other countries,
concerning which Halbert Glendinning, already anticipating the
possibility of being obliged to leave Scotland for the deed he had
done, was naturally and anxiously desirous of information. By degrees
he was more attracted by the charms of the stranger's conversation
than repelled by the dread of his dangerous character as a heretic,
and Halbert had called him father more than once, ere the turrets of
Avenel Castle came in view.

The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a
small rocky islet in a mountain lake, or _tarn,_ as such a piece
of water is called in Westmoreland. The lake might be about a mile in
circumference, surrounded by hills of considerable height, which,
except where old trees and brushwood occupied the ravines that divided
them from each other, were bare and heathy. The surprise of the
spectator was chiefly excited by finding a piece of water situated in
that high and mountainous region, and the landscape around had
features which might rather be termed wild, than either romantic or
sublime; yet the scene was not without its charms. Under the burning
sun of summer, the clear azure of the deep unruffled lake refreshed
the eye, and impressed the mind with a pleasing feeling of deep
solitude. In winter, when the snow lay on the mountains around, these
dazzling masses appeared to ascend far beyond their wonted and natural
height, while the lake, which stretched beneath, and filled their
bosom with all its frozen waves, lay like the surface of a darkened
and broken mirror around the black and rocky islet, and the walls of
the gray castle with which it was crowned.

As the castle occupied, either with its principal buildings, or with
its flanking and outward walls, every projecting point of rock, which
served as its site, it seemed as completely surrounded by water as the
nest of a wild swan, save where a narrow causeway extended betwixt the
islet and the shore. But the fortress was larger in appearance than in
reality; and of the buildings which it actually contained, many had
become ruinous and uninhabitable. In the times of the grandeur of the
Avenel family, these had been occupied by a considerable garrison of
followers and retainers, but they were now in a great measure
deserted; and Julian Avenel would probably have fixed his habitation
in a residence better suited to his diminished fortunes, had it not
been for the great security which the situation of the old castle
afforded to a man of his precarious and perilous mode of life. Indeed,
in this respect, the spot could scarce have been more happily chosen,
for it could be rendered almost completely inaccessible at the
pleasure of the inhabitant. The distance betwixt the nearest shore and
the islet was not indeed above an hundred yards; but then the causeway
which connected them was extremely narrow, and completely divided by
two cuts, one in the mid-way between the islet and shore, and another
close under the outward gate of the castle. These formed a formidable,
and almost insurmountable interruption to any hostile approach. Each
was defended by a drawbridge, one of which, being that nearest to the
castle, was regularly raised at all times during the day, and both
were lifted at night. [Footnote: It is in vain to search near Melrose
for any such castle as is here described. The lakes at the head of the
Yarrow, and those at the rise of the water of Ale, present no object
of the kind. But in Vetholm Loch, (a romantic sheet of water, in the
dry march, as it is called,) there are the remains of a fortress
called Lochside Tower, which, like the supposed Castle of Avenel, is
built upon an island, and connected with the land by a causeway. It is
much smaller than the Castle of Avenel is described, consisting only
of a single *inous tower.]

The situation of Julian Avenel, engaged in a variety of feuds, and a
party to almost every dark and mysterious transaction which was on
foot in that wild and military frontier, required all these
precautions for his security. His own ambiguous and doubtful course of
policy had increased these dangers; for as he made professions to both
parties in the state, and occasionally united more actively with
either the one or the other, as chanced best to serve his immediate
purpose, he could not be said to have either firm allies and
protectors, or determined enemies. His life was a life of expedients
and of peril; and while, in pursuit of his interest, he made all the
doubles which he thought necessary to attain his object, he often
overran his prey, and missed that which he might have gained by
observing a straighter course.

* * * * *



Chapter the Twenty-Fourth.


I'll walk on tiptoe; arm my eye with caution,
My heart with courage, and my hand with weapon,
Like him who ventures on a lion's den.
OLD PLAY.