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

and you, and all good children. See how fairly she is represented, with her gown covered with golden stars.”

The boy was lost in wonder at the portrait of the Virgin, which the Sub-Prior turned up to him.

“This,” he said, “is really like our sweet Mary; and I think I will let you take away the black book, that has no such goodly shows in it, and leave this for Mary instead. But you must promise to bring back the book, good father—for now I think upon it, Mary may like that best which was her mother's.”

“I will certainly return,” said the monk, evading his answer, “and perhaps I may teach you to write and read such beautiful letters as you see there written, and to paint them blue, green, and yellow, and to blazon them with gold.”

“Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially these two Marys?” said the boy.

“With their blessing,” said the Sub-Prior, “I can teach you that art too, so far as I am myself capable of showing, and you of learning it.” “Then,” said Edward, “will I paint Mary's picture—and remember you are to bring back the black book; that you must promise me.”

The Sub-Prior, anxious to get rid of the boy's pertinacity, and to set forward on his return to the convent, without having any further interview with Christie the galloper, answered by giving the promise Edward required, mounted his mule, and set forth on his return homeward.

The November day was well spent ere the Sub-Prior resumed his journey; for the difficulty of the road, and the various delays which he had met with at the tower, had detained him longer than he proposed. A chill easterly wind was sighing among the withered leaves, and stripping them from the hold they had yet retained on the parent trees.

“Even so,” said the monk, “our prospects in this vale of time grow more disconsolate as the stream of years passes on. Little have I gained by my journey, saving the certainty that heresy is busy among us with more than his usual activity, and that the spirit of insulting religious orders, and plundering the Church's property, so general in the eastern districts of Scotland, has now come nearer home.”

The tread of a horse which came up behind him, interrupted his reverie, and he soon saw he was mounted by the same wild rider whom he had left at the tower.

“Good even, my son, and benedicite,” said the Sub-Prior as he passed; but the rude soldier scarce acknowledged the greeting, by bending his head; and dashing the spurs into his horse, went on at a pace which soon left the monk and his mule far behind. And there, thought the Sub-Prior, goes another plague of the times—a fellow whose birth designed him to cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and unchristian divisions of the country, into a daring and dissolute robber. The barons of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and ruffians, oppressing the poor by violence, and wasting the Church, by extorting free-quarters from abbeys and priories, without either shame or reason. I fear me I shall be too late to counsel the Abbot to make a stand against these daring sorners {Footnote: To sorne, in Scotland, is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is declared equivalent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very much by exactions of this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of Angus, I think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once a year, with a train of a thousand horse, and abiding till the whole winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.}—“I must make haste.” He struck his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from the path, and the rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.

“Art thou, too, infected with the spirit of the times?” said the Sub-Prior; “thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as restive as any wild jack-man or stubborn heretic of them all.”

While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of a female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,

“Good evening-. Sir Priest, and so late as you ride, With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide; But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill. There is one that has warrant to wait on you still. Back, back, The volume black! I have a warrant to carry it back.”

The Sub-Prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which could conceal an ambushed songstress. “May Our Lady have mercy on me!” he said; “I trust my senses have not forsaken me—yet how my thoughts should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music which I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice in ears, in which its melody has been so long indifferent, baffles my comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the Sacristan. Come, good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our judgment serves us.”

But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed from the point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid close into her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets, testified that she was under great terror.

While the Sub-Prior, by alternate threats and soothing, endeavoured to reclaim the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again heard close beside him.

“What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier? Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise, Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize. Back, back. There's death in the track! In the name of my master I bid thee bear back.”

“In the name of MY Master,” said the astonished monk, “that name before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art that hauntest me thus?”

The same voice replied,

“That which is neither ill nor well. That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell, A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream, 'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream; A form that men spy With the half-shut eye. In the beams of the setting sun, am I.”

“This is more than simple fantasy,” said the Sub-Prior, rousing himself; though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the sensible presence of a supernatural being so near him, failed not to make his blood run cold, and his hair bristle. “I charge thee,” he said aloud, “be thine errand what it will, to depart and trouble me no more! False spirit, thou canst not appal any save those who do the work negligently.” The voice immediately answered:

“Vainly, Sir Prior, wouldst thou bar me my right! Like the star when it shoots, I can dart through the night; I can dance on the torrent and ride on the air, And travel the world with the bonny night-mare. Again, again, At the crook of the glen, Where bickers the burnie, I'll meet thee again.”