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The Monastery

by Walter Scott · English · Gutenberg #6406 · 1,020,660 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Monastery

Author: Walter Scott


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6406]
                Most recently updated: February 27, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONASTERY ***




Produced by Alan Millar, David Moynihan, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team








[Illustration: Halbert Glendinning Invoking The White Lady]

[Illustration: WAVERLEY NOVELS ABBOTSFORD EDITION]

             THE WAVERLY NOVELS
                    by
              SIR WALTER SCOTT.

                 Complete
             In Twelve Volumes

                 Printed
       from the latest English Editions
                Embracing
 The Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes.


              THE MONASTERY.


INTRODUCTION--(1830.)

It would be difficult to assign any good reason why the author of
Ivanhoe, after using, in that work, all the art he possessed to remove
the personages, action, and manners of the tale, to a distance from
his own country, should choose for the scene of his next attempt the
celebrated ruins of Melrose, in the immediate neighbourhood of his own
residence. But the reason, or caprice, which dictated his change of
system, has entirely escaped his recollection, nor is it worth while to
attempt recalling what must be a matter of very little consequence.

The general plan of the story was, to conjoin two characters in that
bustling and contentious age, who, thrown into situations which gave
them different views on the subject of the Reformation, should, with the
same sincerity and purity of intention, dedicate themselves, the one to
the support of the sinking fabric of the Catholic Church, the other to
the establishment of the Reformed doctrines. It was supposed that some
interesting subjects for narrative might be derived from opposing two
such enthusiasts to each other in the path of life, and contrasting the
real worth of both with their passions and prejudices. The localities
of Melrose suited well the scenery of the proposed story; the ruins
themselves form a splendid theatre for any tragic incident which might
be brought forward; joined to the vicinity of the fine river, with all
its tributary streams, flowing through a country which has been the
scene of so much fierce fighting, and is rich with so many recollections
of former times, and lying almost under the immediate eye of the author,
by whom they were to be used in composition.

The situation possessed farther recommendations. On the opposite bank of
the Tweed might be seen the remains of ancient enclosures, surrounded by
sycamores and ash-trees of considerable size. These had once formed the
crofts or arable ground of a village, now reduced to a single hut, the
abode of a fisherman, who also manages a ferry. The cottages, even the
church which once existed there, have sunk into vestiges hardly to
be traced without visiting the spot, the inhabitants having gradually
withdrawn to the more prosperous town of Galashiels, which has
risen into consideration, within two miles of their neighbourhood.
Superstitious eld, however, has tenanted the deserted groves with aerial
beings, to supply the want of the mortal tenants who have deserted it.
The ruined and abandoned churchyard of Boldside has been long believed
to be haunted by the Fairies, and the deep broad current of the Tweed,
wheeling in moonlight round the foot of the steep bank, with the
number of trees originally planted for shelter round the fields of
the cottagers, but now presenting the effect of scattered and detached
groves, fill up the idea which one would form in imagination for a scene
that Oberon and Queen Mab might love to revel in. There are evenings
when the spectator might believe, with Father Chaucer, that the

  --Queen of Faery,
  With harp, and pipe, and symphony,
  Were dwelling in the place.

Another, and even a more familiar refuge of the elfin race, (if
tradition is to be trusted,) is the glen of the river, or rather brook,
named the Allen, which falls into the Tweed from the northward, about a
quarter of a mile above the present bridge. As the streamlet finds its
way behind Lord Sommerville's hunting-seat, called the Pavilion, its
valley has been popularly termed the Fairy Dean, or rather the Nameless
Dean, because of the supposed ill luck attached by the popular faith of
ancient times, to any one who might name or allude to the race, whom our
fathers distinguished as the Good Neighbours, and the Highlanders called
Daoine Shie, or Men of Peace; rather by way of compliment, than on
account of any particular idea of friendship or pacific relation which
either Highlander or Borderer entertained towards the irritable beings
whom they thus distinguished, or supposed them to bear to humanity.
[Footnote: See Rob Roy, Note, p. 202.]

In evidence of the actual operations of the fairy people even at this
time, little pieces of calcareous matter are found in the glen after a
flood, which either the labours of those tiny artists, or the eddies of
the brook among the stones, have formed into a fantastic resemblance of
cups, saucers, basins, and the like, in which children who gather them
pretend to discern fairy utensils.

Besides these circumstances of romantic locality, _mea paupera regna_
(as Captain Dalgetty denominates his territory of Drumthwacket) are
bounded by a small but deep lake, from which eyes that yet look on the
light are said to have seen the waterbull ascend, and shake the hills
with his roar.

Indeed, the country around Melrose, if possessing less of romantic
beauty than some other scenes in Scotland, is connected with so many
associations of a fanciful nature, in which the imagination takes
delight, as might well induce one even less attached to the spot than
the author, to accommodate, after a general manner, the imaginary scenes
he was framing to the localities to which he was partial. But it would
be a misapprehension to suppose, that, because Melrose may in general
pass for Kennaquhair, or because it agrees with scenes of the Monastery
in the circumstances of the drawbridge, the milldam, and other points of
resemblance, that therefore an accurate or perfect local similitude
is to be found in all the particulars of the picture. It was not the
purpose of the author to present a landscape copied from nature, but a
piece of composition, in which a real scene, with which he is familiar,
had afforded him some leading outlines. Thus the resemblance of the
imaginary Glendearg with the real vale of the Allen, is far from being
minute, nor did the author aim at identifying them. This must appear
plain to all who know the actual character of the Glen of Allen, and
have taken the trouble to read the account of the imaginary Glendearg.
The stream in the latter case is described as wandering down a romantic
little valley, shifting itself, after the fashion of such a brook,
from one side to the other, as it can most easily find its passage, and
touching nothing in its progress that gives token of cultivation. It
rises near a solitary tower, the abode of a supposed church vassal, and
the scene of several incidents in the Romance.

The real Allen, on the contrary, after traversing the romantic ravine
called the Nameless Dean, thrown off from side to side alternately, like
a billiard ball repelled by the sides of the table on which it has been
played, and in that part of its course resembling the stream which pours
down Glendearg, may be traced upwards into a more open country, where
the banks retreat farther from each other, and the vale exhibits a
good deal of dry ground, which has not been neglected by the active
cultivators of the district. It arrives, too, at a sort of termination,
striking in itself, but totally irreconcilable with the narrative of
the Romance. Instead of a single peel-house, or border tower of defence,
such as Dame Glendinning is supposed to have inhabited, the head of the
Allen, about five miles above its junction with the Tweed, shows three
ruins of Border houses, belonging to different proprietors, and each,
from the desire of mutual support so natural to troublesome times,
situated at the extremity of the property of which it is the principal
messuage. One of these is the ruinous mansion-house of Hillslap,
formerly the property of the Cairncrosses, and now of Mr. Innes of Stow;
a second the tower of Colmslie, an ancient inheritance of the Borthwick
family, as is testified by their crest, the Goat's Head, which exists on
the ruin; [Footnote: It appears that Sir Walter Scott's memory was not
quite accurate on these points. John Borthwick, Esq. in a note to the
publisher, (June 11, 1813.) says that _Colmslie_ belonged to Mr. Innes
of Stow, while _Hillslap_ forms part of the estate of Crookston. He
adds--“In proof that the tower of Hillslap, which I have taken measures
to preserve from injury, was chiefly in his head, as the tower of
_Glendearg,_ when writing the Monastery, I may mention that, on one of
the occasions when I had the honour of being a visiter at Abbotsford,
the stables then being full, I sent a pony to be put up at our tenant's
at Hillslap:--'Well.' said Sir Walter, 'if you do that, you must trust
for its not being _lifted_ before to-morrow, to the protection of
Halbert Glendinning: against Christie of the Clintshill.' At page 58,
vol. iii., the first edition, the '_winding_ stair' which the monk
ascended is described. The winding stone stair is still to be seen in
Hillslap, but not in either of the other two towers” It is however,
probable, from the Goat's-Head crest on Colmslie, that that tower also
had been of old a possession of the Borthwicks.] a third, the house of
Langshaw, also ruinous, but near which the proprietor, Mr. Baillie of
Jerviswood and Mellerstain, has built a small shooting box.

All these ruins, so strangely huddled together in a very solitary spot,
have recollections and traditions of their own, but none of them bear
the most distant resemblance to the descriptions in the Romance of
the Monastery; and as the author could hardly have erred so grossly
regarding a spot within a morning's ride of his own house, the inference
is, that no resemblance was intended. Hillslap is remembered by the
humours of the last inhabitants, two or three elderly ladies, of the
class of Miss Raynalds, in the Old Manor House, though less important by
birth and fortune. Colmslie is commemorated in song:--

  Colmslie stands on Colmslie hill.
  The water it flows round Colmslie mill;
  The mill and the kiln gang bonnily.
  And it's up with the whippers of Colmslie.

Langshaw, although larger than the other mansions assembled at the head
of the supposed Glendearg, has nothing about it more remarkable than the
inscription of the present proprietor over his shooting lodge--_Utinam
hane eliam viris impleam amicis_--a modest wish, which I know no one
more capable of attaining upon an extended scale, than the gentleman who
has expressed it upon a limited one.

Having thus shown that I could say something of these desolated towers,
which the desire of social intercourse, or the facility of mutual
defence, had drawn together at the head of this Glen, I need not add any
farther reason to show, that there is no resemblance between them
and the solitary habitation of Dame Elspeth Glendinning. Beyond these
dwellings are some remains of natural wood, and a considerable portion
of morass and bog; but I would not advise any who may be curious in
localities, to spend time in looking for the fountain and holly-tree of
the White Lady.

While I am on the subject I may add, that Captain Clutterbuck, the
imaginary editor of the Monastery, has no real prototype in the village
of Melrose or neighbourhood, that ever I saw or heard of. To give some
individuality to this personage, he is described as a character which
sometimes occurs in actual society--a person who, having spent his life
within the necessary duties of a technical profession, from which he
has been at length emancipated, finds himself without any occupation
whatever, and is apt to become the prey of ennui, until he discerns some
petty subject of investigation commensurate to his talents, the study of
which gives him employment in solitude; while the conscious possession
of information peculiar to himself, adds to his consequence in society.
I have often observed, that the lighter and trivial branches of
antiquarian study are singularly useful in relieving vacuity of such a
kind, and have known them serve many a Captain Clutterbuck to
retreat upon; I was therefore a good deal surprised, when I found the
antiquarian Captain identified with a neighbour and friend of my own,
who could never have been confounded with him by any one who had read
the book, and seen the party alluded to. This erroneous identification
occurs in a work entitled, “Illustrations of the Author of Waverley,
being Notices and Anecdotes of real Characters, Scenes, and Incidents,
supposed to be described in his works, by Robert Chambers.” This work
was, of course, liable to many errors, as any one of the kind must be,
whatever may be the ingenuity of the author, which takes the task of
explaining what can be only known to another person. Mistakes of place
or inanimate things referred to, are of very little moment; but the
ingenious author ought to have been more cautious of attaching real
names to fictitious characters. I think it is in the Spectator we
read of a rustic wag, who, in a copy of “The Whole Duty of Man,” wrote
opposite to every vice the name of some individual in the neighbourhood,
and thus converted that excellent work into a libel on a whole parish.

The scenery being thus ready at the author's hand, the reminiscences of
the country were equally favourable. In a land where the horses remained
almost constantly saddled, and the sword seldom quitted the warrior's
side--where war was the natural and constant state of the inhabitants,
and peace only existed in the shape of brief and feverish truces--there
could be no want of the means to complicate and extricate the incidents
of his narrative at pleasure. There was a disadvantage, notwithstanding,
in treading this Border district, for it had been already ransacked by
the author himself, as well as others; and unless presented under a
new light, was likely to afford ground to the objection of _Crambe bis
cocta_.

To attain the indispensable quality of novelty, something, it was
thought, might be gained by contrasting the character of the vassals of
the church with those of the dependants of the lay barons, by whom they
were surrounded. But much advantage could not be derived from this.
There were, indeed, differences betwixt the two classes, but, like
tribes in the mineral and vegetable world, which, resembling each other
to common eyes, can be sufficiently well discriminated by naturalists,
they were yet too similar, upon the whole, to be placed in marked
contrast with each other.

Machinery remained--the introduction of the supernatural and marvellous;
the resort of distressed authors since the days of Horace, but whose
privileges as a sanctuary have been disputed in the present age, and
well-nigh exploded. The popular belief no longer allows the possibility
of existence to the race of mysterious beings which hovered betwixt
this world and that which is invisible. The fairies have abandoned
their moonlight turf; the witch no longer holds her black orgies in the
hemlock dell; and

  Even the last lingering phantom of the brain,
  The churchyard ghost, is now at rest again.

From the discredit attached to the vulgar and more common modes in which
the Scottish superstition displays itself, the author was induced to
have recourse to the beautiful, though almost forgotten, theory of
astral spirits, or creatures of the elements, surpassing human beings
in knowledge and power, but inferior to them, as being subject, after
a certain space of years, to a death which is to them annihilation,
as they have no share in the promise made to the sons of Adam. These
spirits are supposed to be of four distinct kinds, as the elements from
which they have their origin, and are known, to those who have
studied the cabalistical philosophy, by the names of Sylphs, Gnomes,
Salamanders, and Naiads, as they belong to the elements of Air, Earth,
Fire, or Water. The general reader will find an entertaining account
of these elementary spirits in the French book entitled, “Entretiens de
Compte du Gabalis.” The ingenious Compte de la Motte Fouqu? composed,
in German, one of the most successful productions of his fertile
brain, where a beautiful and even afflicting effect is produced by the
introduction of a water-nymph, who loses the privilege of immortality by
consenting to become accessible to human feelings, and uniting her lot
with that of a mortal, who treats her with ingratitude.

In imitation of an example so successful, the White Lady of Avenel was
introduced into the following sheets. She is represented as connected
with the family of Avenel by one of those mystic ties, which, in ancient
times, were supposed to exist, in certain circumstances, between the
creatures of the elements and the children of men. Such instances
of mysterious union are recognized in Ireland, in the real Milosian
families, who are possessed of a Banshie; and they are known among the
traditions of the Highlands, which, in many cases, attached an immortal
being or spirit to the service of particular families or tribes. These
demons, if they are to be called so, announced good or evil fortune to
the families connected with them; and though some only condescended to
meddle with matters of importance, others, like the May Mollach, or Maid
of the Hairy Arms, condescended to mingle in ordinary sports, and even
to direct the Chief how to play at draughts.

There was, therefore, no great violence in supposing such a being as
this to have existed, while the elementary spirits were believed in;
but it was more difficult to describe or imagine its attributes and
principles of action. Shakespeare, the first of authorities in such a
case, has painted Ariel, that beautiful creature of his fancy, as only
approaching so near to humanity as to know the nature of that sympathy
which the creatures of clay felt for each other, as we learn from the
expression--“Mine would, if I were human.” The inferences from this
are singular, but seem capable of regular deduction. A being, however
superior to man in length of life--in power over the elements--in
certain perceptions respecting the present, the past, and the future,
yet still incapable of human passions, of sentiments of moral good and
evil, of meriting future rewards or punishments, belongs rather to
the class of animals, than of human creatures, and must therefore be
presumed to act more from temporary benevolence or caprice, than from
anything approaching to feeling or reasoning. Such a being's superiority
in power can only be compared to that of the elephant or lion, who are
greater in strength than man, though inferior in the scale of creation.
The partialities which we suppose such spirits to entertain must be like
those of the dog; their sudden starts of passion, or the indulgence of a
frolic, or mischief, may be compared to those of the numerous varieties
of the cat. All these propensities are, however, controlled by the
laws which render the elementary race subordinate to the command of
man--liable to be subjected by his science, (so the sect of Gnostics
believed, and on this turned the Rosicrucian philosophy,) or to be
overpowered by his superior courage and daring, when it set their
illusions at defiance.

It is with reference to this idea of the supposed spirits of the
elements, that the White Lady of Avenel is represented as acting a
varying, capricious, and inconsistent part in the pages assigned to her
in the narrative; manifesting interest and attachment to the family with
whom her destinies are associated, but evincing whim, and even a species
of malevolence, towards other mortals, as the Sacristan, and the
Border robber, whose incorrect life subjected them to receive petty
mortifications at her hand. The White Lady is scarcely supposed,
however, to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do
more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is also subjected
by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution, and mental energy,
could assert superiority over her. In these particulars she seems to
constitute a being of a middle class, between the _esprit follet_
who places its pleasure in misleading and tormenting mortals, and the
benevolent Fairy of the East, who uniformly guides, aids, and supports
them.

Either, however, the author executed his purpose indifferently, or the
public did not approve of it; for the White Lady of Avenel was far from
being popular. He does not now make the present statement, in the view
of arguing readers into a more favourable opinion on the subject, but
merely with the purpose of exculpating himself from the charge of having
wantonly intruded into the narrative a being of inconsistent powers and
propensities.

In the delineation of another character, the author of the Monastery
failed, where he hoped for some success. As nothing is so successful a
subject for ridicule as the fashionable follies of the time, it occurred
to him that the more serious scenes of his narrative might be relieved
by the humour of a cavaliero of the age of Queen Elizabeth. In every
period, the attempt to gain and maintain the highest rank of society,
has depended on the power of assuming and supporting a certain
fashionable kind of affectation, usually connected with some vivacity of
talent and energy of character, but distinguished at the same time by
a transcendent flight, beyond sound reason and common sense; both
faculties too vulgar to be admitted into the estimate of one who claims
to be esteemed “a choice spirit of the age.” These, in their different
phases, constitute the gallants of the day, whose boast it is to drive
the whims of fashion to extremity.

On all occasions, the manners of the sovereign, the court, and the time,
must give the tone to the peculiar description of qualities by which
those who would attain the height of fashion must seek to distinguish
themselves. The reign of Elizabeth, being that of a maiden queen,
was distinguished by the decorum of the courtiers, and especially
the affectation of the deepest deference to the sovereign. After the
acknowledgment of the Queen's matchless perfections, the same devotion
was extended to beauty as it existed among the lesser stars in her
court, who sparkled, as it was the mode to say, by her reflected lustre.
It is true, that gallant knights no longer vowed to Heaven, the peacock,
and the ladies, to perform some feat of extravagant chivalry, in which
they endangered the lives of others as well as their own; but although
their chivalrous displays of personal gallantry seldom went farther in
Elizabeth's days than the tilt-yard, where barricades, called barriers,
prevented the shock of the horses, and limited the display of the
cavalier's skill to the comparatively safe encounter of their lances,
the language of the lovers to their ladies was still in the exalted
terms which Amadis would have addressed to Oriana, before encountering a
dragon for her sake. This tone of romantic gallantry found a clever but
conceited author, to reduce it to a species of constitution and form,
and lay down the courtly manner of conversation, in a pedantic book,
called Euphues and his England. Of this, a brief account is given in the
text, to which it may now be proper to make some additions.

The extravagance of Euphuism, or a symbolical jargon of the same class,
predominates in the romances of Calprenade and Scuderi, which were read
for the amusement of the fair sex of France during the long reign of
Louis XIV., and were supposed to contain the only legitimate language of
love and gallantry. In this reign they encountered the satire of Moliere
and Boileau. A similar disorder, spreading into private society, formed
the ground of the affected dialogue of the _Praecieuses_, as they were
styled, who formed the coterie of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and afforded
Moliere matter for his admirable comedy, _Les Praecieuses Ridicules_. In
England, the humour does not seem to have long survived the accession of
James I.

The author had the vanity to think that a character, whose peculiarities
should turn on extravagances which were once universally fashionable,
might be read in a fictitious story with a good chance of affording
amusement to the existing generation, who, fond as they are of looking
back on the actions and manners of their ancestors, might be also
supposed to be sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly acknowledge
that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from being
accounted a well drawn and humorous character of the period, was
condemned as unnatural and absurd. It would be easy to account for this
failure, by supposing the defect to arise from the author's want of
skill, and, probably, many readers may not be inclined to look farther.
But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to acquiesce
in this final cause, if any other can be alleged, he has been led to
suspect, that, contrary to what he originally supposed, his subject was
injudiciously chosen, in which, and not in his mode of treating it, lay
the source of the want of success.

The manners of a rude people are always founded on nature, and therefore
the feelings of a more polished generation immediately sympathize with
them. We need no numerous notes, no antiquarian dissertations, to
enable the most ignorant to recognize the sentiments and diction of
the characters of Homer; we have but, as Lear says, to strip off our
lendings--to set aside the factitious principles and adornments which we
have received from our comparatively artificial system of society, and
our natural feelings are in unison with those of the bard of Chios and
the heroes who live in his verses. It is the same with a great part of
the narratives of my friend Mr. Cooper. We sympathize with his Indian
chiefs and back-woodsmen, and acknowledge, in the characters which he
presents to us, the same truth of human nature by which we should feel
ourselves influenced if placed in the same condition. So much is this
the case, that, though it is difficult, or almost impossible, to reclaim
a savage, bred from his youth to war and the chase, to the restraints
and the duties of civilized life, nothing is more easy or common than
to find men who have been educated in all the habits and comforts of
improved society, willing to exchange them for the wild labours of the
hunter and the fisher. The very amusements most pursued and relished
by men of all ranks, whose constitutions permit active exercise, are
hunting, fishing, and, in some instances, war, the natural and necessary
business of the savage of Dryden, where his hero talks of being

  --“As free as nature first made man,
  When wild in woods the noble savage ran.”

But although the occupations, and even the sentiments, of human beings
in a primitive state, find access and interest in the minds of the more
civilized part of the species, it does not therefore follow, that the
national tastes, opinions, and follies of one civilized period, should
afford either the same interest or the same amusement to those of
another. These generally, when driven to extravagance, are founded, not
upon any natural taste proper to the species, but upon the growth of
some peculiar cast of affectation, with which mankind in general,
and succeeding generations in particular, feel no common interest or
sympathy. The extravagances of coxcombry in manners and apparel are
indeed the legitimate and often the successful objects of satire, during
the time when they exist. In evidence of this, theatrical critics
may observe how many dramatic _jeux d'esprit_ are well received every
season, because the satirist levels at some well-known or fashionable
absurdity; or, in the dramatic phrase, “shoots folly as it flies.” But
when the peculiar kind of folly keeps the wing no longer, it is reckoned
but waste of powder to pour a discharge of ridicule on what has ceased
to exist; and the pieces in which such forgotten absurdities are made
the subject of ridicule, fall quietly into oblivion with the follies
which gave them fashion, or only continue to exist on the scene, because
they contain some other more permanent interest than that which connects
them with manners and follies of a temporary character.

This, perhaps, affords a reason why the comedies of Ben Jonson, founded
upon system, or what the age termed humours,--by which was meant
factitious and affected characters, superinduced on that which was
common to the rest of their race,--in spite of acute satire, deep
scholarship, and strong sense, do not now afford general pleasure, but
are confined to the closet of the antiquary, whose studies have assured
him that the personages of the dramatist were once, though they are now
no longer, portraits of existing nature.

Let us take another example of our hypothesis from Shakspeare himself,
who, of all authors, drew his portraits for all ages. With the whole
sum of the idolatry which affects us at his name, the mass of readers
peruse, without amusement, the characters formed on the extravagances of
temporary fashion; and the Euphuist Don Armado, the pedant Holofernes,
even Nym and Pistol, are read with little pleasure by the mass of the
public, being portraits of which we cannot recognize the humour, because
the originals no longer exist. In like manner, while the distresses of
Romeo and Juliet continue to interest every bosom, Mercutio, drawn as
an accurate representation of the finished fine gentleman of the period,
and as such received by the unanimous approbation of contemporaries, has
so little to interest the present age, that, stripped of all his puns,
and quirks of verbal wit, he only retains his place in the scene, in
virtue of his fine and fanciful speech upon dreaming, which belongs
to no particular age, and because he is a personage whose presence is
indispensable to the plot.

We have already prosecuted perhaps too far an argument, the tendency of
which is to prove, that the introduction of an humorist, acting like Sir
Piercie Shafton, upon some forgotten and obsolete model of folly, once
fashionable, is rather likely to awaken the disgust of the reader,
as unnatural, than find him food for laughter. Whether owing to this
theory, or whether to the more simple and probable cause of the author's
failure in the delineation of the subject he had proposed to himself,
the formidable objection of _incredulus odi_ was applied to the
Euphuist, as well as to the White Lady of Avenel; and the one was
denounced as unnatural, while the other was rejected as impossible.

There was little in the story to atone for these failures in two
principal points. The incidents were inartificially huddled together.
There was no part of the intrigue to which deep interest was found to
apply; and the conclusion was brought about, not by incidents arising
out of the story itself, but in consequence of public transactions,
with which the narrative has little connexion, and which the reader had
little opportunity to become acquainted with.

This, if not a positive fault, was yet a great defect in the Romance.
It is true, that not only the practice of some great authors in this
department, but even the general course of human life itself, may be
quoted in favour of this more obvious and less artificial practice of
arranging a narrative. It is seldom that the same circle of personages
who have surrounded an individual at his first outset in life, continue
to have an interest in his career till his fate comes to a crisis. On
the contrary, and more especially if the events of his life be of a
varied character, and worth communicating to others, or to the world,
the hero's later connexions are usually totally separated from those
with whom he began the voyage, but whom the individual has outsailed,
or who have drifted astray, or foundered on the passage. This hackneyed
comparison holds good in another point. The numerous vessels of so many
different sorts, and destined for such different purposes, which are
launched in the same mighty ocean, although each endeavours to pursue
its own course, are in every case more influenced by the winds and
tides, which are common to the element which they all navigate, than by
their own separate exertions. And it is thus in the world, that, when
human prudence has done its best, some general, perhaps national, event,
destroys the schemes of the individual, as the casual touch of a more
powerful being sweeps away the web of the spider.

Many excellent romances have been composed in this view of human life,
where the hero is conducted through a variety of detached scenes, in
which various agents appear and disappear, without, perhaps, having any
permanent influence on the progress of the story. Such is the structure
of Gil Blas, Roderick Random, and the lives and adventures of many other
heroes, who are described as running through different stations of life,
and encountering various adventures, which are only connected with each
other by having happened to be witnessed by the same individual, whose
identity unites them together, as the string of a necklace links the
beads, which are otherwise detached.

But though such an unconnected course of adventures is what most
frequently occurs in nature, yet the province of the romance writer
being artificial, there is more required from him than a mere compliance
with the simplicity of reality,--just as we demand from the scientific
gardener, that he shall arrange, in curious knots and artificial
parterres, the flowers which “nature boon” distributes freely on hill
and dale. Fielding, accordingly, in most of his novels, but especially
in Tom Jones, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, has set the distinguished example
of a story regularly built and consistent in all its parts, in which
nothing occurs, and scarce a personage is introduced, that has not some
share in tending to advance the catastrophe.

To demand equal correctness and felicity in those who may follow in
the track of that illustrious novelist, would be to fetter too much the
power of giving pleasure, by surrounding it with penal rules; since of
this sort of light literature it may be especially said--_tout genre est
permis, hors le genre ennuyeux_. Still, however, the more closely and
happily the story is combined, and the more natural and felicitous the
catastrophe, the nearer such a composition will approach the perfection
of the novelist's art; nor can an author neglect this branch of his
profession, without incurring proportional censure.

For such censure the Monastery gave but too much occasion. The intrigue
of the Romance, neither very interesting in itself, nor very happily
detailed, is at length finally disentangled by the breaking out of
national hostilities between England and Scotland, and the as sudden
renewal of the truce. Instances of this kind, it is true, cannot in
reality have been uncommon, but the resorting to such, in order to
accomplish the catastrophe, as by a _tour de force_, was objected to as
inartificial, and not perfectly, intelligible to the general reader.

Still the Monastery, though exposed to severe and just criticism, did
not fail, judging from the extent of its circulation, to have some
interest for the public. And this, too, was according to the ordinary
course of such matters; for it very seldom happens that literary
reputation is gained by a single effort, and still more rarely is it
lost by a solitary miscarriage.

The author, therefore, had his days of grace allowed him, and time, if
he pleased, to comfort himself with the burden of the old Scots song,

  “If it isna weel bobbit.
  We'll bob it again.”

ABBOTSFORD, _1st November_, 1830.


       *       *       *       *       *


INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE

FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK, LATE OF HIS MAJESTY'S ---- REGIMENT OF
INFANTRY, TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.

Sir,

Although I do not pretend to the pleasure of your personal acquaintance,
like many whom I believe to be equally strangers to you, I am
nevertheless interested in your publications, and desire their
continuance;-not that I pretend to much taste in fictitious composition,
or that I am apt to be interested in your grave scenes, or amused by
those which are meant to be lively. I will not disguise from you, that I
have yawned over the last interview of MacIvor and his sister, and fell
fairly asleep while the schoolmaster was reading the humours of Dandie
Dinmont. You see, sir, that I scorn to solicit your favour in a way
to which you are no stranger. If the papers I enclose you are worth
nothing, I will not endeavour to recommend them by personal flattery, as
a bad cook pours rancid butter upon stale fish. No, sir! what I
respect in you is the light you have occasionally thrown on national
antiquities, a study which I have commenced rather late in life, but to
which I am attached with the devotions of a first love, because it is
the only study I ever cared a farthing for.

You shall have my history, sir, (it will not reach to three volumes,)
before that of my manuscript; and as you usually throw out a few lines
of verse (by way of skirmishers, I suppose) at the head of each
division of prose, I have had the luck to light upon a stanza in the
schoolmaster's copy of Burns which describes me exactly. I love it
the better, because it was originally designed for Captain Grose, an
excellent antiquary, though, like yourself, somewhat too apt to treat
with levity his own pursuits:

  'Tis said he was a soldier bred,
  And ane wad rather fa'en than fled;
  But now he's quit the spurtle blade,
                   And dog-skin wallet,
  And ta'en the--antiquarian trade,
                I think, they call it.

I never could conceive what influenced me, when a boy, in the choice of
a profession. Military zeal and ardour it was not, which made me stand
out for a commission in the Scots Fusiliers, when my tutors and curators
wished to bind me apprentice to old David Stiles, Clerk to his Majesty's
Signet. I say, military zeal it was _not_; for I was no fighting boy in
my own person, and cared not a penny to read the history of the heroes
who turned the world upside down in former ages. As for courage, I had,
as I have since discovered, just as much of it as serve'd my turn, and
not one frain of surplus. I soon found out, indeed, that in action there
was more anger in running away than in standing fast; and besides, I
could not afford to lose my commission, which was my chief means of
support. But, as for that overboiling valour, which I have heard many of
_ours_ talk of, though I seldom observed that it influenced them in
the actual affair---that exuberant zeal, which courts Danger as a
bride,--truly my courage was of a complexion much less ecstatical.

Again, the love of a red coat, which, in default of all other aptitudes
to the profession, has made many a bad soldier and some good ones,
was an utter stranger to my disposition. I cared not a “bodle” for the
company of the misses: Nay, though there was a boarding-school in the
village, and though we used to meet with its fair inmates at Simon
Lightfoot's weekly Practising, I cannot recollect any strong emotions
being excited on these occasions, excepting the infinite regret with
which I went through the polite ceremonial of presenting my partner with
an orange, thrust into my pocket by my aunt for this special purpose,
but which, had I dared, I certainly would have secreted for my own
personal use. As for vanity, or love of finery for itself, I was such a
stranger to it, that the difficulty was great to make me brush my coat,
and appear in proper trim upon parade. I shall never forget the rebuke
of my old Colonel on a morning when the King reviewed a brigade of which
ours made part. “I am no friend to extravagance, Ensign Clutterbuck,”
 said he; “but, on the day when we are to pass before the Sovereign of
the kingdom, in the name of God I would have at least shown him an inch
of clean linen.”

Thus, a stranger to the ordinary motives which lead young men to make
the army their choice, and without the least desire to become either a
hero or a dandy, I really do not know what determined my thoughts that
way, unless it were the happy state of half-pay indolence enjoyed
by Captain Doolittle, who had set up his staff of rest in my native
village. Every other person had, or seemed to have, something to do,
less or more. They did not, indeed, precisely go to school and learn
tasks, that last of evils in my estimation; but it did not escape my
boyish observation, that they were all bothered with something or other
like duty or labour--all but the happy Captain Doolittle. The minister
had his parish to visit, and his preaching to prepare, though perhaps he
made more fuss than he needed about both. The laird had his farming
and improving operations to superintend; and, besides, he had to
attend trustee meetings, and lieutenancy meetings, and head-courts, and
meetings of justices, and what not--was as early up, (that I detested,)
and as much in the open air, wet and dry, as his own grieve. The
shopkeeper (the village boasted but one of eminence) stood indeed pretty
much at his ease behind his counter, for his custom was by no means
overburdensome; but still he enjoyed his _status_, as the Bailie calls
it, upon condition of tumbling all the wares in his booth over and over,
when any one chose to want a yard of muslin, a mousetrap, an ounce of
caraways, a paper of pins, the Sermons of Mr. Peden, or the Life of
Jack the Giant-Queller, (not Killer, as usually erroneously written and
pronounced.--See my essay on the true history of this worthy, where real
facts have in a peculiar degree been obscured by fable.) In short, all
in the village were under the necessity of doing something which they
would rather have left undone, excepting Captain Doolittle, who walked
every morning in the open street, which formed the high mall of our
village, in a blue coat with a red neck, and played at whist the whole
evening, when he could make up a party. This happy vacuity of all
employment appeared to me so delicious, that it became the primary
hint, which, according to the system of Helvetius, as the minister says,
determined my infant talents towards the profession I was destined to
illustrate.

But who, alas! can form a just estimate of their future prospects in
this deceitful world? I was not long engaged in my new profession,
before I discovered, that if the independent indolence of half-pay was
a paradise, the officer must pass through the purgatory of duty and
service in order to gain admission to it. Captain Doolittle might brush
his blue coat with the red neck, or leave it unbrushed, at his pleasure;
but Ensign Clutterbuck had no such option. Captain Doolittle might go
to bed at ten o'clock, if he had a mind; but the Ensign must make the
rounds in his turn. What was worse, the Captain might repose under the
tester of his tent-bed until noon, if he was so pleased; but the Ensign,
God help him, had to appear upon parade at peep of day. As for duty,
I made that as easy as I could, had the sergeant to whisper to me the
words of command, and bustled through as other folks did. Of service, I
saw enough for an indolent man--was buffeted up and down the world, and
visited both the East and West Indies, Egypt, and other distant places,
which my youth had scarce dreamed of. The French I saw, and felt too;
witness two fingers on my right hand, which one of their cursed hussars
took off with his sabre as neatly as an hospital surgeon. At length, the
death of an old aunt, who left me some fifteen hundred pounds, snugly
vested in the three per cents, gave me the long-wished-for opportunity
of retiring, with the prospect of enjoying a clean shirt and a guinea
four times a-week at least.

For the purpose of commencing my new way of life, I selected for
my residence the village of Kennaquhair, in the south of Scotland,
celebrated for the ruins of its magnificent Monastery, intending there
to lead my future life in the _otium cum dignitate_ of half-pay and
annuity. I was not long, however, in making the grand discovery, that in
order to enjoy leisure, it is absolutely necessary it should be preceded
by occupation. For some time, it was delightful to wake at daybreak,
dreaming of the reveill?--then to recollect my happy emancipation from
the slavery that doomed me to start at a piece of clattering parchment,
turn on my other side, damn the parade, and go to sleep again. But even
this enjoyment had its termination; and time, when it became a stock
entirely at my own disposal, began to hang heavy on my hand.

I angled for two days, during which time I lost twenty hooks, and
several scores of yards of gut and line, and caught not even a minnow.
Hunting was out of the question, for the stomach of a horse by no means
agrees with the half-pay establishment. When I shot, the shepherds, and
ploughmen, and my very dog, quizzed me every time that I missed, which
was, generally speaking, every time I fired. Besides, the country
gentlemen in this quarter like their game, and began to talk of
prosecutions and interdicts. I did not give up fighting the French to
commence a domestic war with the “pleasant men of Teviotdale,” as the
song calls them; so I e'en spent three days (very agreeably) in cleaning
my gun, and disposing it upon two hooks over my chimney-piece.

The success of this accidental experiment set me on trying my skill in
the mechanical arts. Accordingly I took down and cleaned my landlady's
cuckoo-clock, and in so doing, silenced that companion of the spring for
ever and a day. I mounted a turning-lathe, and in attempting to use
it, I very nearly cribbed off, with an inch-and-half former, one of the
fingers which the hussar had left me.

Books I tried, both those of the little circulating library, and of the
more rational subscription collection maintained by this intellectual
people. But neither the light reading of the one, nor the heavy
artillery of the other, suited my purpose. I always fell asleep at
the fourth or fifth page of history or disquisition; and it took me a
month's hard reading to wade through a half-bound trashy novel, during
which I was pestered with applications to return the volumes, by every
half-bred milliner's miss about the place. In short, during the time
when all the town besides had something to do, I had nothing for it, but
to walk in the church-yard, and whistle till it was dinner-time.

During these promenades, the ruins necessarily forced themselves on my
attention, and, by degrees, I found myself engaged in studying the
more minute ornaments, and at length the general plan, of this noble
structure. The old sexton aided my labours, and gave me his portion of
traditional lore. Every day added something to my stock of knowledge
respecting the ancient state of the building; and at length I made
discoveries concerning the purpose of several detached and very ruinous
portions of it, the use of which had hitherto been either unknown
altogether or erroneously explained.

The knowledge which I thus acquired I had frequent opportunities of
retailing to those visiters whom the progress of a Scottish tour brought
to visit this celebrated spot. Without encroaching on the privilege of
my friend the sexton, I became gradually an assistant Cicerone in the
task of description and explanation, and often (seeing a fresh party of
visiters arrive) has he turned over to me those to whom he had told half
his story, with the flattering observation, “What needs I say ony mair
about it? There's the Captain kens mair anent it than I do, or any
man in the town.” Then would I salute the strangers courteously, and
expatiate to their astonished minds upon crypts and chancels, and naves,
arches, Gothic and Saxon architraves, mullions and flying buttresses. It
not unfrequently happened, that an acquaintance which commenced in the
Abbey concluded in the inn, which served to relieve the solitude as
well as the monotony of my landlady's shoulder of mutton, whether roast,
cold, or hashed.

By degrees my mind became enlarged; I found a book or two which
enlightened me on the subject of Gothic architecture, and I read now
with pleasure, because I was interested in what I read about. Even my
character began to dilate and expand. I spoke with more authority at
the club, and was listened to with deference, because on one subject, at
least, I possessed more information than any of its members. Indeed,
I found that even my stories about Egypt, which, to say truth, were
somewhat threadbare, were now listened to with more respect than
formerly. “The Captain,” they said, “had something in him after
a',--there were few folk kend sae muckle about the Abbey.”

With this general approbation waxed my own sense of self-importance, and
my feeling of general comfort. I ate with more appetite, I digested with
more ease, I lay down at night with joy, and slept sound till morning,
when I arose with a sense of busy importance, and hied me to measure, to
examine, and to compare the various parts of this interesting structure.
I lost all sense and consciousness of certain unpleasant sensations of
a nondescript nature, about my head and stomach, to which I had been in
the habit of attending, more for the benefit of the village apothecary
than my own, for the pure want of something else to think about. I
had found out an occupation unwittingly, and was happy because I had
something to do. In a word, I had commenced local antiquary, and was not
unworthy of the name.

Whilst I was in this pleasing career of busy idleness, for so it might
at best be called, it happened that I was one night sitting in my little
parlour, adjacent to the closet which my landlady calls my bedroom, in
the act of preparing for an early retreat to the realms of Morpheus.
Dugdale's Monasticon, borrowed from the library at A------, was lying
on the table before me, flanked by some excellent Cheshire cheese,
(a present, by the way, from an honest London citizen, to whom I had
explained the difference between a Gothic and a Saxon arch,) and a glass
of Vanderhagen's best ale. Thus armed at all points against my old enemy
Time, I was leisurely and deliciously preparing for bed--now reading
a line of old Dugdale--now sipping my ale, or munching my bread and
cheese--now undoing the strings at my breeches' knees, or a button or
two of my waistcoat, until the village clock should strike ten, before
which time I make it a rule never to go to bed. A loud knocking,
however, interrupted my ordinary process on this occasion, and the voice
of my honest landlord of the George was heard vociferating, [Footnote:
The George was, and is, the principal inn in the village of Kennaquhair,
or Melrose. But the landlord of the period was not the same civil
and quiet person by whom the inn is now kept. David Kyle, a Melrose
proprietor of no little importance, a first-rate person of consequence
in whatever belonged to the business of the town, was the original owner
and landlord of the inn. Poor David, like many other busy men, took so
much care of public affairs, as in some degree to neglect his own. There
are persons still alive at Kennaquhair who can recognise him and his
peculiarities in the following sketch of mine Host of the George.]
“What the deevil, Mrs. Grimslees, the Captain is no in his bed? and
a gentleman at our house has ordered a fowl and minced collops, and a
bottle of sherry, and has sent to ask him to supper, to tell him all
about the Abbey.”

“Na,” answered Luckie Grimslees, in the true sleepy tone of a Scottish
matron when ten o'clock is going to strike, “he's no in his bed, but
I'se warrant him no gae out at this time o' night to keep folks sitting
up waiting for him--the Captain's a decent man.”

I plainly perceived this last compliment was made for my hearing, by way
both of indicating and of recommending the course of conduct which Mrs.
Grimslees desired I should pursue. But I had not been knocked about
the world for thirty years and odd, and lived a bluff bachelor all
the while, to come home and be put under petticoat government by my
landlady. Accordingly I opened my chamber-door, and desired my old
friend David to walk up stairs.

“Captain,” said he, as he entered, “I am as glad to find you up as if
I had hooked a twenty pound saumon. There's a gentleman up yonder that
will not sleep sound in his bed this blessed night unless he has the
pleasure to drink a glass of wine with you.”

“You know, David,” I replied, with becoming dignity, “that I cannot with
propriety go out to visit strangers at this time of night, or accept of
invitations from people of whom I know nothing.”

David swore a round oath, and added, “Was ever the like heard of? He has
ordered a fowl and egg sauce, a pancake and minced collops and a bottle
of sherry--D'ye think I wad come and ask you to go to keep company with
ony bit English rider that sups on toasted cheese, and a cheerer of
rum-toddy? This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a
clean virtuoso-a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the
curled back of a mug-ewe. The very first question he speered was about
the auld drawbrig that has been at the bottom of the water these
twal score years--I have seen the fundations when we were sticking
saumon--And how the deevil suld he ken ony thing about the old drawbrig,
unless he were a virtuoso?” [Footnote: There is more to be said about
this old bridge hereafter. See Note, p. 57.]

David being a virtuoso in his own way, and moreover a landholder and
heritor, was a qualified judge of all who frequented his house, and
therefore I could not avoid again tying the strings of my knees.

“That's right, Captain,” vociferated David; “you twa will be as thick
as three in a bed an ance ye forgather. I haena seen the like o' him
my very sell since I saw the great Doctor Samuel Johnson on his tower
through Scotland, whilk tower is lying in my back parlour for the
amusement of my guests, wi' the twa boards torn aff.”

“Then the gentleman is a scholar, David?”

“I'se uphaud him a scholar,” answered David: “he has a black coat on, or
a brown ane, at ony-rate.”

“Is he a clergyman?”

“I am thinking no, for he looked after his horse's supper before he
spoke o' his ain,” replied mine host.

“Has he a servant?” demanded I.

“Nae servant,” answered David; “but a grand face o' his ain, that wad
gar ony body be willing to serve him that looks upon him.”

“And what makes him think of disturbing me? Ah, David, this has been
some of your chattering; you are perpetually bringing your guests on my
shoulders, as if it were my business to entertain every man who comes to
the George.”

“What the deil wad ye hae me do, Captain?” answered mine host; “a
gentleman lights down, and asks me in a most earnest manner, what man of
sense and learning there is about our town, that can tell him about the
antiquities of the place, and specially about the auld Abbey--ye wadna
hae me tell the gentleman a lee? and ye ken weel eneugh there is naebody
in the town can say a reasonable word about it, be it no yoursell,
except the bedral, and he is as fou as a piper by this time. So, says
I, there's Captain Clutterbuck, that's a very civil gentleman and has
little to do forby telling a' the auld cracks about the Abbey, and
dwells just hard by. Then says the gentleman to me, 'Sir,' says he,
very civilly, 'have the goodness to step to Captain Clutterbuck with my
compliments, and say I am a stranger, who have been led to these parts
chiefly by the fame of these Ruins, and that I would call upon him, but
the hour is late.' And mair he said that I have forgotten, but I weel
remember it ended,--'And, landlord, get a bottle of your best sherry,
and supper for two.'--Ye wadna have had me refuse to do the gentleman's
bidding, and me a publican?”

“Well, David,” said I, “I wish your virtuoso had taken a fitter
hour--but as you say he is a gentleman--”

“I'se uphaud him that--the order speaks for itsell--a bottle of
sherry--minched collops and a fowl--that's speaking like a gentleman, I
trow?--That's right, Captain, button weel up, the night's raw--but the
water's clearing for a' that; we'll be on't neist night wi' my Lord's
boats, and we'll hae ill luck if I dinna send you a kipper to relish
your ale at e'en.” [Footnote: The nobleman whose boats are mentioned
in the text, is the late kind and amiable Lord Sommerville, an intimate
friend of the author. David Kyle was a constant and privileged
attendant when Lord Sommerville had a party for spearing salmon; on such
occasions, eighty or a hundred fish were often killed between Gleamer
and Leaderfoot.]

In five minutes after this dialogue, I found myself in the parlour of
the George, and in the presence of the stranger.

He was a grave personage, about my own age, (which we shall call about
fifty,) and really had, as my friend David expressed it, something
in his face that inclined men to oblige and to serve him. Yet this
expression of authority was not at all of the cast which I have seen
in the countenance of a general of brigade, neither was the stranger's
dress at all martial. It consisted of a uniform suit of iron-gray
clothes, cut in rather an old-fashioned form. His legs were defended
with strong leathern gambadoes, which, according to an antiquarian
contrivance, opened at the sides, and were secured by steel clasps.
His countenance was worn as much by toil and sorrow as by age, for it
intimated that he had seen and endured much. His address was singularly
pleasing and gentlemanlike, and the apology which he made for disturbing
me at such an hour, and in such a manner, was so well and handsomely
expressed, that I could not reply otherwise than by declaring my
willingness to be of service to him.

“I have been a traveller to-day, sir,” said he, “and I would willingly
defer the little I have to say till after supper, for which I feel
rather more appetized than usual.”

We sate down to table, and notwithstanding the stranger's alleged
appetite, as well as the gentle preparation of cheese and ale which
I had already laid aboard, I really believe that I of the two did the
greater honour to my friend David's fowl and minced collops.

When the cloth was removed, and we had each made a tumbler of negus, of
that liquor which hosts call Sherry, and guests call Lisbon, I perceived
that the stranger seemed pensive, silent, and somewhat embarrassed,
as if he had something to communicate which he knew not well how to
introduce. To pave the way for him, I spoke of the ancient ruins of the
Monastery, and of their history. But, to my great surprise, I found I
had met my match with a witness. The stranger not only knew all that
I could tell him, but a great deal more; and, what was still more
mortifying, he was able, by reference to dates, charters, and other
evidence of facts, that, as Burns says, “downa be disputed,” to
correct many of the vague tales which I had adopted on loose and vulgar
tradition, as well as to confute more than one of my favourite theories
on the subject of the old monks and their dwellings, which I had sported
freely in all the presumption of superior information. And here I cannot
but remark, that much of the stranger's arguments and inductions rested
upon the authority of Mr. Deputy Register of Scotland, [Footnote:
Thomas Thomson, Esq., whose well-deserved panegyric ought to be found
on another page than one written by an intimate friend of thirty
years' standing.] and his lucubrations; a gentleman whose indefatigable
research into the national records is like to destroy my trade, and that
of all local antiquaries, by substituting truth instead of legend and
romance. Alas! I would the learned gentleman did but know how difficult
it is for us dealers in petty wares of antiquity to--

  Pluck from our memories a rooted “legend,”
   Raze out the written records of our brain.
  Or cleanse our bosoms of that perilous stuff--

and so forth. It would, I am sure, move his pity to think how many old
dogs he hath set to learn new tricks, how many venerable parrots he hath
taught to sing a new song, how many gray heads he hath addled by vain
attempts to exchange their old _Mumpsimus_ for his new _Sumpsimus_.
But let it pass. _Humana perpessi sumus_--All changes round us, past,
present, and to come; that which was history yesterday becomes fable
to-day, and the truth of to-day is hatched into a lie by to-morrow.

Finding myself like to be overpowered in the Monastery, which I had
hitherto regarded as my citadel, I began, like a skilful general, to
evacuate that place of defence, and fight my way through the adjacent
country. I had recourse to my acquaintance with the families and
antiquities of the neighbourhood, ground on which I thought I might
skirmish at large without its being possible for the stranger to meet me
with advantage. But I was mistaken.

The man in the iron-gray suit showed a much more minute knowledge of
these particulars than I had the least pretension to. He could tell the
very year in which the family of De Haga first settled on their ancient
barony.

[Footnote: The family of De Haga, modernized into Haig, of Bemerside, is
of the highest antiquity, and is the subject of one of the prophecies of
Thomas the Rhymer:--

  Betide, betide, whate'er betide.
  Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside. ]

Not a Thane within reach but he knew his family and connexions, how many
of his ancestors had fallen by the sword of the English, how many
in domestic brawl, and how many by the hand of the executioner for
march-treason. Their castles he was acquainted with from turret to
foundation-stone; and as for the miscellaneous antiquities scattered
about the country, he knew every one of them, from a _cromlech_ to a
_cairn_, and could give as good an account of each as if he had lived in
the time of the Danes or Druids.

I was now in the mortifying predicament of one who suddenly finds
himself a scholar when he came to teach, and nothing was left for me but
to pick up as much of his conversation as I could, for the benefit of
the next company. I told, indeed, Allan Ramsay's story of the Monk and
Miller's Wife, in order to retreat with some honour under cover of a
parting volley. Here, however, my flank was again turned by the eternal
stranger.

“You are pleased to be facetious, sir,” said he; “but you cannot be
ignorant that the ludicrous incident you mentioned is the subject of a
tale much older than that of Allan Ramsay.”

I nodded, unwilling to acknowledge my ignorance, though, in fact, I knew
no more what he meant than did one of my friend David's post-horses.

“I do not allude,” continued my omniscient companion, “to the curious
poem published by Pinkerton from the Maitland Manuscript, called the
Fryars of Berwick, although it presents a very minute and amusing
picture of Scottish manners during the reign of James V.; but rather
to the Italian novelist, by whom, so far as I know, the story was first
printed, although unquestionably he first took his original from some
ancient _fabliau_.” [Footnote: It is curious to remark at how little
expense of invention successive ages are content to receive amusement.
The same story which Ramsay and Dunbar have successively handled, forms
also the subject of the modern farce, No Song, no Supper.]

“It is not to be doubted,” answered I, not very well understanding,
however, the proposition to which I gave such unqualified assent.

“Yet,” continued my companion, “I question much, had you known my
situation and profession, whether you would have pitched upon this
precise anecdote for my amusement.”

This observation he made in a tone of perfect good-humour. I pricked
up my ears at the hint, and answered as politely as I could, that my
ignorance of his condition and rank could be the only cause of my
having stumbled on anything disagreeable; and that I was most willing to
apologize for my unintentional offence, so soon as I should know wherein
it consisted.

“Nay, no offence, sir,” he replied; “offence can only exist where it
is taken. I have been too long accustomed to more severe and cruel
misconstructions, to be offended at a popular jest, though directed at
my profession.”

“Am I to understand, then,” I answered, “that I am speaking with a
Catholic clergyman?”

“An unworthy monk of the order of Saint Benedict,” said the stranger,
“belonging to a community of your own countrymen, long established
in France, and scattered unhappily by the events of the Revolution.”
 “Then,” said I, “you are a native Scotchman, and from this
neighbourhood?”

“Not so,” answered the monk; “I am a Scotchman by extraction only, and
never was in this neighbourhood during my whole life.”

“Never in this neighbourhood, and yet so minutely acquainted with its
history, its traditions, and even its external scenery! You surprise me,
sir,” I replied.

“It is not surprising,” he said, “that I should have that sort of local
information, when it is considered, that my uncle, an excellent man,
as well as a good Scotchman, the head also of our religious community,
employed much of his leisure in making me acquainted with these
particulars; and that I myself, disgusted with what has been passing
around me, have for many years amused myself, by digesting and arranging
the various scraps of information which I derived from my worthy
relative, and other aged brethren of our order.”

“I presume, sir,” said I, “though I would by no means intrude the
question, that you are now returned to Scotland with a view to settle
amongst your countrymen, since the great political catastrophe of our
time has reduced your corps?”

“No, sir,” replied the Benedictine, “such is not my intention. A
European potentate, who still cherishes the Catholic faith, has offered
us a retreat within his dominions, where a few of my scattered brethren
are already assembled, to pray to God for blessings on their protector,
and pardon to their enemies. No one, I believe, will be able to object
to us under our new establishment, that the extent of our revenues will
be inconsistent with our vows of poverty and abstinence; but, let us
strive to be thankful to God, that the snare of temporal abundance is
removed from us.”

“Many of your convents abroad, sir,” said I, “enjoyed very handsome
incomes--and yet, allowing for times, I question if any were better
provided for than the Monastery of this village. It is said to have
possessed nearly two thousand pounds in yearly money-rent, fourteen
chalders and nine bolls of wheat, fifty-six chalders five bolls barley,
forty-four chalders and ten bolls oats, capons and poultry, butter,
salt, carriage and arriage, peats and kain, wool and ale.”

“Even too much of all these temporal goods, sir,” said my companion,
“which, though well intended by the pious donors, served only to make
the establishment the envy and the prey of those by whom it was finally
devoured.”

“In the meanwhile, however,” I observed, “the monks had an easy life of
it, and, as the old song goes,

  --made gude kale
  On Fridays when they fasted.”

“I understand you, sir,” said the Benedictine; “it is difficult, saith
the proverb, to carry a full cup without spilling. Unquestionably
the wealth of the community, as it endangered the safety of the
establishment by exciting the cupidity of others, was also in frequent
instances a snare to the brethren themselves. And yet we have seen
the revenues of convents expended, not only in acts of beneficence
and hospitality to individuals, but in works of general and permanent
advantage to the world at large. The noble folio collection of French
historians, commenced in 1737, under the inspection and at the expense
of the community of Saint Maur, will long show that the revenues of
the Benedictines were not always spent in self-indulgence, and that the
members of that order did not uniformly slumber in sloth and indolence,
when they had discharged the formal duties of their rule.”

As I knew nothing earthly at the time about the community of St. Maur,
and their learned labours, I could only return a mumbling assent to
this proposition. I have since seen this noble work in the library of a
distinguished family, and I must own I am ashamed to reflect, that, in
so wealthy a country as ours, a similar digest of our historians should
not be undertaken, under the patronage of the noble and the learned, in
rivalry of that which the Benedictines of Paris executed at the expense
of their own conventual funds.

“I perceive,” said the ex-Benedictine, smiling, “that your heretical
prejudices are too strong to allow us poor brethren any merit, whether
literary or spiritual.”

“Far from it, sir,” said I; “I assure you I have been much obliged to
monks in my time. When I was quartered in a Monastery in Flanders, in
the campaign of 1793, I never lived more comfortably in my life. They
were jolly fellows, the Flemish Canons, and right sorry was I to leave
my good quarters, and to know that my honest hosts were to be at the
mercy of the Sans-Culottes. But _fortune de la guerre!_”

The poor Benedictine looked down and was silent. I had unwittingly
awakened a train of bitter reflections, or rather I had touched somewhat
rudely upon a chord which seldom ceased to vibrate of itself. But he
was too much accustomed to this sorrowful train of ideas to suffer it to
overcome him. On my part, I hastened to atone for my blunder. “If there
was any object of his journey to this country in which I could, with
propriety, assist him, I begged to offer him my best services.” I own
I laid some little emphasis on the words “with propriety,” as I felt it
would ill become me, a sound Protestant, and a servant of government so
far as my half-pay was concerned, to implicate myself in any recruiting
which my companion might have undertaken in behalf of foreign
seminaries, or in any similar design for the advancement of Popery,
which, whether the Pope be actually the old lady of Babylon or no, it
did not become me in any manner to advance or countenance.

My new friend hastened to relieve my indecision. “I was about to request
your assistance, sir,” he said, “in a matter which cannot but interest
you as an antiquary, and a person of research. But I assure you it
relates entirely to events and persons removed to the distance of two
centuries and a half. I have experienced too much evil from the violent
unsettlement of the country in which I was born, to be a rash labourer
in the work of innovation in that of my ancestors.”

I again assured him of my willingness to assist him in anything that was
not contrary to my allegiance or religion.

“My proposal,” he replied, “affects neither.--May God bless the reigning
family in Britain! They are not, indeed, of that dynasty to restore
which my ancestors struggled and suffered in vain; but the Providence
who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the
virtues necessary to his time--firmness and intrepidity--a true love
of his country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is
surrounded.--For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope
that the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation has rent them from
the bosom of the church, will, in his own good time and manner, restore
them to its holy pale. The efforts of an individual, obscure and
humble as myself, might well retard, but could never advance, a work so
mighty.”

“May I then inquire, sir,” said I, “with what purpose you seek this
country?”

Ere my companion replied, he took from his pocket a clasped paper book,
about the size of a regimental orderly-book, full, as it seemed, of
memoranda; and, drawing one of the candles close to him, (for David,
as a strong proof of his respect for the stranger, had indulged us with
two,) he seemed to peruse the contents very earnestly.

“There is among the ruins of the western end of the Abbey church,” said
he, looking up to me, yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and
occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, “a sort of
recess or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate vicinity
of one of those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the
magnificent roof, whose fall has now encumbered that part of the
building with its ruins.”

“I think,” said I, “that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in the
side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved
stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to
decipher?”

“You are right,” answered the Benedictine; and again consulting
his memoranda, he added, “the arms on the dexter side are those of
Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged
of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel;
they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country--the
arms _part y per pale_.”

“I think,” said I, “there is no part of this ancient structure with
which you are not as well acquainted as was the mason who built it. But
if your information be correct, he who made out these bearings must have
had better eyes than mine.”

“His eyes,” said the Benedictine, “have long been closed in death;
probably when he inspected the monument it was in a more perfect state,
or he may have derived his information from the tradition of the place.”

“I assure you,” said I, “that no such tradition now exists. I have
made several reconnoissances among the old people, in hopes to learn
something of the armorial bearings, but I never heard of such a
circumstance. It seems odd that you should have acquired it in a foreign
land.”

“These trifling particulars,” he replied, “were formerly looked upon
as more important, and they were sanctified to the exiles who retained
recollection of them, because they related to a place dear indeed to
memory, but which their eyes could never again behold. It is possible,
in like manner, that on the Potomac or Susquehannah, you may find
traditions current concerning places in England, which are utterly
forgotten in the neighbourhood where they originated. But to my purpose.
In this recess, marked by the armorial bearings, lies buried a treasure,
and it is in order to remove it that I have undertaken my present
journey.”

“A treasure!” echoed I, in astonishment.

“Yes,” replied the monk, “an inestimable treasure, for those who know
how to use it rightly.”

I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a
handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having
a smart cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the
room before gay eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced my ear,
“Captain Clutterbuck's tilbury--drive up.” But I resisted the devil, and
he fled from me.

“I believe,” said I, “all hidden treasure belongs either to the king or
the lord of the soil; and as I have served his majesty, I cannot
concern myself in any adventure which may have an end in the Court of
Exchequer.”

“The treasure I seek,” said the stranger, smiling, “will not be envied
by princes or nobles,---it is simply the heart of an upright man.”

“Ah! I understand you,” I answered; “some relic, forgotten in the
confusion of the Reformation. I know the value which men of your
persuasion put upon the bodies and limbs of saints. I have seen the
Three Kings of Cologne.”

“The relics which I seek, however,” said the Benedictine, “are not
precisely of that nature. The excellent relative whom I have already
mentioned, amused his leisure hours with putting into form the
traditions of his family, particularly some remarkable circumstances
which took place about the first breaking out of the schism of the
church in Scotland. He became so much interested in his own labours,
that at length he resolved that the heart of one individual, the hero of
his tale, should rest no longer in a land of heresy, now deserted by all
his kindred. As he knew where it was deposited, he formed the resolution
to visit his native country for the purpose of recovering this valued
relic. But age, and at length disease, interfered with his resolution,
and it was on his deathbed that he charged me to undertake the task in
his stead. The various important events which have crowded upon each
other, our ruin and our exile, have for many years obliged me to
postpone this delegated duty. Why, indeed, transfer the relics of a holy
and worthy man to a country, where religion and virtue are become
the mockery of the scorner? I have now a home, which I trust may be
permanent, if any thing in this earth can be, termed so. Thither will I
transport the heart of the good father, and beside the shrine which it
shall occupy, I will construct my own grave.”

“He must, indeed, have been an excellent man,” replied I, “whose memory,
at so distant a period, calls forth such strong marks of regard.”

“He was, as you justly term him,” said the ecclesiastic, “indeed
excellent--excellent in his life and doctrine--excellent, above all, in
his self-denied and disinterested sacrifice of all that life holds dear
to principle and to friendship. But you shall read his history. I shall
be happy at once to gratify your curiosity, and to show my sense of
your kindness, if you will have the goodness to procure me the means
of accomplishing my object.” I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the
rubbish amongst which he proposed to search was no part of the ordinary
burial-ground, and as I was on the best terms with the sexton, I had
little doubt that I could procure him the means of executing his pious
purpose.

With this promise we parted for the night; and on the ensuing morning
I made it my business to see the sexton, who, for a small gratuity,
readily granted permission of search, on condition, however, that he
should be present himself, to see that the stranger removed nothing of
intrinsic value.

“To banes, and skulls, and hearts, if he can find ony, he shall be
welcome,” said this guardian of the ruined Monastery, “there's plenty
a' about, an he's curious of them; but if there be ony picts” (meaning
perhaps _pyx_) “or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of
gold and silver, deil hae me an I conneve at their being removed.”

The sexton also stipulated, that our researches should take place at
night, being unwilling to excite observation, or give rise to scandal.
My new acquaintance and I spent the day as became lovers of hoar
antiquity. We visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again
and again during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at
David's, we walked in the afternoon to such places in the neighbourhood
as ancient tradition or modern conjecture had rendered mark worthy.
Night found us in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton, who
carried a dark lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of
the dead, and the fragments of that architecture, which they doubtless
trusted would have canopied their bones till doomsday.

I am by no means particularly superstitious, and yet there was that in
the present service which I did not very much like. There was something
awful in the resolution of disturbing, at such an hour, and in such a
place, the still and mute sanctity of the grave. My companions were free
from this impression--the stranger from his energetic desire to
execute the purpose for which he came--and the sexton from habitual
indifference. We soon stood in the aisle, which, by the account of the
Benedictine, contained the bones of the family of Glendinning, and were
busily employed in removing the rubbish from a corner which the stranger
pointed out. If a half-pay Captain could have represented an ancient
Border-knight, or an ex-Benedictine of the nineteenth century a wizard
monk of the sixteenth, we might have aptly enough personified the search
after Michael Scott's lamp and book of magic power. But the sexton
would have been _de trop_ in the group. [Footnote: This is one of those
passages which must now read awkwardly, since every one knows that the
Novelist and the author of the Lay of the Minstrel, is the same person.
But before the avowal was made, the author was forced into this
and similar offences against good taste, to meet an argument, often
repeated, that there was something very mysterious in the Author of
Waverley's reserve concerning Sir Walter Scott, an author sufficiently
voluminous at least. I had a great mind to remove the passages from this
edition, but the more candid way is to explain how they came there.]

Ere the stranger, assisted by the sexton in his task, had been long at
work, they came to some hewn stones, which seemed to have made part of a
small shrine, though now displaced and destroyed.

“Let us remove these with caution, my friend,” said the stranger, “lest
we injure that which I come to seek.”

“They are prime stanes,” said the sexton, “picked free every ane of
them;--warse than the best wad never serve the monks, I'se warrant.”

A minute after he had made this observation, he exclaimed, “I hae fund
something now that stands again' the spade, as if it were neither earth
nor stane.”

The stranger stooped eagerly to assist him.

“Na, na, haill o' my ain,” said the sexton; “nae halves or
quarters;”--and he lifted from amongst the ruins a small leaden box.

“You will be disappointed, my friend,” said the Benedictine, “if you
expect any thing there but the mouldering dust of a human heart, closed
in an inner case of porphyry.”

I interposed as a neutral party, and taking the box from the sexton,
reminded him, that if there were treasure concealed in it, still it
could not become the property of the finder. I then proposed, that as
the place was too dark to examine the contents of the leaden casket, we
should adjourn to David's, where we might have the advantage of light
and fire while carrying on our investigation. The stranger requested us
to go before, assuring us that he would follow in a few minutes.

I fancy that old Mattocks suspected these few minutes might be employed
in effecting farther discoveries amongst the tombs, for he glided back
through a side-aisle to watch the Benedictine's motions, but presently
returned, and told me in a whisper that “the gentleman was on his knees
amang the cauld stanes, praying like ony saunt.”

I stole back, and beheld the old man actually employed as Mattocks had
informed me. The language seemed to be Latin; and as, the whispered, yet
solemn accent, glided away through the ruined aisles, I could not
help reflecting how long it was since they had heard the forms of that
religion, for the exercise of which they had been reared at such cost of
time, taste, labour, and expense. “Come away, come away,” said I; “let
us leave him to himself, Mattocks; this is no business of ours.”

“My certes, no, Captain,” said Mattocks; “ne'ertheless, it winna
be amiss to keep an eye on him. My father, rest his saul, was a
horse-couper, and used to say he never was cheated in a naig in his
life, saving by a west-country whig frae Kilmarnock, that said a
grace ower a dram o' whisky. But this gentleman will be a Roman, I'se
warrant?”

“You are perfectly right in that, Saunders,” said I.

“Ay, I have seen twa or three of their priests that were chased ower
here some score o' years syne. They just danced like mad when they
looked on the friars' heads, and the nuns' heads, in the cloister
yonder; they took to them like auld acquaintance like.--Od, he is
not stirring yet, mair than he were a through-stane! [Footnote: A
tombstone.] I never kend a Roman, to say kend him, but ane--mair by
token, he was the only ane in the town to ken--and that was auld Jock of
the Pend. It wad hae been lang ere ye fand Jock praying in the Abbey in
a thick night, wi' his knees on a cauld stane. Jock likit a kirk wi'
a chimley in't. Mony a merry ploy I hae had wi' him down at the inn
yonder; and when he died, decently I wad hae earded him; but, or I gat
his grave weel howkit, some of the quality, that were o' his ain unhappy
persuasion, had the corpse whirried away up the water, and buried him
after their ain pleasure, doubtless--they kend best. I wad hae made
nae great charge. I wadna hae excised Johnnie, dead or alive.--Stay,
see--the strange gentleman is coming.”

“Hold the lantern to assist him, Mattocks,” said I.--“This is rough
walking, sir.”

“Yes,” replied the Benedictine; “I may say with a poet, who is doubtless
familiar to you----”

I should be surprised if he were, thought I internally.

The stranger continued:

  “Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
  Have my old feet stumbled at graves!”

“We are now clear of the churchyard,” said I, “and have but a short walk
to David's, where I hope we shall find a cheerful fire to enliven us
after our night's work.”

We entered, accordingly, the little parlour, into which Mattocks was
also about to push himself with sufficient effrontery, when David, with
a most astounding oath, expelled him by head and shoulders, d--ning his
curiosity, that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn.
Apparently mine host considered his own presence as no intrusion, for he
crowded up to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was
frail and wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years
in the ground. On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of
porphyry, as the stranger had announced to us.

“I fancy,” he said, “gentlemen, your curiosity will not be
satisfied,--perhaps I should say that your suspicions will not be
removed,--unless I undo this casket; yet it only contains the mouldering
remains of a heart, once the seat of the noblest thoughts.”

He undid the box with great caution; but the shrivelled substance which
it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been,
the means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and
colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay. We
were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger
asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his
influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the
bailie himself, to silence all idle rumours. He was, moreover, pleased
to favour us with his company to supper; and having taken the lion's
share of two bottles of sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary
authority the stranger's removal of the heart, but, I believe, would
have authorized the removal of the Abbey itself, were it not that it
happens considerably to advantage the worthy publican's own custom.

The object of the Benedictine's visit to the land of his forefathers
being now accomplished, he announced his intention of leaving us early
in the ensuing day, but requested my company to breakfast with him
before his departure. I came accordingly, and when we had finished our
morning's meal, the priest took me apart, and pulling from his pocket
a large bundle of papers, he put them into my hands. “These,” said he,
“Captain Clutterbuck, are genuine Memoirs of the sixteenth century, and
exhibit in a singular, and, as I think, an interesting point of
view, the manners of that period. I am induced to believe that their
publication will not be an unacceptable present to the British public;
and willingly make over to you any profit that may accrue from such a
transaction.”

I stared a little at this annunciation, and observed, that the hand
seemed too modern for the date he assigned to the manuscript.

“Do not mistake me, sir,” said the Benedictine; “I did not mean to say
the Memoirs were written in the sixteenth century, but only, that they
were compiled from authentic materials of that period, but written in
the taste and language of the present day. My uncle commenced this book;
and I, partly to improve my habit of English composition, partly to
divert melancholy thoughts, amused my leisure hours with continuing
and concluding it. You will see the period of the story where my uncle
leaves off his narrative, and I commence mine. In fact, they relate in a
great measure to different persons, as well as to a different period.”

Retaining the papers in my hand, I proceeded to state to him my doubts,
whether, as a good Protestant, I could undertake or superintend a
publication written probably in the spirit of Popery.

“You will find,” he said, “no matter of controversy in these sheets, nor
any sentiments stated, with which, I trust, the good in all persuasions
will not be willing to join. I remembered I was writing for a land
unhappily divided from the Catholic faith; and I have taken care to say
nothing which, justly interpreted, could give ground for accusing me of
partiality. But if, upon collating my narrative with the proofs to which
I refer you--for you will find copies of many of the original papers
in that parcel--you are of opinion that I have been partial to my own
faith, I freely give you leave to correct my errors in that respect. I
own, however, I am not conscious of this defect, and have rather to
fear that the Catholics may be of opinion, that I have mentioned
circumstances respecting the decay of discipline which preceded, and
partly occasioned, the great schism, called by you the Reformation, over
which I ought to have drawn a veil. And indeed, this is one reason why I
choose the papers should appear in a foreign land, and pass to the press
through the hands of a stranger.”

To this I had nothing to reply, unless to object my own incompetency to
the task the good father was desirous to impose upon me. On this subject
he was pleased to say more, I fear, than his knowledge of me fully
warranted--more, at any rate, than my modesty will permit me to record.
At length he ended, with advising me, if I continued to feel the
diffidence which I stated, to apply to some veteran of literature, whose
experience might supply my deficiencies. Upon these terms we parted,
with mutual expressions of regard, and I have never since heard of him.

After several attempts to peruse the quires of paper thus singularly
conferred on me, in which I was interrupted by the most inexplicable
fits of yawning, I at length, in a sort of despair, communicated them to
our village club, from whom they found a more favourable reception than
the unlucky conformation of my nerves had been able to afford them. They
unanimously pronounced the work to be exceedingly good, and assured me
I would be guilty of the greatest possible injury to our flourishing
village, if I should suppress what threw such an interesting and radiant
light upon the history of the ancient Monastery of Saint Mary.

At length, by dint of listening to their opinion, I became dubious of my
own; and, indeed, when I heard passages read forth by the sonorous voice
of our worthy pastor, I was scarce more tired than I have felt myself
at some of his own sermons. Such, and so great is the difference
betwixt reading a thing one's self, making toilsome way through all the
difficulties of manuscript, and, as the man says in the play, “having
the same read to you;”--it is positively like being wafted over a creek
in a boat, or wading through it on your feet, with the mud up to your
knees. Still, however, there remained the great difficulty of finding
some one who could act as editor, corrector at once of the press and
of the language, which, according to the schoolmaster, was absolutely
necessary.

Since the trees walked forth to choose themselves a king, never was an
honour so bandied about. The parson would not leave the quiet of his
chimney-corner--the bailie pleaded the dignity of his situation, and the
approach of the great annual fair, as reasons against going to Edinburgh
to make arrangements for printing the Benedictine's manuscript. The
schoolmaster alone seemed of malleable stuff; and, desirous perhaps of
emulating the fame of Jedediah Cleishbotham, evinced a wish to undertake
this momentous commission. But a remonstrance from three opulent
farmers, whose sons he had at bed, board, and schooling, for twenty
pounds per annum a-head, came like a frost over the blossoms of his
literary ambition, and he was compelled to decline the service.

In these circumstances, sir, I apply to you, by the advice of our little
council of war, nothing doubting you will not be disinclined to take
the duty upon you, as it is much connected with that in which you have
distinguished yourself. What I request is, that you will review, or
rather revise and correct, the enclosed packet, and prepare it for the
press, by such alterations, additions, and curtailments, as you think
necessary. Forgive my hinting to you, that the deepest well may be
exhausted,--the best corps of grenadiers, as our old general of brigade
expressed himself, may be _used up_. A few hints can do you no harm;
and, for the prize-money, let the battle be first won, and it shall be
parted at the drum-head. I hope you will take nothing amiss that I have
said. I am a plain soldier, and little accustomed to compliments. I
may add, that I should be well contented to march in the front with
you--that is, to put my name with yours on the title-page. I have the
honour to be, Sir, Your unknown humble Servant, Cuthbert Clutterbuck.
Village of Kennaquhair, -- of April, 18--

_For the Author of “Waverley,” &c. care of Mr. John Ballantyne, Hanover
Street, Edinburgh._


       *       *        *       *        *


ANSWER BY “THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY,”

TO THE FOREGOING LETTER FROM CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK.


DEAR CAPTAIN,

Do not admire, that, notwithstanding the distance and ceremony of your
address, I return an answer in the terms of familiarity. The truth
is, your origin and native country are better known to me than even to
yourself. You derive your respectable parentage, if I am not greatly
mistaken, from a land which has afforded much pleasure, as well as
profit, to those who have traded to it successfully,--I mean that part
of the _terra incognita_ which is called the province of Utopia. Its
productions, though censured by many (and some who use tea and tobacco
without scruple) as idle and unsubstantial luxuries, have nevertheless,
like many other luxuries, a general acceptation, and are secretly
enjoyed even by those who express the greatest scorn and dislike of
them in public. The dram-drinker is often the first to be shocked at the
smell of spirits--it is not unusual to hear old maiden ladies declaim
against scandal--the private book-cases of some grave-seeming men would
not brook decent eyes--and many, I say not of the wise and learned,
but of those most anxious to seem such, when the spring-lock of their
library is drawn, their velvet cap pulled over their ears, their feet
insinuated into their turkey slippers, are to be found, were their
retreats suddenly intruded upon, busily engaged with the last new novel.

I have said, the truly wise and learned disdain these shifts, and
will open the said novel as avowedly as they would the lid of their
snuff-box. I will only quote one instance, though I know a hundred.
Did you know the celebrated Watt of Birmingham, Captain Clutterbuck? I
believe not, though, from what I am about to state, he would not have
failed to have sought an acquaintance with you. It was only once my
fortune to meet him, whether in body or in spirit it matters not.
There were assembled about half a score of our Northern Lights, who had
amongst them, Heaven knows how, a well-known character of your country,
Jedediah Cleishbotham. This worthy person, having come to Edinburgh
during the Christmas vacation, had become a sort of lion in the place,
and was lead in leash from house to house along with the guisards, the
stone-eater, and other amusements of the season, which “exhibited their
unparalleled feats to private family-parties, if required.” Amidst this
company stood Mr. Watt, the man whose genius discovered the means of
multiplying our national resources to a degree perhaps even beyond
his own stupendous powers of calculation and combination; bringing the
treasures of the abyss to the summit of the earth--giving the feeble arm
of man the momentum of an Afrite--commanding manufactures to arise, as
the rod of the prophet produced water in the desert--affording the means
of dispensing with that time and tide which wait for no man, and of
sailing without that wind which defied the commands and threats of
Xerxes himself.

[Footnote: Probably the ingenious author alludes to the national adage:

  The king said sail,
  But the wind said no.

Our schoolmaster (who is also a land surveyor) thinks this whole passage
refers to Mr. Watt's improvements on the steam engine.--_Note by Captain
Clutterbuck_.]

This potent commander of the elements--this abridger of time and
space--this magician, whose cloudy machinery has produced a change on
the world, the effects of which, extraordinary as they are, are perhaps
only now beginning to be felt--was not only the most profound man
of science, the most successful combiner of powers and calculator of
numbers as adapted to practical purposes,--was not only one of the
most generally well-informed,--but one of the best and kindest of human
beings.

There he stood, surrounded by the little band I have mentioned of
Northern literati, men not less tenacious, generally speaking, of
their own fame and their own opinions, than the national regiments are
supposed to be jealous of the high character which they have won upon
service. Methinks I yet see and hear what I shall never see or hear
again. In his eighty-fifth year, the alert, kind, benevolent old man,
had his attention alive to every one's question, his information at
every one's command.

His talents and fancy overflowed on every subject. One gentleman was a
deep philologist--he talked with him on the origin of the alphabet as if
he had been coeval with Cadmus; another a celebrated critic,--you would
have said the old man had studied political economy and belles-lettres
all his life,--of science it is unnecessary to speak, it was his own
distinguished walk. And yet, Captain Clutterbuck, when he spoke with
your countryman Jedediah Cleishbotham, you would have sworn he had been
coeval with Claver'se and Burley, with the persecutors and persecuted,
and could number every shot the dragoons had fired at the fugitive
Covenanters. In fact, we discovered that no novel of the least celebrity
escaped his perusal, and that the gifted man of science was as much
addicted to the productions of your native country, (the land of Utopia
aforesaid,) in other words, as shameless and obstinate a peruser of
novels, as if he had been a very milliner's apprentice of eighteen. I
know little apology for troubling you with these things, excepting the
desire to commemorate a delightful evening, and a wish to encourage
you to shake off that modest diffidence which makes you afraid of being
supposed connected with the fairy-land of delusive fiction. I will
requite your tag of verse, from Horace himself, with a paraphrase
for your own use, my dear Captain, and for that of your country club,
excepting in reverence the clergyman and schoolmaster:--

  _Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori, &c._

  Take thou no scorn.
  Of fiction born,
  Fair fiction's muse to woe;
  Old Homer's theme
  Was but a dream,
  Himself a fiction too.

Having told you your country, I must next, my dear Captain Clutterbuck,
make free to mention your own immediate descent. You are not to suppose
your land of prodigies so little known to us as the careful concealment
of your origin would seem to imply. But you have it in common with many
of your country, studiously and anxiously to hide any connexion with it.
There is this difference, indeed, betwixt your countrymen and those of
our more material world, that many of the most estimable of them, such
as an old Highland gentleman called Ossian, a monk of Bristol called
Rowley, and others, are inclined to pass themselves off as denizens of
the land of reality, whereas most of our fellow-citizens who deny their
country are such as that country would be very willing to disclaim. The
especial circumstances you mention relating to your life and services,
impose not upon us. We know the versatility of the unsubstantial species
to which you belong permits them to assume all manner of disguises; we
have seen them apparelled in the caftan of a Persian, and the silken
robe of a Chinese, [Footnote: See the Persian Letters, and the Citizen
of the World.] and are prepared to suspect their real character under
every disguise. But how can we be ignorant of your country and manners,
or deceived by the evasion of its inhabitants, when the voyages of
discovery which have been made to it rival in number those recorded by
Purchas or by Hackluyt? [Footnote: See Les Voyages Imaginaires.] And to
show the skill and perseverance of your navigators and travellers, we
have only to name Sindbad, Aboulfouaris, and Robinson Crusoe. These were
the men for discoveries. Could we have sent Captain Greenland to look
out for the north-west passage, or Peter Wilkins to examine Baffin's
Bay, what discoveries might we not have expected? But there are feats,
and these both numerous and extraordinary, performed by the inhabitants
of your country, which we read without once attempting to emulate.

I wander from my purpose, which was to assure you, that I know you as
well as the mother who _did_ not bear you, for MacDuff's peculiarity
sticks to your whole race. You are not born of woman, unless, indeed, in
that figurative sense, in which the celebrated Maria Edgeworth may, in
her state of single blessedness, be termed mother of the finest family
in England. You belong, sir, to the Editors of the land of Utopia, a
sort of persons for whom I have the highest esteem. How is it possible
it should be otherwise, when you reckon among your corporation the sage
Cid Hamet Benengeli, the short-faced president of the Spectator's Club,
poor Ben Silton, and many others, who have acted as gentlemen-ushers to
works which have cheered our heaviest, and added wings to our lightest
hours?

What I have remarked as peculiar to Editors of the class in which
I venture to enrol you, is the happy combination of fortuitous
circumstances which usually put you in possession of the works which
you have the goodness to bring into public notice. One walks on the
sea-shore, and a wave casts on land a small cylindrical trunk or casket,
containing a manuscript much damaged with sea-water, which is with
difficulty deciphered, and so forth. [Footnote: See the History of
Automathes.] Another steps into a chandler's shop, to purchase a pound
of butter, and, behold! the waste-paper on which it is laid is the
manuscript of a cabalist. [Footnote: Adventures of a Guinea.] A third
is so fortunate as to obtain from a woman who lets lodgings, the curious
contents of an antique bureau, the property of a deceased lodger.
[Footnote: Adventures of an Atom.] All these are certainly possible
occurrences; but, I know not how, they seldom occur to any Editors save
those of your country. At least I can answer for myself, that in my
solitary walks by the sea, I never saw it cast ashore any thing but
dulse and tangle, and now and then a deceased star-fish; my landlady
never presented me with any manuscript save her cursed bill; and the
most interesting of my discoveries in the way of waste-paper, was
finding a favourite passage of one of my own novels wrapt round an ounce
of snuff. No, Captain, the funds from which I have drawn my power
of amusing the public, have been bought otherwise than by fortuitous
adventure. I have buried myself in libraries to extract from the
nonsense of ancient days new nonsense of my own. I have turned over
volumes, which, from the pot-hooks I was obliged to decipher, might have
been the cabalistic manuscripts of Cornelius Agrippa, although I never
saw “the door open and the devil come in.” [Footnote: See Southey's
Ballad on the Young Man who read in a Conjuror's Books.] But all the
domestic inhabitants of the libraries were disturbed by the vehemence of
my studies:--

  From my research the boldest spider fled,
  And moths, retreating, trembled as I read;

From this learned sepulchre I emerged like the Magician in the Persian
Tales, from his twelve-month's residence in the mountain, not like him
to soar over the heads of the multitude, but to mingle in the crowd, and
to elbow amongst the throng, making my way from the highest society
to the lowest, undergoing the scorn, or, what is harder to brook,
the patronizing condescension of the one, and enduring the vulgar
familiarity of the other,--and all, you will say, for what?--to collect
materials for one of those manuscripts with which mere chance so often
accommodates your country-men; in other words, to write a successful
novel.--“O Athenians, how hard we labour to deserve your praise!”

I might stop here, my dear Clutterbuck; it would have a touching effect,
and the air of proper deference to our dear Public. But I will not
be false with you,--(though falsehood is--excuse the observation--the
current coin of your country,) the truth is, I have studied and lived
for the purpose of gratifying my own curiosity, and passing my own time;
and though the result has been, that, in one shape or other, I have
been frequently before the Public, perhaps more frequently than prudence
warranted, yet I cannot claim from them the favour due to those who have
dedicated their ease and leisure to the improvement and entertainment of
others.

Having communicated thus freely with you, my dear Captain, it follows,
of course, that I will gratefully accept of your communication, which,
as your Benedictine observed, divides itself both by subject, manner,
and age, into two parts. But I am sorry I cannot gratify your literary
ambition, by suffering your name to appear upon the title-page; and I
will candidly tell you the reason.

The Editors of your country are of such a soft and passive disposition,
that they have frequently done themselves great disgrace by giving up
the coadjutors who first brought them into public notice and public
favour, and suffering their names to be used by those quacks and
impostors who live upon the ideas of others. Thus I shame to tell how
the sage Cid Hamet Benengeli was induced by one Juan Avellaneda to play
the Turk with the ingenious Miguel Cervantes, and to publish a Second
Part of the adventures of his hero the renowned Don Quixote, without the
knowledge or co-operation of his principal aforesaid. It is true, the
Arabian sage returned to his allegiance, and thereafter composed a
genuine continuation of the Knight of La Mancha, in which the said
Avellaneda of Tordesillas is severely chastised. For in this you
pseudo-editors resemble the juggler's disciplined ape, to which a sly
old Scotsman likened James I., “if you have Jackoo in your hand, you can
make him bite me; if I have Jackoo in my hand, I can make him bite
you.” Yet, notwithstanding the _amende honorable_ thus made by Cid Hamet
Benengeli, his temporary defection did not the less occasion the decease
of the ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote, if he can be said to die, whose
memory is immortal. Cervantes put him to death, lest he should again
fall into bad hands. Awful, yet just consequence of Cid Hamet's
defection!

To quote a more modern and much less important instance. I am sorry to
observe my old acquaintance Jedediah Cleishbotham has misbehaved himself
so far as to desert his original patron, and set up for himself. I am
afraid the poor pedagogue will make little by his new allies, unless
the pleasure of entertaining the public, and, for aught I know, the
gentlemen of the long robe, with disputes about his identity.

[Footnote: I am since more correctly informed, that Mr. Cleishbotham
died some months since at Gandercleuch, and that the person assuming
his name is an impostor. The real Jedediah made a most Christian
and edifying end; and, as I am credibly informed, having sent for a
Cameronian clergyman when he was _in extremis_, was so fortunate as to
convince the good man, that, after all, he had no wish to bring down on
the scattered remnant of Mountain folks, “the bonnets of Bonny Dundee.”
 Hard that the speculators in print and paper will not allow a good man
to rest quiet in his grave.

This note, and the passages in the text, were occasioned by a London
bookseller having printed, as a Speculation, an additional collection
of Tales of My Landlord, which was not so fortunate as to succeed in
passing on the world as genuine.]

Observe, therefore, Captain Clutterbuck, that, wise by these great
examples, I receive you as a partner, but a sleeping partner only. As
I give you no title to employ or use the firm of the copartnery we are
about to form, I will announce my property in my title-page, and put my
own mark on my own chattels, which the attorney tells me it will be a
crime to counterfeit, as much as it would to imitate the autograph of
any other empiric--a crime amounting, as advertisements upon little
vials assure to us, to nothing short of felony. If, therefore, my dear
friend, your name should hereafter appear in any title-page without
mine, readers will know what to think of you. I scorn to use either
arguments or threats; but you cannot but be sensible, that, as you owe
your literary existence to me on the one hand, so, on the other, your
very all is at my disposal. I can at pleasure cut off your annuity,
strike your name from the half-pay establishment, nay, actually put you
to death, without being answerable to any one. These are plain words to
a gentleman who has served during the whole war; but, I am aware, you
will take nothing amiss at my hands.

And now, my good sir, let us address ourselves to our task, and arrange,
as we best can, the manuscript of your Benedictine, so as to suit the
taste of this critical age. You will find I have made very liberal use
of his permission, to alter whatever seemed too favourable to the Church
of Rome, which I abominate, were it but for her fasts and penances.

Our reader is doubtless impatient, and we must own, with John Bunyan,

  We have too long detain'd him in the porch,
  And kept him from the sunshine with a torch.

Adieu, therefore, my dear Captain--remember me respectfully to the
parson, the schoolmaster, and the bailie, and all friends of the happy
club in the village of Kennaquhair. I have never seen, and never shall
see, one of their faces; and notwithstanding, I believe that as yet I am
better acquainted with them than any other man who lives.--I shall soon
introduce you to my jocund friend, Mr. John Ballantyne of Trinity Grove,
whom you will find warm from his match at single-stick with a brother
Publisher. [Footnote: In consequence of the pseudo Tales of My Landlord
printed in London, as already mentioned, the late Mr. John Ballantyne,
the author's publisher, had a controversy with the interloping
bibliopolist, each insisting that his Jedediah Cleishbotham was the real
Simon Pure.] Peace to their differences! It is a wrathful trade, and
the _irritabile genus_ comprehends the bookselling as well as the
book-writing species.--Once more adieu!

THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY.



       *       *       *       *       *

THE MONASTERY.




Chapter the First.


  O ay! the Monks, the Monks they did the mischief!
  Theirs all the grossness, all the superstition
  Of a most gross and superstitious age--
  May He be praised that sent the healthful tempest
  And scatter'd all these pestilential vapours!
  But that we owed them _all_ to yonder Harlot
  Throned on the seven hills with her cup of gold,
  I will as soon believe, with kind Sir Roger,
  That old Moll White took wing with cat and broomstick,
  And raised the last night's thunder.
                                       OLD PLAY.

The village described in the Benedictine's manuscript by the name
of Kennaquhair, bears the same Celtic termination which occurs in
Traquhair, Caquhair, and other compounds. The learned Chalmers derives
this word Quhair, from the winding course of a stream; a definition
which coincides, in a remarkable degree, with the serpentine turns of
the river Tweed near the village of which we speak. It has been long
famous for the splendid Monastery of Saint Mary, founded by David the
First of Scotland, in whose reign were formed, in the same county, the
no less splendid establishments of Melrose, Jedburgh, and Kelso. The
donations of land with which the King endowed these wealthy fraternities
procured him from the Monkish historians the epithet of Saint, and from
one of his impoverished descendants the splenetic censure, “that he had
been a sore saint for the Crown.”

It seems probable, notwithstanding, that David, who was a wise as well
as a pious monarch, was not moved solely by religious motives to those
great acts of munificence to the church, but annexed political views to
his pious generosity. His possessions in Northumberland and Cumberland
became precarious after the loss of the Battle of the Standard; and
since the comparatively fertile valley of Teviot-dale was likely to
become the frontier of his kingdom, it is probable he wished to secure
at least a part of these valuable possessions by placing them in the
hands of the monks, whose property was for a long time respected, even
amidst the rage of a frontier war. In this manner alone had the King
some chance of ensuring protection and security to the cultivators of
the soil; and, in fact, for several ages the possessions of these
Abbeys were each a sort of Goshen, enjoying the calm light of peace
and immunity, while the rest of the country, occupied by wild clans and
marauding barons, was one dark scene of confusion, blood, and unremitted
outrage.

But these immunities did not continue down to the union of the crowns.
Long before that period the wars betwixt England and Scotland had lost
their original character of international hostilities, and had become
on the part of the English, a struggle for subjugation, on that of
the Scots a desperate and infuriated defence of their liberties. This
introduced on both sides a degree of fury and animosity unknown to the
earlier period of their history; and as religious scruples soon gave way
to national hatred spurred by a love of plunder, the patrimony of the
Church was no longer sacred from incursions on either side. Still,
however, the tenants and vassals of the great Abbeys had many advantages
over those of the lay barons, who were harassed by constant military
duty, until they became desperate, and lost all relish for the arts of
peace. The vassals of the church, on the other hand, were only liable
to be called to arms on general occasions, and at other times were
permitted in comparative quiet to possess their farms and feus.
[Footnote: Small possessions conferred upon vassals and their heirs,
held for a small quit-rent, or a moderate proportion of the produce.
This was a favourite manner, by which the churchmen peopled the
patrimony of their convents; and many descendants of such _feuars_, as
they are culled, are still to be found in possession of their family
inheritances in the neighbourhood of the great Monasteries of Scotland.]
They of course exhibited superior skill in every thing that related
to the cultivation of the soil, and were therefore both wealthier and
better informed than the military retainers of the restless chiefs and
nobles in their neighbourhood.

The residence of these church vassals was usually in a small village or
hamlet, where, for the sake of mutual aid and protection, some thirty
or forty families dwelt together. This was called the Town, and the land
belonging to the various families by whom the Town was inhabited, was
called the Township. They usually possessed the land in common, though
in various proportions, according to their several grants. The part of
the Township properly arable, and kept as such continually under the
plough, was called _in-field_. Here the use of quantities of manure
supplied in some degree the exhaustion of the soil, and the feuars
raised tolerable oats and bear, [Footnote: Or bigg, a kind of coarse
barley.] usually sowed on alternate ridges, on which the labour of the
whole community was bestowed without distinction, the produce being
divided after harvest, agreeably to their respective interests.

There was, besides, _out-field_ land, from which it was thought possible
to extract a crop now and then, after which it was abandoned to the
“skiey influences,” until the exhausted powers of vegetation were
restored. These out-field spots were selected by any feuar at his own
choice, amongst the sheep-walks and hills which were always annexed to
the Township, to serve as pasturage to the community. The trouble of
cultivating these patches of out-field, and the precarious chance that
the crop would pay the labour, were considered as giving a right to any
feuar, who chose to undertake the adventure, to the produce which might
result from it.

There remained the pasturage of extensive moors, where the valleys often
afforded good grass, and upon which the whole cattle belonging to the
community fed indiscriminately during the summer, under the charge of
the Town-herd, who regularly drove them out to pasture in the morning,
and brought them back at night, without which precaution they would
have fallen a speedy prey to some of the Snatchers in the neighbourhood.
These are things to make modern agriculturists hold up their hands and
stare; but the same mode of cultivation is not yet entirely in desuetude
in some distant parts of North Britain, and may be witnessed in full
force and exercise in the Zetland Archipelago.

The habitations of the church-feuars were not less primitive than their
agriculture. In each village or town were several small towers, having
battlements projecting over the side walls, and usually an advanced
angle or two with shot-holes for flanking the door-way, which was always
defended by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by an
exterior grated door of iron. These small peel-houses were ordinarily
inhabited by the principal feuars and their families; but, upon the
alarm of approaching danger, the whole inhabitants thronged from their
own miserable cottages, which were situated around, to garrison these
points of defence. It was then no easy matter for a hostile party to
penetrate into the village, for the men were habituated to the use of
bows and fire-arms, and the towers being generally so placed, that the
discharge from one crossed that of another, it was impossible to assault
any of them individually.

The interior of these houses was usually sufficiently wretched, for it
would have been folly to have furnished them in a manner which could
excite the avarice of their lawless neighbours. Yet the families
themselves exhibited in their appearance a degree of comfort,
information, and independence, which could hardly have been expected.
Their in-field supplied them with bread and home-brewed ale, their herds
and flocks with beef and mutton (the extravagance of killing lambs or
calves was never thought of). Each family killed a mart, or fat bullock,
in November, which was salted up for winter use, to which the good wife
could, upon great occasions, add a dish of pigeons or a fat capon,--the
ill-cultivated garden afforded “lang-cale,”--and the river gave salmon
to serve as a relish during the season of Lent.

Of fuel they had plenty, for the bogs afforded turf; and the remains
of the abused woods continued to give them logs for burning, as well as
timber for the usual domestic purposes. In addition to these comforts,
the good-man would now and then sally forth to the greenwood, and mark
down a buck of season with his gun or his cross-bow; and the Father
Confessor seldom refused him absolution for the trespass, if duly
invited to take his share of the smoking haunch. Some, still bolder,
made, either with their own domestics, or by associating themselves with
the moss-troopers, in the language of shepherds, “a start and overloup;”
 and the golden ornaments and silken head-gear--worn by the females of
one or two families of note, were invidiously traced by their neighbours
to such successful excursions. This, however, was a more inexplicable
crime in the eyes of the Abbot and Community of Saint Mary's, than
the borrowing one of the “gude king's deer;” and they failed not to
discountenance and punish, by every means in their power, offences which
were sure to lead to severe retaliation upon the property of the church,
and which tended to alter the character of their peaceful vassalage.

As for the information possessed by those dependents of the Abbacies,
they might have been truly said to be better fed than taught, even
though their fare had been worse than it was. Still, however, they
enjoyed opportunities of knowledge from which others were excluded. The
monks were in general well acquainted with their vassals and tenants,
and familiar in the families of the better class among them, where they
were sure to be received with the respect due to their twofold character
of spiritual father and secular landlord. Thus it often happened, when
a boy displayed talents and inclination for study, one of the brethren,
with a view to his being bred to the church, or out of good-nature,
in order to pass away his own idle time, if he had no better motive,
initiated him into the mysteries of reading and writing, and imparted to
him such other knowledge as he himself possessed. And the heads of these
allied families, having more time for reflection, and more skill, as
well as stronger motives for improving their small properties, bore
amongst their neighbours the character of shrewd, intelligent men, who
claimed respect on account of their comparative wealth, even while they
were despised for a less warlike and enterprising turn than the other
Borderers. They lived as much as they well could amongst themselves,
avoiding the company of others, and dreading nothing more than to be
involved in the deadly feuds and ceaseless contentions of the secular
landholders.

Such is a general picture of these communities. During the fatal wars in
the commencement of Queen Mary's reign, they had suffered dreadfully by
the hostile invasions. For the English, now a Protestant people, were
so far from sparing the church-lands, that they forayed them with more
unrelenting severity than even the possessions of the laity. But
the peace of 1550 had restored some degree of tranquillity to those
distracted and harassed regions, and matters began again gradually
to settle upon the former footing. The monks repaired their ravaged
shrines--the feuar again roofed his small fortalice which the enemy had
ruined--the poor labourer rebuilt his cottage--an easy task, where a few
sods, stones, and some pieces of wood from the next copse, furnished
all the materials necessary. The cattle, lastly, were driven out of the
wastes and thickets in which the remnant of them had been secreted; and
the mighty bull moved at the head of his seraglio and their followers,
to take possession of their wonted pastures. There ensued peace and
quiet, the state of the age and nation considered, to the Monastery of
Saint Mary, and its dependencies, for several tranquil years.




Chapter the Second.


  In yon lone vale his early youth was bred,
  Not solitary then--the bugle-horn
  Of fell Alecto often waked its windings,
  From where the brook joins the majestic river,
  To the wild northern bog, the curlew's haunt,
  Where oozes forth its first and feeble streamlet.
                                           OLD PLAY.

We have said, that most of the feuars dwelt in the village belonging to
their townships. This was not, however, universally the case. A lonely
tower, to which the reader must now be introduced, was at least one
exception to the general rule.

It was of small dimensions, yet larger than those which occurred in the
village, as intimating that, in case of assault, the proprietor would
have to rely upon his own unassisted strength. Two or three miserable
huts, at the foot of the fortalice, held the bondsmen and tenants of the
feuar. The site was a beautiful green knoll, which started up suddenly
in the very throat of a wild and narrow glen, and which, being
surrounded, except on one side, by the winding of a small stream,
afforded a position of considerable strength.

But the great security of Glendearg, for so the place was called, lay
in its secluded, and almost hidden situation. To reach the tower, it was
necessary to travel three miles up the glen, crossing about twenty times
the little stream, which, winding through the narrow valley, encountered
at every hundred yards the opposition of a rock or precipitous bank on
the one side, which altered its course, and caused it to shoot off in an
oblique direction to the other. The hills which ascend on each side of
this glen are very steep, and rise boldly over the stream, which is
thus imprisoned within their barriers. The sides of the glen are
impracticable for horse, and are only to be traversed by means of
the sheep-paths which lie along their sides. It would not be readily
supposed that a road so hopeless and so difficult could lead to any
habitation more important than the summer shealing of a shepherd.

Yet the glen, though lonely, nearly inaccessible, and sterile, was not
then absolutely void of beauty. The turf which covered the small portion
of level ground on the sides of the stream, was as close and verdant as
if it had occupied the scythes of a hundred gardeners once a-fortnight;
and it was garnished with an embroidery of daisies and wild flowers,
which the scythes would certainly have destroyed. The little brook, now
confined betwixt closer limits, now left at large to choose its course
through the narrow valley, danced carelessly on from stream to pool,
light and unturbid, as that better class of spirits who pass their way
through life, yielding to insurmountable obstacles, but as far from
being subdued by them as the sailor who meets by chance with an
unfavourable wind, and shapes his course so as to be driven back as
little as possible.

The mountains, as they would have been called in England, _Scottice_ the
steep _braes_, rose abruptly over the little glen, here presenting
the gray face of a rock, from which the turf had been peeled by the
torrents, and there displaying patches of wood and copse, which had
escaped the waste of the cattle and the sheep of the feuars, and which,
feathering naturally up the beds of empty torrents, or occupying the
concave recesses of the bank, gave at once beauty and variety to the
landscape. Above these scattered woods rose the hill, in barren, but
purple majesty; the dark rich hue, particularly in autumn, contrasting
beautifully with the thickets of oak and birch, the mountain ashes and
thorns, the alders and quivering aspens, which checquered and varied
the descent, and not less with the dark-green and velvet turf, which
composed the level part of the narrow glen.

Yet, though thus embellished, the scene could neither be strictly termed
sublime nor beautiful, and scarcely even picturesque or striking. But
its extreme solitude pressed on the heart; the traveller felt that
uncertainty whither he was going, or in what so wild a path was to
terminate, which, at times, strikes more on the imagination than the
grand features of a show-scene, when you know the exact distance of the
inn where your dinner is bespoke, and at the moment preparing. These
are ideas, however, of a far later age; for at the time we treat of,
the picturesque, the beautiful, the sublime, and all their intermediate
shades, were ideas absolutely unknown to the inhabitants and occasional
visitors of Glendearg.

These had, however, attached to the scene feelings fitting the time. Its
name, signifying the Red Valley, seems to have been derived, not only
from the purple colour of the heath, with which the upper part of the
rising banks was profusely clothed, but also from the dark red colour of
the rocks, and of the precipitous earthen banks, which in that country
are called _scaurs_. Another glen, about the head of Ettrick, has
acquired the same name from similar circumstances; and there are
probably more in Scotland to which it has been given.

As our Glendearg did not abound in mortal visitants, superstition, that
it might not be absolutely destitute of inhabitants, had peopled
its recesses with beings belonging to another world. The savage and
capricious Brown Man of the Moors, a being which seems the genuine
descendant of the northern dwarfs, was supposed to be seen there
frequently, especially after the autumnal equinox, when the fogs were
thick, and objects not easily distinguished. The Scottish fairies, too,
a whimsical, irritable, and mischievous tribe, who, though at times
capriciously benevolent, were more frequently adverse to mortals, were
also supposed to have formed a residence in a particularly wild
recess of the glen, of which the real name was, in allusion to that
circumstance, _Corrie nan Shian_, which, in corrupted Celtic, signifies
the Hollow of the Fairies. But the neighbours were more cautious in
speaking about this place, and avoided giving it a name, from an idea
common then throughout all the British and Celtic provinces of Scotland,
and still retained in many places, that to speak either good or ill
of this capricious race of imaginary beings, is to provoke their
resentment, and that secrecy and silence is what they chiefly desire
from those who may intrude upon their revels, or discover their haunts.

A mysterious terror was thus attached to the dale, which afforded
access from the broad valley of the Tweed, up the little glen we have
described, to the fortalice called the Tower of Glendearg. Beyond the
knoll, where, as we have said, the tower was situated, the hills grew
more steep, and narrowed on the slender brook, so as scarce to leave
a footpath; and there the glen terminated in a wild waterfall, where a
slender thread of water dashed in a precipitous line of foam over two
or three precipices. Yet farther in the same direction, and above these
successive cataracts, lay a wild and extensive morass, frequented only
by waterfowl, wide, waste, apparently almost interminable, and serving
in a great measure to separate the inhabitants of the glen from those
who lived to the northward.

To restless and indefatigable moss-troopers, indeed, these morasses were
well known, and sometimes afforded a retreat. They often rode down the
glen--called at this tower--asked and received hospitality--but still
with a sort of reserve on the part of its more peaceful inhabitants, who
entertained them as a party of North-American Indians might be received
by a new European settler, as much out of fear as hospitality, while
the uppermost wish of the landlord is the speedy departure of the savage
guests.

This had not always been the current of feeling in the little valley
and its tower. Simon Glendinning, its former inhabitant, boasted his
connexion by blood to that ancient family of Glendonwyne, on the western
border. He used to narrate, at his fireside, in the autumn evenings, the
feats of the family to which he belonged, one of whom fell by the side
of the brave Earl of Douglas at Otterbourne. On these occasions Simon
usually held upon his knee an ancient broadsword, which had belonged to
his ancestors before any of the family had consented to accept a fief
under the peaceful dominion of the monks of St. Mary's. In modern days,
Simon might have lived at ease on his own estate, and quietly murmured
against the fate that had doomed him to dwell there, and cut off his
access to martial renown. But so many opportunities, nay so many calls
there were for him, who in those days spoke big, to make good his words
by his actions, that Simon Glendinning was soon under the necessity of
marching with the men of the Halidome, as it was called, of St. Mary's,
in that disastrous campaign which was concluded by the battle of Pinkie.

The Catholic clergy were deeply interested in that national quarrel, the
principal object of which was, to prevent the union of the infant Queen
Mary, with the son of the heretical Henry VIII. The Monks had called out
their vassals, under an experienced leader. Many of themselves had taken
arms, and marched to the field, under a banner representing a female,
supposed to personify the Scottish Church, kneeling in the attitude of
prayer, with the legend, _Afflictae Sponsae ne obliviscaris_. [Footnote:
Forget not the afflicted spouse.]

The Scots, however, in all their wars, had more occasion for good
and cautious generals, than for excitation, whether political or
enthusiastic. Their headlong and impatient courage uniformly induced
them to rush into action without duly weighing either their own
situation, or that of their enemies, and the inevitable consequence was
frequent defeat. With the dolorous slaughter of Pinkie we have nothing
to do, excepting that, among ten thousand men of low and high degree,
Simon Glendinning, of the Tower of Glendearg, bit the dust, no way
disparaging in his death that ancient race from which he claimed his
descent.

When the doleful news, which spread terror and mourning through the
whole of Scotland, reached the Tower of Glendearg, the widow of
Simon, Elspeth Brydone by her family name, was alone in that desolate
habitation, excepting a hind or two, alike past martial and agricultural
labour, and the helpless widows and families of those who had fallen
with their master. The feeling of desolation was universal;--but what
availed it? The monks, their patrons and protectors, were driven from
their Abbey by the English forces, who now overran the country, and
enforced at least an appearance of submission on the part of the
inhabitants. The Protector, Somerset, formed a strong camp among the
ruins of the ancient Castle of Roxburgh, and compelled the neighbouring
country to come in, pay tribute, and take assurance from him, as the
phrase then went. Indeed, there was no power of resistance remaining;
and the few barons, whose high spirit disdained even the appearance
of surrender, could only retreat into the wildest fastnesses of the
country, leaving their houses and property to the wrath of the English,
who detached parties everywhere to distress, by military exaction, those
whose chiefs had not made their submission. The Abbot and his community
having retreated beyond the Forth, their lands were severely forayed,
as their sentiments were held peculiarly inimical to the alliance with
England.

Amongst the troops detached on this service was a small party, commanded
by Stawarth Bolton, a captain in the English army, and full of the
blunt and unpretending gallantry and generosity which has so often
distinguished that nation. Resistance was in vain. Elspeth Brydone, when
she descried a dozen of horsemen threading their way up the glen, with
a man at their head, whose scarlet cloak, bright armour, and dancing
plume, proclaimed him a leader, saw no better protection for herself
than to issue from the iron grate, covered with a long mourning
veil, and holding one of her two sons in each hand, to meet the
Englishman--state her deserted condition--place the little tower at his
command--and beg for his mercy. She stated, in a few brief words,
her intention, and added, “I submit, because I have nae means of
resistance.”

“And I do not ask your submission, mistress, for the same reason,”
 replied the Englishman. “To be satisfied of your peaceful intentions
is all I ask; and, from what you tell me, there is no reason to doubt
them.”

“At least, sir,” said Elspeth Brydone, “take share of what our
spence and our garners afford. Your horses are tired--your folk want
refreshment.”

“Not a whit--not a whit,” answered the honest Englishman; “it shall
never be said we disturbed by carousal the widow of a brave soldier,
while she was mourning for her husband.--Comrades, face about.--Yet
stay,” he added, checking his war-horse, “my parties are out in every
direction; they must have some token that your family are under my
assurance of safety.--Here, my little fellow,” said he, speaking to
the eldest boy, who might be about nine or ten years old, “lend me thy
bonnet.”

The child reddened, looked sulky, and hesitated, while the mother,
with many a _fye_ and _nay pshaw_, and such sarsenet chidings as tender
mothers give to spoiled children, at length succeeded in snatching the
bonnet from him, and handing it to the English leader.

Stawarth Bolton took his embroidered red cross from his barret-cap, and
putting it into the loop of the boy's bonnet, said to the mistress, (for
the title of lady was not given to dames of her degree,) “By this token,
which all my people will respect, you will be freed from any importunity
on the part of our forayers.” [Footnote: As gallantry of all times and
nations has the same mode of thinking and acting, so it often expresses
itself by the same symbols. In the civil war 1745-6, a party of
Highlanders, under a Chieftain of rank, came to Rose Castle, the seat of
the Bishop of Carlisle, but then occupied by the family of Squire Dacre
of Cumberland. They demanded quarters, which of course were not to be
refused to armed men of a strange attire and unknown language. But the
domestic represented to the captain of the mountaineers, that the lady
of the mansion had been just delivered of a daughter, and expressed her
hope, that, under these circumstances, his party would give as little
trouble as possible. “God forbid,” said the gallant chief, “that I or
mine should be the means of adding to a lady's inconvenience at such a
time. May I request to see the infant?” The child was brought, and the
Highlander, taking his cockade out of his bonnet, and pinning it on the
child's breast, “That will be a token,” he said, “to any of our people
who may come hither, that Donald McDonald of Kinloch-Moidart, has taken
the family of Rose Castle under his protection.” The lady who received
in infancy this gage of Highland protection, is now Mary, Lady Clerk
of Pennycuik; and on the 10th of June still wears the cockade which was
pinned on her breast, with a white rose as a kindred decoration.] He
placed it on the boy's head; but it was no sooner there, than the little
fellow, his veins swelling, and his eyes shooting fire through tears,
snatched the bonnet from his head, and, ere his mother could interfere,
skimmed it into the brook. The other boy ran instantly to fish it out
again, threw it back to his brother, first taking out the cross, which,
with great veneration, he kissed and put into his bosom. The Englishman
was half diverted, half surprised, with the scene.

“What mean ye by throwing away Saint George's red cross?” said he to the
elder boy, in a tone betwixt jest and earnest.

“Because Saint George is a southern saint,” said the child, sulkily.
“Good”--said Stawarth Bolton.--“And what did you mean by taking it
out of the brook again, my little fellow?” he demanded of the younger.
“Because the priest says it is the common sign of salvation to all good
Christians.”

“Why, good again!” said the honest soldier. “I protest unto you,
mistress, I envy you these boys. Are they both yours?”

Stawarth Bolton had reason to put the question, for Halbert Glendinning,
the elder of the two, had hair as dark as the raven's plumage, black
eyes, large, bold, and sparkling, that glittered under eyebrows of the
same complexion; a skin deep embrowned, though it could not be termed
swarthy, and an air of activity, frankness, and determination, far
beyond his age. On the other hand, Edward, the younger brother, was
light-haired, blue-eyed, and of fairer complexion, in countenance rather
pale, and not exhibiting that rosy hue which colours the sanguine cheek
of robust health. Yet the boy had nothing sickly or ill-conditioned in
his look, but was, on the contrary, a fair and handsome child, with a
smiling face, and mild, yet cheerful eye.

The mother glanced a proud motherly glance, first at the one, and then
at the other, ere she answered the Englishman, “Surely, sir, they are
both my children.”

“And by the same father, mistress?” said Stawarth; but, seeing a blush
of displeasure arise on her brow, he instantly added, “Nay, I mean no
offence; I would have asked the same question at any of my gossips in
merry Lincoln.--Well, dame, you have two fair boys; I would I could
borrow one, for Dame Bolton and I live childless in our old hall.--Come,
little fellows, which of you will go with me?”

The trembling mother, half-fearing as he spoke, drew the children
towards her, one with either hand, while they both answered the
stranger. “I will not go with you,” said Halbert, boldly, “for you are
a false-hearted Southern; and the Southerns killed my father; and I will
war on you to the death, when I can draw my father's sword.”

“God-a-mercy, my little levin-bolt,” said Stawarth, “the goodly custom
of deadly feud will never go down in thy day, I presume.--And you, my
fine white-head, will you not go with me, to ride a cock-horse?” “No,”
 said Edward, demurely, “for you are a heretic.”

“Why, God-a-mercy still!” said Stawarth Bolton. “Well, dame, I see I
shall find no recruits for my troop from you; and yet I do envy you
these two little chubby knaves.” He sighed a moment, as was visible,
in spite of gorget and corslet, and then added, “And yet, my dame and I
would but quarrel which of the knaves we should like best; for I
should wish for the black-eyed rogue--and she, I warrant me, for that
blue-eyed, fair-haired darling. Natheless, we must brook our solitary
wedlock, and wish joy to those that are more fortunate. Sergeant
Brittson, do thou remain here till recalled--protect this family, as
under assurance--do them no wrong, and suffer no wrong to be done to
them, as thou wilt answer it.--Dame, Brittson is a married man, old and
steady; feed him on what you will, but give him not over much liquor.”

Dame Glendinning again offered refreshments, but with a faltering voice,
and an obvious desire her invitation should not be accepted. The fact
was, that, supposing her boys as precious in the eyes of the Englishman
as in her own, (the most ordinary of parental errors,) she was half
afraid, that the admiration he expressed of them in his blunt manner
might end in his actually carrying off one or other of the little
darlings whom he appeared to covet so much. She kept hold of their
hands, therefore, as if her feeble strength could have been of service,
had any violence been intended, and saw with joy she could not disguise,
the little party of horse countermarch, in order to descend the glen.
Her feelings did not escape Bolton: “I forgive you, dame,” he said, “for
being suspicious that an English falcon was hovering over your Scottish
moor-brood. But fear not--those who have fewest children have fewest
cares; nor does a wise man covet those of another household. Adieu,
dame; when the black-eyed rogue is able to drive a foray from England,
teach him to spare women and children, for the sake of Stawarth Bolton.”

“God be with you, gallant Southern!” said Elspeth Glendinning, but not
till he was out of hearing, spurring on his good horse to regain the
head of his party, whose plumage and armour were now glancing and
gradually disappearing in the distance, as they winded down the glen.

“Mother,” said the elder boy, “I will not say amen to a prayer for a
Southern.”

“Mother,” said the younger, more reverentially, “is it right to pray for
a heretic?”

“The God to whom I pray only knows,” answered poor Elspeth; “but these
two words, Southern and heretic, have already cost Scotland ten thousand
of her best and bravest, and me a husband, and you a father; and,
whether blessing or banning, I never wish to hear them more.--Follow me
to the Place, sir,” she said to Brittson, “and such as we have to offer
you shall be at your disposal.”




Chapter the Third.


  They lighted down on Tweed water
    And blew their coals sae het,
  And fired the March and Teviotdale,
     All in an evening late.
                       AULD MAITLAND.

The report soon spread through the patrimony of Saint Mary's and its
vicinity, that the Mistress of Glendearg had received assurance from the
English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or her
corn burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached the ears of
a lady, who, once much higher in rank than Elspeth Glendinning, was now
by the same calamity reduced to even greater misfortune.

She was the widow of a brave soldier, Walter Avenel, descended of a very
ancient Border family, who once possessed immense estates in Eskdale.
These had long since passed from them into other hands, but they still
enjoyed an ancient Barony of considerable extent, not very far from the
patrimony of Saint Mary's, and lying upon the same side of the river
with the narrow vale of Glendearg, at the head of which was the little
tower of the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, bearing a respectable
rank amongst the gentry of their province, though neither wealthy nor
powerful. This general regard had been much augmented by the skill,
courage, and enterprise which had been displayed by Walter Avenel, the
last Baron.

When Scotland began to recover from the dreadful shock she had sustained
after the battle of Pinkie-Cleuch, Avenel was one of the first who,
assembling a small force, set an example in those bloody and unsparing
skirmishes, which showed that a nation, though conquered and overrun by
invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in
the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, however, Walter
Avenel fell, and the news which came to the house of his fathers was
followed by the distracting intelligence, that a party of Englishmen
were coming to plunder the mansion and lands of his widow, in order, by
this act of terror, to prevent others from following the example of the
deceased.

The unfortunate lady had no better refuge than the miserable cottage
of a shepherd among the hills, to which she was hastily removed, scarce
conscious where or for what purpose her terrified attendants were
removing her and her infant daughter from her own house. Here she was
tended with all the duteous service of ancient times by the shepherd's
wife, Tibb Tacket, who in better days had been her own bowerwoman. For a
time the lady was unconscious of her misery; but when the first stunning
effect of grief was so far passed away that she could form an estimate
of her own situation, the widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of
her husband in his dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided
her to her place of refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their
own safety, or to seek for necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and
his wife, whose poor cottage she shared, were soon after deprived of the
means of affording their late mistress even that coarse sustenance
which they had gladly shared with her. Some of the English forayers
had discovered and driven off the few sheep which had escaped the first
researches of their avarice. Two cows shared the fate of the remnant of
their stock; they had afforded the family almost their sole support, and
now famine appeared to stare them in the face.

“We are broken and beggared now, out and out,” said old Martin the
shepherd--and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, “the
thieves, the harrying thieves I not a cloot left of the haill hirsel!”

“And to see poor Grizzle and Crumbie,” said his wife, “turning back
their necks to the byre, and routing while the stony-hearted villains
were brogging them on wi' their lances!”

“There were but four of them,” said Martin, “and I have seen the day
forty wad not have ventured this length. But our strength and manhood is
gane with our puir maister.”

“For the sake of the holy rood, whisht, man,” said the goodwife, “our
leddy is half gane already, as ye may see by that fleightering of the
ee-lid--a word mair and she's dead outright.”

“I could almost wish,” said Martin, “we were a' gane, for what to do
passes my puir wit. I care little for mysell, or you, Tibb,--we can make
a fend--work or want--we can do baith, but she can do neither.”

They canvassed their situation thus openly before the lady, convinced by
the paleness of her look, her quivering lip, and dead-set eye, that she
neither heard nor understood what they were saying.

“There is a way,” said the shepherd, “but I kenna if she could bring her
heart to it,--there's Simon Glendinning's widow of the glen yonder, has
had assurance from the Southern loons, and nae soldier to steer them
for one cause or other. Now, if the leddy could bow her mind to take
quarters with Elspeth Glendinning till better days cast up, nae doubt it
wad be doing an honour to the like of her, but----”

“An honour,” answered Tibb, “ay, by my word, sic an honour as wad be
pride to her kin mony a lang year after her banes were in the mould. Oh!
gudeman, to hear ye even the Lady of Avenel to seeking quarters wi' a
Kirk-vassal's widow!”

“Loath should I be to wish her to it,” said Martin; “but what may we
do?--to stay here is mere starvation; and where to go, I'm sure I ken
nae mair than ony tup I ever herded.”

“Speak no more of it,” said the widow of Avenel, suddenly joining in the
conversation, “I will go to the tower.--Dame Elspeth is of good folk,
a widow, and the mother of orphans,--she will give us house-room until
something be thought upon. These evil showers make the low bush better
than no bield.”

“See there, see there,” said Martin, “you see the leddy has twice our
sense.”

“And natural it is,” said Tibb, “seeing that she is convent-bred, and
can lay silk broidery, forby white-seam and shell-work.”

“Do you not think,” said the lady to Martin, still clasping her child to
her bosom and making it clear from what motives she desired the refuge,
“that Dame Glendinning will make us welcome?”

“Blithely welcome, blithely welcome, my leddy,” answered Martin,
cheerily, “and we shall deserve a welcome at her hand. Men are scarce
now, my leddy, with these wars; and gie me a thought of time to it, I
can do as good a day's darg as ever I did in my life, and Tibb can sort
cows with ony living woman.”

“And muckle mair could I do,” said Tibb, “were it ony feasible house;
but there will be neither pearlins to mend, nor pinners to busk up, in
Elspeth Glendinning's.”

“Whisht wi' your pride, woman,” said the shepherd; “eneugh you can do,
baith outside and inside, an ye set your mind to it; and hard it is
if we twa canna work for three folk's meat, forby my dainty wee leddy
there. Come awa, come awa, nae use in staying here langer; we have five
Scots miles over moss and muir, and that is nae easy walk for a leddy
born and bred.”

Household stuff there was little or none to remove or care for; an
old pony which had escaped the plunderers, owing partly to its pitiful
appearance, partly from the reluctance which it showed to be caught
by strangers, was employed to carry the few blankets and other trifles
which they possessed. When Shagram came to his master's well-known
whistle, he was surprised to find the poor thing had been wounded,
though slightly, by an arrow, which one of the forayers had shot off in
anger after he had long chased it in vain.

“Ay, Shagram,” said the old man, as he applied something to the wound,
“must you rue the lang-bow as weel as all of us?”

“What corner in Scotland rues it not!” said the Lady of Avenel.

“Ay, ay, madam,” said Martin, “God keep the kindly Scot from the
cloth-yard shaft, and he will keep himself from the handy stroke. But
let us go our way; the trash that is left I can come back for. There is
nae ane to stir it but the good neighbours, and they----”

“For the love of God, goodman,” said his wife, in a remonstrating tone,
“haud your peace! Think what ye're saying, and we hae sae muckle wild
land to go over before we win to the girth gate.”

The husband nodded acquiescence; for it was deemed highly imprudent to
speak of the fairies, either by their title of _good neighbours_ or
by any other, especially when about to pass the places which they were
supposed to haunt.

[Footnote: This superstition continues to prevail, though one would
suppose it must now be antiquated. It is only a year or two since an
itinerant puppet show-man, who, disdaining to acknowledge the profession
of Gines de Passamonte, called himself an artist from Vauxhall, brought
a complaint of a singular nature before the author, as Sheriff of
Selkirkshire. The singular dexterity with which the show-man had
exhibited the machinery of his little stage, had, upon a Selkirk
fair-day, excited the eager curiosity of some mechanics of Galashiels.
These men, from no worse motive that could be discovered than a thirst
after knowledge beyond their sphere, committed a burglary upon the barn
in which the puppets had been consigned to repose, and carried them off
in the nook of their plaids, when returning from Selkirk to their own
village.

  “But with the morning cool reflection came.”

The party found, however, they could not make Punch dance, and that
the whole troop were equally intractable; they had also, perhaps, some
apprehensions of the Rhadamanth of the district; and, willing to be quit
of their booty, they left the puppets seated in a grove by the side of
the Ettrick, where they were sure to be touched by the first beams of
the rising sun. Here a shepherd, who was on foot with sunrise to pen
his master's sheep on a field of turnips, to his utter astonishment, saw
this train, profusely gay, sitting in the little grotto. His examination
proceeded thus:--

_Sheriff_. You saw these gay-looking things? what did you think they
were?

_Shepherd_. Ou, I am no that free to say what I might think they were.

_Sheriff_. Come, lad, I must have a direct answer--who did you think
they were?

_Shepherd_. Ou, sir, troth I am no that free to say that I mind wha I
might think they were.

_Sheriff_. Come, come sir! I ask you distinctly, did you think they were
the fairies you saw?

_Shepherd_. Indeed, sir, and I winna say but I might think it was the
Good Neighbours.

Thus unwillingly was he brought to allude to the irritable and captious
inhabitants of fairy land.]

They set forward on their pilgrimage on the last day of October. “This
is thy birthday, my sweet Mary,” said the mother, as a sting of bitter
recollection crossed her mind. “Oh, who could have believed that the
head, which, a few years since, was cradled amongst so many rejoicing
friends, may perhaps this night seek a cover in vain!”

The exiled family then set forward,--Mary Avenel, a lovely girl between
five and six years old, riding gipsy fashion upon Shagram, betwixt two
bundles of bedding; the Lady of Avenel walking by the animal's side;
Tibb leading the bridle, and old Martin walking a little before, looking
anxiously around him to explore the way.

Martin's task as guide, after two or three miles' walking, became more
difficult than he himself had expected, or than he was willing to avow.
It happened that the extensive range of pasturage, with which he was
conversant, lay to the west, and to get into the little valley of
Glendearg he had to proceed easterly. In the wilder districts of
Scotland, the passage from one vale to another, otherwise than by
descending that which you leave, and reascending the other, is often
very difficult.--Heights and hollows, mosses and rocks intervene, and
all those local impediments which throw a traveller out of his course.
So that Martin, however sure of his general direction, became conscious,
and at length was forced reluctantly to admit, that he had missed the
direct road to Glendearg, though he insisted they must be very near it.
“If we can but win across this wide bog,” he said, “I shall warrant ye
are on the top of the tower.” But to get across the bog was a point
of no small difficulty. The farther they ventured into it, though
proceeding with all the caution which Martin's experience recommended,
the more unsound the ground became, until, after they had passed some
places of great peril, their best argument for going forward came to be,
that they had to encounter equal danger in returning. The Lady of Avenel
had been tenderly nurtured, but what will not a woman endure when her
child is in danger? Complaining less of the dangers of the road than
her attendants, who had been inured to such from their infancy, she kept
herself close by the side of the pony, watching its every footstep, and
ready, if it should flounder in the morass, to snatch her little Mary
from its back. At length they came to a place where the guide greatly
hesitated, for all around him was broken lumps of heath, divided
from each other by deep sloughs of black tenacious mire. After great
consideration, Martin, selecting what he thought the safest path, began
himself to lead forward Shagram, in order to afford greater security to
the child. But Shagram snorted, laid his ears back, stretched his two
feet forward, and drew his hind feet under him, so as to adopt the best
possible posture for obstinate resistance, and refused to move one yard
in the direction indicated. Old Martin, much puzzled, now hesitated
whether to exert his absolute authority, or to defer to the contumacious
obstinacy of Shagram, and was not greatly comforted by his wife's
observation, who, seeing Shagram stare with his eyes, distend his
nostrils, and tremble with terror, hinted that “he surely saw more than
they could see.”

In this dilemma, the child suddenly exclaimed--“Bonny leddy signs to
us to come yon gate.” They all looked in the direction where the child
pointed, but saw nothing, save a wreath, of rising mist, which fancy
might form into a human figure; but which afforded to Martin only the
sorrowful conviction, that the danger of their situation was about to be
increased by a heavy fog. He once more essayed to lead forward Shagram;
but the animal was inflexible in its determination not to move in the
direction Martin recommended. “Take your awn way for it, then,” said
Martin, “and let us see what you can do for us.”

Shagram, abandoned to the discretion of his own free-will, set off
boldly in the direction the child had pointed. There was nothing
wonderful in this, nor in its bringing them safe to the other side of
the dangerous morass; for the instinct of these animals in traversing
bogs is one of the most curious parts of their nature, and is a fact
generally established. But it was remarkable, that the child more than
once mentioned the beautiful lady and her signals, and that Shagram
seemed to be in the secret, always moving in the same direction which
she indicated. The Lady of Avenel took little notice at the time, her
mind being probably occupied by the instant danger; but her attendants
changed expressive looks with each other more than once.

“All-Hallow Eve!” said Tibb, in a whisper to Martin.

“For the mercy of Our Lady, not a word of that now!” said Martin in
reply. “Tell your beads, woman, if you cannot be silent.”

When they got once more on firm ground, Martin recognized certain
land-marks, or cairns, on the tops of the neighbouring hills, by which
he was enabled to guide his course, and ere long they arrived at the
Tower of Glendearg.

It was at the sight of this little fortalice that the misery of her lot
pressed hard on the poor Lady of Avenel. When by any accident they had
met at church, market, or other place of public resort, she remembered
the distant and respectful air with which the wife of the warlike baron
was addressed by the spouse of the humble feuar. And now, so much was
her pride humbled, that she was to ask to share the precarious safety of
the same feuar's widow, and her pittance of food, which might perhaps
be yet more precarious. Martin probably guessed what was passing in her
mind, for he looked at her with a wistful glance, as if to deprecate any
change of resolution; and answering to his looks, rather than his words,
she said, while the sparkle of subdued pride once more glanced from
her eye, “If it were for myself alone, I could but die-but for this
infant--the last pledge of Avenel--”

“True, my lady,” said Martin, hastily; and, as if to prevent the
possibility of her retracting, he added, “I will step on and see Dame
Elspeth--I kend her husband weel, and have bought and sold with him, for
as great a man as he was.”

Martin's tale was soon told, and met all acceptance from her companion
in misfortune. The Lady of Avenel had been meek and courteous in her
prosperity; in adversity, therefore, she met with the greatest sympathy.
Besides, there was a point of pride in sheltering and supporting a woman
of such superior birth and rank; and, not to do Elspeth Glendinning
injustice, she felt sympathy for one whose fate resembled her own in so
many points, yet was so much more severe. Every species of hospitality
was gladly and respectfully extended to the distressed travellers,
and they were kindly requested to stay as long at Glendearg as their
circumstances rendered necessary, or their inclination prompted.




Chapter the Fourth.


   Ne'er be I found by thee unawed,
   On that thrice hallow'd eve abroad.
   When goblins haunt from flood and fen,
                         The steps of men.
                            COLLINS'S _Ode to Fear_.

As the country became more settled, the Lady of Avenel would have
willingly returned to her husband's mansion. But that was no longer in
her power. It was a reign of minority, when the strongest had the best
right, and when acts of usurpation were frequent amongst those who had
much power and little conscience.

Julian Avenel, the younger brother of the deceased Walter, was a person
of this description. He hesitated not to seize upon his brother's house
and lands, so soon as the retreat of the English permitted him. At
first, he occupied the property in the name of his niece; but when the
lady proposed to return with her child to the mansion of its fathers, he
gave her to understand, that Avenel, being a male fief, descended to
the brother, instead of the daughter, of the last possessor. The ancient
philosopher declined a dispute with the emperor who commanded twenty
legions, and the widow of Walter Avenel was in no condition to maintain
a contest with the leader of twenty moss-troopers. Julian was also a
man of service, who could back a friend in case of need, and was sure,
therefore, to find protectors among the ruling powers. In short, however
clear the little Mary's right to the possessions of her father, her
mother saw the necessity of giving way, at least for the time, to the
usurpation of her uncle.

Her patience and forbearance were so far attended with advantage,
that Julian, for very shame's sake, could no longer suffer her to be
absolutely dependant on the charity of Elspeth Glendinning. A drove of
cattle and a bull (which were probably missed by some English farmer)
were driven to the pastures of Glendearg; presents of raiment and
household stuff were sent liberally, and some little money, though with
a more sparing hand: for those in the situation of Julian Avenel could
come more easily by the goods, than the representing medium of value,
and made their payments chiefly in kind.

In the meantime, the widows of Walter Avenel and Simon Glendinning had
become habituated to each other's society, and were unwilling to part.
The lady could hope no more secret and secure residence than in the
Tower of Glendearg, and she was now in a condition to support her share
of the mutual housekeeping. Elspeth, on the other hand, felt pride, as
well as pleasure, in the society of a guest of such distinction, and
was at all times willing to pay much greater deference than the Lady of
Walter Avenel could be prevailed on to accept.

Martin and his wife diligently served the united family in their several
vocations, and yielded obedience to both mistresses, though always
considering themselves as the especial servants of the Lady of Avenel.
This distinction sometimes occasioned a slight degree of difference
between Dame Elspeth and Tibb; the former being jealous of her own
consequence, and the latter apt to lay too much stress upon the rank
and family of her mistress. But both were alike desirous to conceal such
petty squabbles from the lady, her hostess scarce yielding to her old
domestic in respect for her person. Neither did the difference exist in
such a degree as to interrupt the general harmony of the family, for the
one wisely gave way as she saw the other become warm; and Tibb, though
she often gave the first provocation, had generally the sense to be the
first in relinquishing the argument.

The world which lay beyond was gradually forgotten by the inhabitants
of this sequestered glen, and unless when she attended mass at the
Monastery Church upon some high holiday, Alice of Avenel almost
forgot that she once held an equal rank with the proud wives of the
neighbouring barons and nobles who on such occasions crowded to the
solemnity. The recollection gave her little pain. She loved her husband
for himself, and in his inestimable loss all lesser subjects of regret
had ceased to interest her. At times, indeed, she thought of claiming
the protection of the Queen Regent (Mary of Guise) for her little
orphan, but the fear of Julian Avenel always came between. She was
sensible that he would have neither scruple nor difficulty in spiriting
away the child, (if he did not proceed farther,) should he once consider
its existence as formidable to his interest. Besides, he led a wild and
unsettled life, mingling in all feuds and forays, wherever there was
a spear to be broken; he evinced no purpose of marrying, and the fate
which he continually was braving might at length remove him from his
usurped inheritance. Alice of Avenel, therefore, judged it wise to check
all ambitious thoughts for the present, and remain quiet in the rude,
but peaceable retreat, to which Providence had conducted her.

It was upon an All-Hallow's eve, when the family had resided together
for the space of three years, that the domestic circle was assembled
round the blazing turf-fire, in the old narrow hall of the Tower of
Glendearg. The idea of the master or mistress of the mansion feeding or
living apart from their domestics, was at this period never entertained.
The highest end of the board, the most commodious settle by the
fire,--these were the only marks of distinction; and the servants
mingled, with deference indeed, but unreproved and with freedom, in
whatever conversation was going forward. But the two or three domestics,
kept merely for agricultural purposes, had retired to their own cottages
without, and with them a couple of wenches, usually employed within
doors, the daughters of one of the hinds.

After their departure, Martin locked, first, the iron grate; and,
secondly, the inner door of the tower, when the domestic circle was thus
arranged. Dame Elspeth sate pulling the thread from her distaff; Tibb
watched the progress of scalding the whey, which hung in a large pot
upon the _crook_, a chain terminated by a hook, which was suspended
in the chimney to serve the purpose of the modern crane. Martin, while
busied in repairing some of the household articles, (for every man in
those days was his own carpenter and smith, as well as his own tailor
and shoemaker,) kept from time to time a watchful eye upon the three
children.

They were allowed, however, to exercise their juvenile restlessness by
running up and down the hall, behind the seats of the elder members of
the family, with the privilege of occasionally making excursions into
one or two small apartments which opened from it, and gave excellent
opportunity to play at hide-and-seek. This night, however, the children
seemed not disposed to avail themselves of their privilege of visiting
these dark regions, but preferred carrying on their gambols in the
vicinity of the light.

In the meanwhile, Alice of Avenel, sitting close to an iron candlestick,
which supported a misshapen torch of domestic manufacture, read small
detached passages from a thick clasped volume, which she preserved
with the greatest care. The art of reading the lady had acquired by her
residence in a nunnery during her youth, but she seldom, of late years,
put it to any other use than perusing this little volume, which formed
her whole library. The family listened to the portions which she
selected, as to some good thing which there was a merit in hearing with
respect, whether it was fully understood or no. To her daughter, Alice
of Avenel had determined to impart their mystery more fully, but the
knowledge was at that period attended with personal danger, and was not
rashly to be trusted to a child.

The noise of the romping children interrupted, from time to time, the
voice of the lady, and drew on the noisy culprits the rebuke of Elspeth.

“Could they not go farther a-field, if they behoved to make such a din,
and disturb the lady's good words?” And this command was backed with
the threat of sending the whole party to bed if it was not attended to
punctually. Acting under the injunction, the children first played at
a greater distance from the party, and more quietly, and then began
to stray into the adjacent apartments, as they became impatient of the
restraint to which they were subjected. But, all at once, the two boys
came open-mouthed into the hall, to tell that there was an armed man in
the spence.

“It must be Christie of Clint-hill,” said Martin, rising; “what can have
brought him here at this time?”

“Or how came he in?” said Elspeth.

“Alas! what can he seek?” said the Lady of Avenel, to whom this man,
a retainer of her husband's brother, and who sometimes executed his
commissions at Glendearg, was an object of secret apprehension and
suspicion. “Gracious heavens!” she added, rising up, “where is my
child?” All rushed to the spence, Halbert Glendinning first arming
himself with a rusty sword, and the younger seizing upon the lady's
book. They hastened to the spence, and were relieved of a part of their
anxiety by meeting Mary at the door of the apartment. She did not seem
in the slightest degree alarmed, or disturbed. They rushed into the
spence, (a sort of interior apartment in which the family ate their
victuals in the summer season,) but there was no one there.

“Where is Christie of Clint-hill?” said Martin.

“I do not know,” said little Mary; “I never saw him.”

“And what made you, ye misleard loons,” said Dame Elspeth to her two
boys, “come yon gate into the ha', roaring like bullsegs, to frighten
the leddy, and her far frae strong?” The boys looked at each other in
silence and confusion, and their mother proceeded with her lecture.
“Could ye find nae night for daffin but Hallowe'en, and nae time but
when the leddy was reading to us about the holy Saints? May ne'er be in
my fingers, if I dinna sort ye baith for it!” The eldest boy bent his
eyes on the ground, the younger began to weep, but neither spoke;
and the mother would have proceeded to extremities, but for the
interposition of the little maiden.

“Dame Elspeth, it was _my_ fault--I did say to them, that I saw a man in
the spence.”

“And what made you do so, child,” said her mother, “to startle us all
thus?”

“Because,” said Mary, lowering her voice, “I could not help it.”

“Not help it, Mary!--you occasioned all this idle noise, and you could
not help it? How mean you by that, minion?”

“There really was an armed man in this spence,” said Mary; “and because
I was surprised to see him, I cried out to Halbert and Edward--”

“She has told it herself,” said Halbert Glendinning, “or it had never
been told by me.”

“Nor by me neither,” said Edward, emulously.

“Mistress Mary,” said Elspeth, “you never told us anything before that
was not true; tell us if this was a Hallowe'en cantrip, and make an end
of it.” The Lady of Avenel looked as if she would have interfered, but
knew not how; and Elspeth, who was too eagerly curious to regard any
distant hint, persevered in her inquiries. “Was it Christie of the
Clint-hill?--I would not for a mark that he were about the house, and a
body no ken whare.”

“It was not Christie,” said Mary; “it was--it was a gentleman--a
gentleman with a bright breastplate, like what I hae seen langsyne, when
we dwelt at Avenel--”

“What like was he?” continued Tibb, who now took share in the
investigation.

“Black-haired, black-eyed, with a peaked black beard,” said the child;
“and many a fold of pearling round his neck, and hanging down his breast
ower his breastplate; and he had a beautiful hawk, with silver bells,
standing on his left hand, with a crimson silk hood upon its head--”

“Ask her no more questions, for the love of God,” said the anxious
menial to Elspeth, “but look to my leddy!” But the Lady of Avenel,
taking Mary in her hand, turned hastily away, and, walking into the
hall, gave them no opportunity of remarking in what manner she received
the child's communication, which she thus cut short. What Tibb thought
of it appeared from her crossing herself repeatedly, and whispering
into Elspeth's ear, “Saint Mary preserve us!--the lassie has seen her
father!”

When they reached the hall, they found the lady holding her daughter
on her knee, and kissing her repeatedly. When they entered, she again
arose, as if to shun observation, and retired to the little apartment
where her child and she occupied the same bed.

The boys were also sent to their cabin, and no one remained by the hall
fire save the faithful Tibb and dame Elspeth, excellent persons both,
and as thorough gossips as ever wagged a tongue.

It was but natural that they should instantly resume the subject of the
supernatural appearance, for such they deemed it, which had this night
alarmed the family.

“I could hae wished it had been the deil himself--be good to and
preserve us!--rather than Christie o' the Clint-hill,” said the matron
of the mansion, “for the word runs rife in the country, that he is ane
of the maist masterfu' thieves ever lap on horse.”

“Hout-tout, Dame Elspeth,” said Tibb, “fear ye naething frae Christie;
tods keep their ain holes clean. You kirk-folk make sic a fasherie about
men shifting a wee bit for their living! Our Border-lairds would ride
with few men at their back, if a' the light-handed lads were out o'
gate.”

“Better they rade wi' nane than distress the country-side the gate they
do,” said Dame Elspeth.

“But wha is to haud back the Southron, then,” said Tibb, “if ye take
away the lances and broadswords? I trow we auld wives couldna do that
wi' rock and wheel, and as little the monks wi' bell and book.”

“And sae weel as the lances and broadswords hae kept them back, I
trow!--I was mair beholden to ae Southron, and that was Stawarth Bolton,
than to a' the border-riders ever wore Saint Andrew's cross--I reckon
their skelping back and forward, and lifting honest men's gear, has been
a main cause of a' the breach between us and England, and I am sure that
cost me a kind goodman. They spoke about the wedding of the Prince and
our Queen, but it's as like to be the driving of the Cumberland folk's
stocking that brought them down on us like dragons.” Tibb would not have
failed in other circumstances to answer what she thought reflections
disparaging to her country folk; but she recollected that Dame Elspeth
was mistress of the family, curbed her own zealous patriotism, and
hastened to change the subject.

“And is it not strange,” she said, “that the heiress of Avenel should
have seen her father this blessed night?”

“And ye think it was her father, then?” said Elspeth Glendinning.

“What else can I think?” said Tibb.

“It may hae been something waur, in his likeness,” said Dame
Glendinning.

“I ken naething about that,” said Tibb,--“but his likeness it was, that
I will be sworn to, just as he used to ride out a-hawking; for having
enemies in the country, he seldom laid off the breast-plate; and for my
part,” added Tibb, “I dinna think a man looks like a man unless he has
steel on his breast, and by his side too.”

“I have no skill of your harness on breast or side either,” said Dame
Glendinning; “but I ken there is little luck in Hallowe'en sights, for I
have had ane myself.”

“Indeed, Dame Elspeth?” said old Tibb, edging her stool closer to the
huge elbow-chair occupied by her friend, “I should like to hear about
that.”

“Ye maun ken, then, Tibb,” said Dame Glendinning, “that when I was a
hempie of nineteen or twenty, it wasna my fault if I wasna at a' the
merry-makings time about.”

“That was very natural,” said Tibb; “but ye hae sobered since that, or
ye wadna haud our braw gallants sae lightly.”

“I have had that wad sober me or ony ane,” said the matron, “Aweel,
Tibb, a lass like me wasna to lack wooers, for I wasna sae ill-favoured
that the tikes wad bark after me.”

“How should that be,” said Tibb, “and you sic a weel-favoured woman to
this day?”

“Fie, fie, cummer,” said the matron of Glendearg, hitching her seat of
honour, in her turn, a little nearer to the cuttle-stool on which Tibb
was seated; “weel-favoured is past my time of day; but I might pass
then, for I wasna sae tocherless but what I had a bit land at my
breast-lace. My father was portioner of Little-dearg.”

“Ye hae tell'd me that before,” said Tibb; “but anent the Hallowe'en?”

“Aweel, aweel, I had mair joes than ane, but I favoured nane o' them;
and sae, at Hallowe'en, Father Nicolas the cellarer--he was cellarer
before this father, Father Clement, that now is--was cracking his nuts
and drinking his brown beer with us, and as blithe as might be, and they
would have me try a cantrip to ken wha suld wed me: and the monk said
there was nae ill in it, and if there was, he would assoil me for
it. And wha but I into the barn to winnow my three weights o'
naething--sair, sair my mind misgave me for fear of wrang-doing and
wrang-suffering baith; but I had aye a bauld spirit. I had not winnowed
the last weight clean out, and the moon was shining bright upon the
floor, when in stalked the presence of my dear Simon Glendinning, that
is now happy. I never saw him plainer in my life than I did that moment;
he held up an arrow as he passed me, and I swarf'd awa wi' fright.
Muckle wark there was to bring me to mysell again, and sair they tried
to make me believe it was a trick of Father Nicolas and Simon between
them, and that the arrow was to signify Cupid's shaft, as the Father
called it; and mony a time Simon wad threep it to me after I was
married--gude man, he liked not it should be said that he was seen out
o' the body!--But mark the end o' it, Tibb; we were married, and the
gray-goose wing was the death o' him after a'!”

“As it has been of ower mony brave men,” said Tibb; “I wish there wasna
sic a bird as a goose in the wide warld, forby the clecking that we hae
at the burn-side.”

“But tell me, Tibb,” said Dame Glendinning, “what does your leddy aye do
reading out o' that thick black book wi' the silver clasps?--there are
ower mony gude words in it to come frae ony body but a priest--An it
were about Robin Hood, or some o' David Lindsay's ballants, ane wad ken
better what to say to it. I am no misdoubting your mistress nae way,
but I wad like ill to hae a decent house haunted wi' ghaists and
gyrecarlines.”

“Ye hae nae reason to doubt my leddy, or ony thing she says or does,
Dame Glendinning,” said the faithful Tibb, something offended; “and
touching the bairn, it's weel kend she was born on Hallowe'en, was nine
years gane, and they that are born on Hallowe'en whiles see mair than
ither folk.”

“And that wad be the cause, then, that the bairn didna mak muckle din
about what it saw?--if it had been my Halbert himself, forby Edward, who
is of softer nature, he wad hae yammered the haill night of a constancy.
But it's like Mistress Mary hae sic sights mair natural to her.”

“That may weel be,” said Tibb; “for on Hallowe'en she was born, as I
tell ye, and our auld parish priest wad fain hae had the night ower,
and All-Hallow day begun. But for a' that, the sweet bairn is just like
ither bairns, as ye may see yourself; and except this blessed night,
and ance before when we were in that weary bog on the road here, I kenna
that it saw mair than ither folk.”

“But what saw she in the bog, then,” said Dame Glendinning, “forby
moor-cocks and heather-blutters?”

“The wean saw something like a white leddy that weised us the gate,”
 said Tibb; “when we were like to hae perished in the moss-hags--certain
it was that Shagram reisted, and I ken Martin thinks he saw something.”

“And what might the white leddy be?” said Elspeth; “have ye ony guess o'
that?”

“It's weel kend that, Dame Elspeth,” said Tibb; “if ye had lived under
grit folk, as I hae dune, ye wadna be to seek in that matter.”

“I hae aye keepit my ain ha' house abune my head,” said Elspeth, not
without emphasis, “and if I havena lived wi' grit folk, grit folk have
lived wi' me.”

“Weel, weel, dame,” said Tibb, “your pardon's prayed, there was nae
offence meant. But ye maun ken the great ancient families canna be just
served wi' the ordinary saunts, (praise to them!) like Saunt Anthony,
Saunt Cuthbert, and the like, that come and gang at every sinner's
bidding, but they hae a sort of saunts or angels, or what not, to
themsells; and as for the White Maiden of Avenel, she is kend ower the
haill country. And she is aye seen to yammer and wail before ony o' that
family dies, as was weel kend by twenty folk before the death of Walter
Avenel, haly be his cast!”

“If she can do nae mair than that,” said Elspeth, somewhat scornfully,
“they needna make mony vows to her, I trow. Can she make nae better fend
for them than that, and has naething better to do than wait on them?”

“Mony braw services can the White Maiden do for them to the boot of
that, and has dune in the auld histories,” said Tibb, “but I mind o'
naething in my day, except it was her that the bairn saw in the bog.”

“Aweel, aweel, Tibb,” said Dame Glendinning, rising and lighting the
iron lamp, “these are great privileges of your grand folk. But our Lady
and Saunt Paul are good eneugh saunts for me, and I'se warrant them
never leave me in a bog that they can help me out o', seeing I send four
waxen candles to their chapels every Candlemas; and if they are not seen
to weep at my death, I'se warrant them smile at my joyful rising again,
whilk Heaven send to all of us, Amen.”

“Amen,” answered Tibb, devoutly; “and now it's time I should hap up the
wee bit gathering turf, as the fire is ower low.”

Busily she set herself to perform this duty. The relict of Simon
Glendinning did but pause a moment to cast a heedful and cautious glance
all around the hall, to see that nothing was out of its proper place;
then, wishing Tibb good-night, she retired to repose.

“The deil's in the carline,” said Tibb to herself, “because she was
the wife of a cock-laird, she thinks herself grander, I trow, than the
bower-woman of a lady of that ilk!” Having given vent to her suppressed
spleen in this little ejaculation, Tibb also betook herself to slumber.




Chapter the Fifth.


  A priest, ye cry, a priest!--lame shepherds they,
  How shall they gather in the straggling flock?
  Dumb dogs which bark not--how shall they compel
  The loitering vagrants to the Master's fold?
  Fitter to bask before the blazing fire,
  And snuff the mess neat-handed Phillis dresses,
  Than on the snow-wreath battle with the wolf.
                           REFORMATION.


The health of the Lady of Avenel had been gradually decaying ever since
her disaster. It seemed as if the few years which followed her husband's
death had done on her the work of half a century. She lost the fresh
elasticity of form, the colour and the mien of health, and became
wasted, wan, and feeble. She appeared to have no formed complaint;
yet it was evident to those who looked on her, that her strength waned
daily. Her lips at length became blenched and her eye dim; yet she spoke
not of any desire to see a priest, until Elspeth Glendinning in her zeal
could not refrain from touching upon a point which she deemed essential
to salvation. Alice of Avenel received her hint kindly, and thanked her
for it.

“If any good priest would take the trouble of such a journey,” she said,
“he should be welcome; for the prayers and lessons of the good must be
at all times advantageous.”

This quiet acquiescence was not quite what Elspeth Glendinning wished
or expected. She made up, however, by her own enthusiasm, for the lady's
want of eagerness to avail herself of ghostly counsel, and Martin was
despatched with such haste as Shagram would make, to pray one of
the religious men of Saint Mary's to come up to administer the last
consolations to the widow of Walter Avenel.

When the Sacristan had announced to the Lord Abbot, that the Lady of
the umquhile Walter de Avenel was in very weak health in the Tower of
Glendearg, and desired the assistance of a father confessor, the lordly
monk paused on the request.

“We do remember Walter de Avenel,” he said; “a good knight and
a valiant: he was dispossessed of his lands, and slain by the
Southron--May not the lady come hither to the sacrament of confession?
the road is distant and painful to travel.”

“The lady is unwell, holy father,” answered the Sacristan, “and unable
to bear the journey.”

“True--ay,--yes--then must one of our brethren go to her--Knowest thou
if she hath aught of a jointure from this Walter de Avenel?”

“Very little, holy father,” said the Sacristan; “she hath resided at
Glendearg since her husband's death, well-nigh on the charity of a poor
widow, called Elspeth Glendinning.”

“Why, thou knowest all the widows in the country-side!” said the Abbot.
“Ho! ho! ho!” and he shook his portly sides at his own jest.

“Ho! ho! ho!” echoed the Sacristan, in the tone and tune in which
an inferior applauds the jest of his superior.--Then added, with a
hypocritical shuffle, and a sly twinkle of his eye, “It is our duty,
most holy father, to comfort the widow--He! he! he!”

This last laugh was more moderate, until the Abbot should put his
sanction on the jest.

“Ho! ho!” said the Abbot; “then, to leave jesting, Father Philip, take
thou thy riding gear, and go to confess this Dame Avenel.”

“But,” said the Sacristan----

“Give me no _Buts;_ neither But nor If pass between monk and Abbot,
Father Philip; the bands of discipline must not be relaxed--heresy
gathers force like a snow-ball--the multitude expect confessions and
preachings from the Benedictine, as they would from so many beggarly
friars--and we may not desert the vineyard, though the toil be grievous
unto us.”

“And with so little advantage to the holy monastery,” said the
Sacristan.

“True, Father Philip; but wot you not that what preventeth harm doth
good? This Julian de Avenel lives a light and evil life, and should we
neglect the widow of his brother, he might foray our lands, and we never
able to show who hurt us--moreover it is our duty to an ancient family,
who, in their day, have been benefactors to the Abbey. Away with thee
instantly, brother; ride night and day, an it be necessary, and let men
see how diligent Abbot Boniface and his faithful children are in the
execution of their spiritual duty--toil not deterring them, for the glen
is five miles in length--fear not withholding them, for it is said to be
haunted of spectres--nothing moving them from pursuit of their spiritual
calling; to the confusion of calumnious heretics, and the comfort and
edification of all true and faithful sons of the Catholic Church. I
wonder what our brother Eustace will say to this?”

Breathless with his own picture of the dangers and toil which he was to
encounter, and the fame which he was to acquire, (both by proxy,) the
Abbot moved slowly to finish his luncheon in the refectory, and the
Sacristan, with no very good will, accompanied old Martin in his return
to Glendearg; the greatest impediment in the journey being the trouble
of restraining his pampered mule, that she might tread in something like
an equal pace with poor jaded Shagram.

After remaining an hour in private with his penitent, the monk returned
moody and full of thought. Dame Elspeth, who had placed for the honoured
guest some refreshment in the hall, was struck with the embarrassment
which appeared in his countenance. Elspeth watched him with great
anxiety. She observed there was that on his brow which rather resembled
a person come from hearing the confession of some enormous crime, than
the look of a confessor who resigns a reconciled penitent, not to earth,
but to heaven. After long hesitating, she could not at length refrain
from hazarding a question. She was sure she said, the leddy had made an
easy shrift. Five years had they resided together, and she could safely
say, no woman lived better.

“Woman,” said the Sacristan, sternly, “thou speakest thou knowest not
what--What avails clearing the outside of the platter, if the inside be
foul with heresy?”

“Our dishes and trenchers are not so clean as they could be wished,
holy father,” said Elspeth, but half understanding what he said, and
beginning with her apron to wipe the dust from the plates, of which she
supposed him to complain.

“Forbear, Dame Elspeth” said the monk; “your plates are as clean as
wooden trenchers and pewter flagons can well be; the foulness of which
I speak is of that pestilential heresy which is daily becoming ingrained
in this our Holy Church of Scotland, and as a canker-worm in the
rose-garland of the Spouse.”

“Holy Mother of Heaven!” said Dame Elspeth, crossing herself, “have I
kept house with a heretic?”

“No, Elspeth, no,” replied the monk; “it were too strong a speech for me
to make of this unhappy lady, but I would I could say she is free
from heretical opinions. Alas! they fly about like the pestilence by
noon-day, and infect even the first and fairest of the flock! For it
is easy to see of this dame, that she hath been high in judgment as in
rank.”

“And she can write and read, I had almost said, as weel as your
reverence” said Elspeth.

“Whom doth she write to, and what doth she read?” said the monk,
eagerly.

“Nay,” replied Elspeth, “I cannot say I ever saw her write at all, but
her maiden that was--she now serves the family--says she can write--And
for reading, she has often read to us good things out of a thick black
volume with silver clasps.”

“Let me see it,” said the monk, hastily, “on your allegiance as a true
vassal--on your faith as a Catholic Christian--instantly--instantly let
me see it.”

The good woman hesitated, alarmed at the tone in which the confessor
took up her information; and being moreover of opinion, that what so
good a woman as the Lady of Avenel studied so devoutly, could not be of
a tendency actually evil. But borne down by the clamour, exclamations,
and something like threats used by Father Philip, she at length brought
him the fatal volume. It was easy to do this without suspicion on the
part of the owner, as she lay on her bed exhausted with the fatigue of a
long conference with her confessor, and as the small _round_, or turret
closet, in which was the book and her other trifling property, was
accessible by another door. Of all her effects the book was the last she
would have thought of securing, for of what use or interest could it be
in a family who neither read themselves, nor were in the habit of
seeing any who did? so that Dame Elspeth had no difficulty in possessing
herself of the volume, although her heart all the while accused her of
an ungenerous and an inhospitable part towards her friend and inmate.
The double power of a landlord and a feudal superior was before her
eyes; and to say truth, the boldness, with which she might otherwise
have resisted this double authority, was, I grieve to say it, much
qualified by the curiosity she entertained, as a daughter of Eve, to
have some explanation respecting the mysterious volume which the lady
cherished with so much care, yet whose contents she imparted with such
caution. For never had Alice of Avenel read them any passage from the
book in question until the iron door of the tower was locked, and all
possibility of intrusion prevented. Even then she had shown, by the
selection of particular passages, that she was more anxious to impress
on their minds the principles which the volume contained, than to
introduce them to it as a new rule of faith.

When Elspeth, half curious, half remorseful, had placed the book in the
monk's hands, he exclaimed, after turning over the leaves, “Now, by mine
order, it is as I suspected!--My mule, my mule!--I will abide no longer
here--well hast thou done, dame, in placing in my hands this perilous
volume.”

“Is it then witchcraft or devil's work?” said Dame Elspeth, in great
agitation.

“Nay, God forbid!” said the monk, signing himself with the cross, “it
is the Holy Scripture. But it is rendered into the vulgar tongue, and
therefore, by the order of the Holy Catholic Church, unfit to be in the
hands of any lay person.”

“And yet is the Holy Scripture communicated for our common salvation,”
 said Elspeth. “Good Father, you must instruct mine ignorance better; but
lack of wit cannot be a deadly sin, and truly, to my poor thinking, I
should be glad to read the Holy Scripture.”

“I dare say thou wouldst,” said the monk; “and even thus did our mother
Eve seek to have knowledge of good and evil, and thus Sin came into the
world, and Death by Sin.”

“I am sure, and it is true,” said Elspeth. “Oh, if she had dealt by the
counsel of Saint Peter and Saint Paul!”

“If she had reverenced the command of Heaven,” said the monk, “which,
as it gave her birth, life, and happiness, fixed upon the grant such
conditions as best corresponded with its holy pleasure. I tell thee,
Elspeth, _the Word slayeth_--that is, the text alone, read with
unskilled eye and unhallowed lips, is like those strong medicines which
sick men take by the advice of the learned. Such patients recover and
thrive; while those dealing in them at their own hand, shall perish by
their own deed.”

“Nae doubt, nae doubt,” said the poor woman, “your reverence knows
best.”

“Not I,” said Father Philip, in a tone as deferential as he thought
could possibly become the Sacristan of Saint Mary's,--“Not I, but the
Holy Father of Christendom, and our own holy father, the Lord Abbot,
know best. I, the poor Sacristan of Saint Mary's, can but repeat what I
hear from others my superiors. Yet of this, good woman, be assured,--the
Word, the mere Word, slayetlh. But the church hath her ministers to
gloze and to expound the same unto her faithful congregation; and this
I say, not so much, my beloved brethren--I mean my beloved sister,” (for
the Sacristan had got into the end of one of his old sermons,)--“This I
speak not so much of the rectors, curates, and secular clergy, so called
because they live after the fashion of the _seculum_ or age, unbound by
those ties which sequestrate us from the world; neither do I speak
this of the mendicant friars, whether black or gray, whether crossed or
uncrossed; but of the monks, and especially of the monks Benedictine,
reformed on the rule of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, thence called
Cistercian, of which monks, Christian brethren--sister, I would
say--great is the happiness and glory of the country in possessing the
holy ministers of Saint Mary's, whereof I, though an unworthy brother,
may say it hath produced more saints, more bishops, more popes--may
our patrons make us thankful!--than any holy foundation in Scotland.
Wherefore--But I see Martin hath my mule in readiness, and I will but
salute you with the kiss of sisterhood, which maketh not ashamed, and so
betake me to my toilsome return, for the glen is of bad reputation for
the evil spirits which haunt it. Moreover, I may arrive too late at the
bridge, whereby I may be obliged to take to the river, which I observed
to be somewhat waxen.”

Accordingly, he took his leave of Dame Elspeth, who was confounded by
the rapidity of his utterance, and the doctrine he gave forth, and by no
means easy on the subject of the book, which her conscience told her she
should not have communicated to any one, without the knowledge of its
owner.

Notwithstanding the haste which the monk as well as the mule made to
return to better quarters than they had left at the head of Glendearg;
notwithstanding the eager desire Father Philip had to be the very first
who should acquaint the Abbot that a copy of the book they most
dreaded had been found within the Halidome, or patrimony of the Abbey;
notwithstanding, moreover, certain feelings which induced him to hurry
as fast as possible through the gloomy and evil-reputed glen, still
the difficulties of the road, and the rider's want of habitude of quick
motion, were such, that twilight came upon him ere he had nearly cleared
the narrow valley. It was indeed a gloomy ride. The two sides of the
vale were so near, that at every double of the river the shadows from
the western sky fell upon, and totally obscured, the eastern bank; the
thickets of copsewood seemed to wave with a portentous agitation of
boughs and leaves, and the very crags and scaurs seemed higher and
grimmer than they had appeared to the monk while he was travelling in
daylight, and in company. Father Philip was heartily rejoiced, when,
emerging from the narrow glen, he gained the open valley of the Tweed,
which held on its majestic course from current to pool, and from pool
stretched away to other currents, with a dignity peculiar to itself
amongst the Scottish rivers; for whatever may have been the drought
of the season, the Tweed usually fills up the space between its banks,
seldom leaving those extensive sheets of shingle which deform the
margins of many of the celebrated Scottish streams.

The monk, insensible to beauties which the age had not regarded as
deserving of notice, was, nevertheless, like a prudent general, pleased
to find himself out of the narrow glen in which the enemy might have
stolen upon him unperceived. He drew up his bridle, reduced his mule
to her natural and luxurious amble, instead of the agitating and
broken trot at which, to his no small inconvenience, she had hitherto
proceeded, and, wiping his brow, gazed forth at leisure on the broad
moon, which, now mingling with the lights of evening, was rising over
field and forest, village and fortalice, and, above all, over the
stately Monastery, seen far and dim amid the vellow light.

The worst part of the magnificent view, in the monk's apprehension, was,
that the Monastery stood on the opposite side of the rive

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