copy of the Scriptures, translated into the vulgar
tongue, had found its way even into the proper territory of the
church, and had been discovered in one of the most hidden and
sequestered recesses of the Halidome of Saint Mary's.

He anxiously requested to see the volume. In this the Sacristan was
unable to gratify him, for he had lost it, as far as he recollected,
when the supernatural being, as he conceived her to be, took her
departure from him. Father Eustace went down to the spot in person,
and searched all around it, in hopes of recovering the volume in
question; but his labour was in vain. He returned to the Abbot, and
reported that it must have fallen into the river or the mill-stream;
"for I will hardly believe," he said, "that Father Philip's musical
friend would fly off with a copy of the Holy Scriptures."

"Being," said the Abbot, "as it is, an heretical translation, it may
be thought that Satan may have power over it."

"Ay!" said Father Eustace, "it is indeed his chiefest magazine of
artillery, when he inspireth presumptuous and daring men to set forth
their own opinions and expositions of Holy Writ. But though thus
abused, the Scriptures are the source of our salvation, and are no
more to be reckoned unholy, because of these rash men's proceedings,
than a powerful medicine is to be contemned, or held poisonous,
because bold and evil leeches have employed it to the prejudice of
their patients. With the permission of your reverence, I would that
this matter were looked into more closely. I will myself visit the
Tower of Glendearg ere I am many hours older, and we shall see if any
spectre or white woman of the wild will venture to interrupt my
journey or return. Have I your reverend permission and your blessing?"
he added, but in a tone that appeared to set no great store by either.

"Thou hast both, my brother," said the Abbot; but no sooner had
Eustace left the apartment, than Boniface could not help breaking on
the willing ear of the Sacristan his sincere wish, that any spirit,
black, white, or gray, would read the adviser such a lesson, as to
cure him of his presumption in esteeming himself wiser than the whole
community.

"I wish him no worse lesson," said the Sacristan, "than to go swimming
merrily down the river with a ghost behind, and Kelpies, night-crows,
and mud-eels, all waiting to have a snatch at him.

Merrily swim we, the moon shines bright!
Good luck to your fishing, whom watch you to-night?"

"Brother Philip," said the Abbot, "we exhort thee to say thy prayers,
compose thyself, and banish that foolish chant from thy mind;--it is
but a deception of the devil's."

"I will essay, reverend Father," said the Sacristan, "but the tune
hangs by my memory like a bur in a beggar's rags; it mingles with the
psalter--the very bells of the convent seem to repeat the words, and
jingle to the tune; and were you to put me to death at this very
moment, it is my belief I should die singing it--'Now swim we
merrily'--it is as it were a spell upon me."

He then again began to warble

"Good luck to your fishing."

And checking himself in the strain with difficulty, he exclaimed, "It
is too certain--I am but a lost priest! Swim we merrily--I shall sing
it at the very mass--Wo is me! I shall sing all the remainder of my
life, and yet never be able to change the tune!"

The honest Abbot replied, "he knew many a good fellow in the same
condition;" and concluded the remark with "ho! ho! ho!" for his
reverence, as the reader may partly have observed, was one of those
dull folks who love a quiet joke.

The Sacristan, well acquainted with his Superior's humour, endeavoured
to join in the laugh, but his unfortunate canticle came again across
his imagination, and interrupted the hilarity of his customary echo.

"By the rood, Brother Philip," said the Abbot, much moved, "you become
altogether intolerable! and I am convinced that such a spell could not
subsist over a person of religion, and in a religious house, unless he
were under mortal sin. Wherefore, say the seven penitentiary
psalms--make diligent use of thy scourge and hair-cloth--refrain for
three days from all food, save bread and water--I myself will shrive
thee, and we will see if this singing devil may be driven out of thee;
at least I think Father Eustace himself could devise no better
exorcism."

The Sacristan sighed deeply, but knew remonstrance was vain. He
retired therefore to his cell, to try how far psalmody might be able
to drive off the sounds of the syren tune which haunted his memory.

Meanwhile, Father Eustace proceeded to the drawbridge, in his way to
the lonely valley of Glendearg. In a brief conversation with the
churlish warder, he had the address to render him more tractable in
the controversy betwixt him and the convent. He reminded him that his
father had been a vassal under the community; that his brother was
childless; and that their possession would revert to the church on his
death, and might be either granted to himself the warder, or to some
greater favourite of the Abbot, as matters chanced to stand betwixt
them at the time. The Sub-Prior suggested to him also, the necessary
connexion of interests betwixt the Monastery and the office which
this man enjoyed. He listened with temper to his rude and churlish
answers; and by keeping his own interest firm pitched in his view, he
had the satisfaction to find that Peter gradually softened his tone,
and consented to let every pilgrim who travelled upon foot pass free
of exaction until Pentocost next; they who travelled on horseback or
otherwise, contenting to pay the ordinary custom. Having thus
accommodated a matter in which the weal of the convent was so deeply
interested, Father Eustace proceeded on his journey.




Chapter the Eighth.


Nay, dally not with time, the wise man's treasure,
Though fools are lavish on't--the fatal Fisher
Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
OLD PLAY.

A November mist overspread the little valley, up which slowly but
steadily rode the Monk Eustace. He was not insensible to the feeling
of melancholy inspired by the scene and by the season. The stream
seemed to murmur with a deep and oppressed note, as if bewailing the
departure of autumn. Among the scattered copses which here and there
fringed its banks, the oak-trees only retained that pallid green that
precedes their russet hue. The leaves of the willows were most of them
stripped from the branches, lay rustling at each breath, and disturbed
by every step of the mule; while the foliage of other trees, totally
withered, kept still precarious possession of the boughs, waiting the
first wind to scatter them.

The monk dropped into the natural train of pensive thought which these
autumnal emblems of mortal hopes are peculiarly calculated to inspire.
"There," he said, looking at the leaves which lay strewed around, "lie
the hopes of early youth, first formed that they may soonest wither,
and loveliest in spring to become most contemptible in winter; but
you, ye lingerers," he added, looking to a knot of beeches which still
bore their withered leaves, "you are the proud plans of adventurous
manhood, formed later, and still clinging to the mind of age, although
it acknowledges their inanity! None lasts--none endures, save the
foliage of the hardy oak, which only begins to show itself when that
of the rest of the forest has enjoyed half its existence. A pale and
decayed hue is all it possesses, but still it retains that symptom of
vitality to the last.--So be it with Father Eustace! The fairy hopes
of my youth I have trodden under foot like those neglected
rustlers--to the prouder dreams of my manhood I look back as to lofty
chimeras, of which the pith and essence have long since faded; but my
religious vows, the faithful profession which I have made in my
maturer age, shall retain life while aught of Eustace lives. Dangerous
it may be--feeble it must be--yet live it shall, the proud
determination to serve the Church of which I am a member, and to
combat the heresies by which she is assailed." Thus spoke, at least
thus thought, a man zealous according to his imperfect knowledge,
confounding the vital interests of Christianity with the extravagant
and usurped claims of the Church of Rome, and defending his cause with
an ardour worthy of a better.

While moving onward in this contemplative mood, he could not help
thinking more than once, that he saw in his path the form of a female
dressed in white, who appeared in the attitude of lamentation. But the
impression was only momentary, and whenever he looked steadily to the
point where he conceived the figure appeared, it always proved that he
had mistaken some natural object, a white crag, or the trunk of a
decayed birch-tree with its silver bark, for the appearance in
question.

Father Eustace had dwelt too long in Rome to partake the superstitious
feelings of the more ignorant Scottish clergy; yet he certainly
thought it extraordinary, that so strong an impression should have
been made on his mind by the legend of the Sacristan. "It is strange,"
he said to himself, "that this story, which doubtless was the
invention of Brother Philip to cover his own impropriety of conduct,
should run so much in my head, and disturb my more serious thoughts--I
am wont, I think, to have more command over my senses. I will repeat
my prayers, and banish such folly from my recollection."

The monk accordingly began with devotion to tell his beads, in pursuance
of the prescribed rule of his order, and was not again disturbed by any
wanderings of the imagination, until he found himself beneath the little
fortalice of Glendearg.

Dame Glendinning, who stood at the gate, set up a shout of surprise and
joy at seeing the good father. "Martin," she said, "Jasper, where be a'
the folk?--help the right reverend Sub-Prior to dismount, and take his
mule from him.--O father! God has sent you in our need--I was just going
to send man and horse to the convent, though I ought to be ashamed to
give so much trouble to your reverences."

"Our trouble matters not, good dame," said Father Eustace; "in what
can I pleasure you? I came hither to visit the Lady of Avenel."

"Well-a-day!" said Dame Alice, "and it was on her part that I had the
boldness to think of summoning you, for the good lady will never be able
to wear over the day!--Would it please you to go to her chamber?"

"Hath she not been shriven by Father Philip?" said the monk.

"Shriven she was," said the Dame of Glendearg, "and by Father Philip,
as your reverence truly says--but--I wish it may have been a clean
shrift--Methought Father Philip looked but moody upon it--and there
was a book which he took away with him, that--" She paused as if
unwilling to proceed.

"Speak out, Dame Glendinning," said the Father; "with us it is your
duty to have no secrets."

"Nay, if it please your reverence, it is not that I would keep
anything from your reverence's knowledge, but I fear I should
prejudice the lady in your opinion; for she is an excellent
lady--months and years has she dwelt in this tower, and none more
exemplary than she; but this matter, doubtless, she will explain it
herself to your reverence."

"I desire first to know it from you, Dame Glendinning," said the monk;
"and I again repeat, it is your duty to tell it to me."

"This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed
from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,"
said the good widow.

"Returned!" said the monk; "how mean you?"

"I mean," answered Dame Glendinning, "that it was brought back to the
tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how--that same book which
Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is my
tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the
pasture--for we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be
Saint Waldave, and thanks to the holy Monastery--"

The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman of
the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on
untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by
flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. "But, to speak no more of
the cows, your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were
tied to a stake, the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that
is my Halbert and my Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on
holidays, and especially Halbert,--for you patted him on the head and
gave him a brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his
bonnet,--and little Mary Avenel, that is the lady's daughter, they ran
all after the cattle, and began to play up and down the pasture as
young folk will, your reverence. And at length they lost sight of
Martin and the cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh which we
call _Corri-nan-Shian_, where there is a wee bit stripe of a
burn, and they saw there--Good guide us!--a White Woman sitting on the
burnside wringing her hands--so the bairns were frighted to see a
strange woman sitting there, all but Halbert, who will be sixteen come
Whitsuntide; and, besides, he never feared ony thing--and when they
went up to her--behold she was passed away!"

"For shame, good woman!" said Father Eustace; "a woman of your sense
to listen to a tale so idle!--the young folk told you a lie, and that
was all."

"Nay, sir, it was more than that," said the old dame; "for, besides
that they never told me a lie in their lives, I must warn you that on
the very ground where the White Woman was sitting, they found the Lady
of Avenel's book, and brought it with them to the tower."

"That is worthy of mark at least," said the monk. "Know you no other
copy of this volume within these bounds?"

"None, your reverence," returned Elspeth; "why should there?--no one
could read it were there twenty."

"Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father
Philip?" said the monk.

"As sure as that I now speak with your reverence."

"It is most singular!" said the monk; and he walked across the room in
a musing posture.

"I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say,"
continued Dame Glendinning, "respecting this matter--There is nothing
I would not do for the Lady of Avenel and her family, and that has
been proved, and for her servants to boot, both Martin and Tibb,
although Tibb is not so civil sometimes as altogether I have a right
to expect; but I cannot think it beseeming to have angels, or ghosts,
or fairies, or the like, waiting upon a leddy when she is in another
woman's house, in respect it is no ways creditable. Ony thing she had
to do was always done to her hand, without costing her either pains or
pence,