The Monastery by Walter Scott (free novels to read .txt) 📖

pool at Jeddart.-To him and to the Primate will I complain.” The soldier shifted the position of his lance, and brought it down to a level with the monk's body.

Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. “Tibb Tacket! Martin! where be ye all?—Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man of Holy Kirk!”

“I care not for his spear,” said the Sub-Prior; “if I am slain in defending the rights and privileges of my community, the Primate will know how to take vengeance.”

“Let him look to himself,” said Christie, but at the same time depositing his lance against the wall of the tower; “if the Fife men spoke true who came hither with the Governor in the last raid, Norman Leslie has him at feud, and is like to set him hard. We know Norman a true bloodhound, who will never quit the slot. But I had no design to offend the holy father,” he added, thinking perhaps he had gone a little too far; “I am a rude man, bred to lance and stirrup, and not used to deal with book-learned men and priests; and I am willing to ask his forgiveness—and his blessing, if I have said aught amiss.”

“For God's sake! your reverence,” said the widow of Glendearg apart to the Sub-Prior, “bestow on him your forgiveness—how shall we poor folk sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with such men as he is?”

“You are right, dame,” said the Sub-Prior, “your safety should, and must be, in the first instance consulted.—Soldier, I forgive thee, and may God bless thee and send thee honesty.”

Christie of the Clinthill made an unwilling inclination with his head, and muttered apart, “that is as much as to say, God send thee starvation, But now to my master's demand, Sir Priest? What answer am I to return?”

“That the body of the widow of Walter of Avenel,” answered the Father, “shall be interred as becomes her rank, and in the tomb of her valiant husband. For your master's proffered visit of three days, with such a company and retinue, I have no authority to reply to it; you must intimate your Chief's purpose to the Reverend Lord Abbot.”

“That will cost me a farther ride,” said the man, “but it is all in the day's work.—How now, my lad,” said he to Halbert, who was handling the long lance which he had laid aside; “how do you like such a plaything?—will you go with me and be a moss-trooper?”

“The Saints in their mercy forbid!” said the poor mother; and then, afraid of having displeased Christie by the vivacity of her exclamation, she followed it up by explaining, that since Simon's death she could not look on a spear or a bow, or any implement of destruction without trembling.

“Pshaw!” answered Christie, “thou shouldst take another husband, dame, and drive such follies out of thy thoughts—what sayst thou to such a strapping lad as I? Why, this old tower of thine is fensible enough, and there is no want of clenchs, and crags, and bogs, and thickets, if one was set hard; a man might bide here and keep his half-score of lads, and as many geldings, and live on what he could lay his hand on, and be kind to thee, old wench.”

“Alas! Master Christie,” said the matron, “that you should talk to a lone woman in such a fashion, and death in the house besides!”

“Lone woman!—why, that is the very reason thou shouldst take a mate. Thy old friend is dead, why, good—choose thou another of somewhat tougher frame, and that will not die of the pip like a young chicken.—Better still—Come, dame, let me have something to eat, and we will talk more of this.”

Dame Elspeth, though she well knew the character of the man, whom in fact she both disliked and feared, could not help simpering at the personal address which he thought proper to make to her. She whispered to the Sub-Prior, “ony thing just to keep him quiet,” and went into the tower to set before the soldier the food he desired, trusting betwixt good cheer and the power of her own charms, to keep Christie of the Clinthill so well amused, that the altercation betwixt him and the holy father should not be renewed.

The Sub-Prior was equally unwilling to hazard any unnecessary rupture between the community and such a person as Julian of Avenel. He was sensible that moderation, as well as firmness, was necessary to support the tottering cause of the Church of Rome; and that, contrary to former times, the quarrels betwixt the clergy and laity had, in the present, usually terminated to the advantage of the latter. He resolved, therefore, to avoid farther strife by withdrawing, but failed not, in the first place, to possess himself of the volume which the Sacristan carried off the evening before, and which had been returned to the glen in such a marvellous manner.

Edward, the younger of Dame Elspeth's boys, made great objections to the book's being removed, in which Mary would probably have joined, but that she was now in her little sleeping-chamber with Tibb, who was exerting her simple skill to console the young lady for her mother's death. But the younger Glendinning stood up in defence of her property, and, with a positiveness which had hitherto made no part of his character, declared, that now the kind lady was dead, the book was Mary's, and no one but Mary should have it.

“But if it is not a fit book for Mary to read, my dear boy,” said the father, gently, “you would not wish it to remain with her?”

“The lady read it,” answered the young champion of property; “and so it could not be wrong—it shall not be taken away.—I wonder where Halbert is?—listening to the bravading tales of gay Christie, I reckon,—he is always wishing for fighting, and now he is out of the way.”

“Why, Edward, you would not fight with me, who am both a priest and old man?”

“If you were as good a priest as the Pope,” said the boy, “and as old as the hills to boot, you shall not carry away Mary's book without her leave. I will do battle for it.”

“But see you, my love,” said the monk, amused with the resolute friendship manifested by the boy, “I do not take it; I only borrow it; and I leave in its place my own gay missal, as a pledge I will bring it again.”

Edward opened the missal with eager curiosity, and glanced at the pictures with which it was illustrated. “Saint George and the dragon—Halbert will like that; and Saint Michael brandishing his sword over the head of the Wicked One—and that will do for Halbert too. And see the Saint John leading his lamb in the wilderness, with his little cross made of reeds, and his scrip and staff—that shall be my favourite; and where shall we find one for poor Mary?—here is a beautiful woman weeping and lamenting herself.”

“This is Saint Mary Magdalen repenting of her sins, my dear boy,” said the father.

“That will not suit our Mary; for she commits no faults, and is never angry with us, but when we do something wrong.”

“Then,” said the father, “I will show you a Mary, who will protect her