Chapter 13
“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.”
“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.