The Monastery

Chapter the Twenty-Second

 
  Yes, life hath left him – every busy thought,
  Each fiery passion, every strong affection,
  All sense of outward ill and inward sorrow,
  Are fled at once from the pale trunk before me;
  And I have given that which spoke and moved,
  Thought, acted, suffer’d as a living man,
  To be a ghastly form of bloody clay,
  Soon the foul food for reptiles.
 

OLD PLAY.

I believe few successful duellists (if the word successful can be applied to a superiority so fatal) have beheld their dead antagonist stretched on the earth at their feet, without wishing they could redeem with their own blood that which it has been their fate to spill. Least of all could such indifference be the lot of so young a man as Halbert Glendinning, who, unused to the sight of human blood, was not only struck with sorrow, but with terror, when he beheld Sir Piercie Shafton lie stretched on the green-sward before him, vomiting gore as if impelled by the strokes of a pump. He threw his bloody sword on the ground, and hastened to kneel and support him, vainly striving, at the same time, to stanch his wound, which seemed rather to bleed inwardly than externally.

The unfortunate knight spoke at intervals, when the syncope would permit him, and his words, so far as intelligible, partook of his affected and conceited, yet not ungenerous character.

“Most rustical youth,” he said, “thy fortune hath prevailed over knightly skill – and Audacity hath overcome Condescension, even as the kite hath sometimes hawked at and struck down the falcon-gentle. – Fly and save thyself! – Take my purse – it is in the nether pocket of my carnation-coloured hose – and is worth a clown’s acceptance. See that my mails, with my vestments, be sent to the Monastery of Saint Mary’s” – (here his voice grew weak, and his mind and recollection seemed to waver) – “I bestow the cut velvet jerkin, with close breeches conforming – for – oh! – the good of my soul.”

“Be of good comfort, sir,” said Halbert, half distracted with his agony of pity and remorse. “I trust you shall yet do well – Oh for a leech!”

“Were there twenty physicians, O most generous Audacity, and that were a grave spectacle – I might not survive, my life is ebbing fast. – Commend me to the rustical nymph whom I called my Discretion – O Claridiana! – true empress of this bleeding heart – which now bleedeth in sad earnest! – Place me on the ground at my length, most rustical victor, born to quench the pride of the burning light of the most felicitous court of Feliciana – O saints and angels – knights and ladies – masques and theatres – quaint devices – chain-work and broidery – love, honour, and beauty! – ”

While muttering these last words, which slid from him, as it were unawares, while doubtless he was calling to mind the glories of the English court, the gallant Sir Piercie Shafton stretched out his limbs – groaned deeply, shut his eyes, and became motionless.

The victor tore his hair for very sorrow, as he looked on the pale countenance of his victim. Life, he thought, had not utterly fled, but without better aid than his own, he saw not how it could be preserved.

“Why,” he exclaimed in vain penitence, “why did I provoke him to an issue so fatal! Would to God I had submitted to the worst insult man could receive from man, rather than be the bloody instrument of this bloody deed – and doubly cursed be this evil-boding spot, which, haunted as I knew it to be by a witch or a devil, I yet chose for the place of combat! In any other place, save this, there had been help to be gotten by speed of foot, or by uplifting of voice – but here there is no one to be found by search, no one to hear my shouts, save the evil spirit who has counselled this mischief. It is not her hour – I will essay the spell howsoever; and if she can give me aid, she shall do it, or know of what a madman is capable even against those of another world!”

He spurned his bloody shoe from his foot, and repeated the spell with which the reader is well acquainted; but there was neither voice, apparition, nor signal of answer. The youth, in the impatience of his despair, and with the rash hardihood which formed the basis of his character, shouted aloud, “Witch – Sorceress – Fiend! – art thou deaf to my cries of help, and so ready to appear and answer those of vengeance? Arise and speak to me, or I will choke up thy fountain, tear down thy hollybush, and leave thy haunt as waste and bare as thy fatal assistance has made me waste of comfort and bare of counsel!” – This furious and raving invocation was suddenly interrupted by a distant sound, resembling a hollo, from the gorge of the ravine. “Now may Saint Mary be praised,” said the youth, hastily fastening his sandal, “I hear the voice of some living man, who may give me counsel and help in this fearful extremity.”

Having donned his sandal, Halbert Glendinning, hallooing at intervals, in answer to the sound which he had heard, ran with the speed of a hunted buck down the rugged defile, as if paradise had been before him, hell and all her furies behind, and his eternal happiness or misery had depended upon the speed which he exerted. In a space incredibly short for any one but a Scottish mountaineer having his nerves strung by the deepest and most passionate interest, the youth reached the entrance of the ravine, through which the rill that flows down Corri-nan-shian discharges itself, and unites with the brook that waters the little valley of Glendearg.

Here he paused, and looked around him upwards and downwards through the glen, without perceiving a human form. His heart sank within him. But the windings of the glen intercepted his prospect, and the person, whose voice he had heard, might therefore, be at no great distance, though not obvious to his sight. The branches of an oak-tree, which shot straight out from the face of a tall cliff, proffered to his bold spirit, steady head, and active limbs, the means of ascending it as a place of out-look, although the enterprise was what most men would have shrunk from. But by one bound from the earth, the active youth caught hold of the lower branch, and swung himself up into the tree, and in a minute more gained the top of the cliff, from which he could easily descry a human figure descending the valley. It was not that of a shepherd, or of a hunter, and scarcely any others used to traverse this deserted solitude, especially coming from the north, since the reader may remember that the brook took its rise from an extensive and dangerous morass which lay in that direction.

But Halbert Glendinning did not pause to consider who the traveller might be, or what might be the purpose of his journey. To know that he saw a human being, and might receive, in the extremity of his distress, the countenance and advice of a fellow-creature, was enough for him at the moment. He threw himself from the pinnacle of the cliff once more into the arms of the projecting oak-tree, whose boughs waved in middle air, anchored by the roots in a huge rift or chasm of the rock. Catching at the branch which was nearest to him, he dropped himself from that height upon the ground; and such was the athletic springiness of his youthful sinews, that he pitched there as lightly, and with as little injury, as the falcon stooping from her wheel.

To resume his race at full speed up the glen, was the work of an instant; and as he turned angle after angle of the indented banks of the valley, without meeting that which he sought, he became half afraid that the form which he had seen at such a distance had already melted into thin air, and was either a deception of his own imagination, or of the elementary spirits by which the valley was supposed to be haunted.

But to his inexpressible joy, as he turned round the base of a huge and distinguished crag, he saw, straight before and very near to him, a person, whose dress, as he viewed it hastily, resembled that of a pilgrim.

He was a man of advanced life, and wearing a long beard, having on his head a large slouched hat, without either band or brooch. His dress was a tunic of black serge, which, like those commonly called hussar-cloaks, had an upper part, which covered the arms and fell down on the lower; a small scrip and bottle, which hung at his back, with a stout staff in his hand, completed his equipage. His step was feeble, like that of one exhausted by a toilsome journey.

“Save ye, good father!” said the youth. “God and Our Lady have sent you to my assistance.”

“And in what, my son, can so frail a creature as I am, be of service to you?” said the old man, not a little surprised at being thus accosted by so handsome a youth, his features discomposed by anxiety, his face flushed with exertion, his hands and much of his dress stained with blood. “A man bleeds to death in the valley here, hard by. Come with me – come with me! You are aged – you have experience – you have at least your senses – and mine have well nigh left me.”

“A man – and bleeding to death – and here in this desolate spot!” said the stranger.

“Stay not to question it, father,” said the youth, “but come instantly to his rescue. Follow me, – follow me, without an instant’s delay.”

“Nay, but, my son,” said the old man, “we do not lightly follow the guides who present themselves thus suddenly in the bosom of a howling wilderness. Ere I follow thee, thou must expound to me thy name, thy purpose, and thy cause.”

“There is no time to expound any thing,” said Halbert; “I tell thee a man’s life is at stake, and thou must come to aid him, or I will carry thee thither by force!”

“Nay, thou shalt not need,” said the traveller; “if it indeed be as thou sayest, I will follow thee of free-will – the rather that I am not wholly unskilled in leech-craft, and have in my scrip that which may do thy friend a service – Yet walk more slowly, I pray thee, for I am already well-nigh forespent with travel.”

With the indignant impatience of the fiery steed when compelled by his rider to keep pace with some slow drudge upon the highway, Halbert accompanied the wayfarer, burning with anxiety which he endeavoured to subdue, that he might not alarm his companion, who was obviously afraid to trust him. When they reached the place where they were to turn off the wider glen into the Corri, the traveller made a doubtful pause, as if unwilling to leave the broader path – “Young man,” he said, “if thou meanest aught but good to these gray hairs, thou wilt gain little by thy cruelty – I have no earthly treasure to tempt either robber or murderer.”

“And I,” said the youth, “am neither – and yet – God of Heaven! – I may be a murderer, unless your aid comes in time to this wounded wretch!”

“Is it even so,” said the traveller; “and do human passions disturb the breast of nature, even in her deepest solitude? – Yet why should I marvel that where darkness abides the works of darkness should abound? – By its fruits is the tree known – Lead on, unhappy youth – I follow thee!”

And with better will to the journey than he had evinced hitherto, the stranger exerted himself to the uttermost, and seemed to forget his own fatigue in his efforts to keep pace with his impatient guide.

What was the surprise of Halbert Glendinning, when, upon arriving at the fatal spot, he saw no appearance of the body of Sir Piercie Shafton! The traces of the fray were otherwise sufficiently visible. The knight’s cloak had indeed vanished as well as his body, but his doublet remained where he had laid it down, and the turf on which he had been stretched was stained with blood in many a dark crimson spot.

As he gazed round him in terror and astonishment, Halbert’s eyes fell upon the place of sepulture which had so lately appeared to gape for a victim. It was no longer open, and it seemed that earth had received the expected tenant; for the usual narrow hillock was piled over what had lately been an open grave, and the green sod was adjusted over all with the accuracy of an experienced sexton. Halbert stood aghast. The idea rushed on his mind irresistibly, that the earth-heap before him enclosed what had lately been a living, moving, and sentient fellow-creature, whom, on little provocation, his fell act had reduced to a clod of the valley, as senseless and as cold as the turf under which he rested. The hand that scooped the grave had completed its word; and whose hand could it be save that of the mysterious being of doubtful quality, whom his rashness had invoked, and whom he had suffered to intermingle in his destinies?

As he stood with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, bitterly ruing his rashness, he was roused by the voice of the stranger, whose suspicions of his guide had again been awakened by finding the scene so different from what Halbert had led him to expect. – “Young man,” he said, “hast thou baited thy tongue with falsehood to cut perhaps only a few days from the life of one whom Nature will soon call home, without guilt on thy part to hasten his journey?”

“By the blessed Heaven! – by our dear Lady!” ejaculated Halbert —

“Swear not at all!” said the stranger, interrupting him, “neither by Heaven, for it is God’s throne, nor by earth, for it is his footstool – nor by the creatures whom he hath made, for they are but earth and clay as we are. Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay. Tell me in a word, why and for what purpose thou hast feigned a tale, to lead a bewildered traveller yet farther astray?”

“As I am a Christian man,” said Glendinning, “I left him here bleeding to death – and now I nowhere spy him, and much I doubt that the tomb that thou seest has closed on his mortal remains.”

“And who is he for whose fate thou art so anxious?” said the stranger; “or how is it possible that this wounded man could have been either removed from, or interred in, a place so solitary?”

“His name,” said Halbert, after a moment’s pause, “is Piercie Shafton – there, on that very spot I left him bleeding; and what power has conveyed him hence, I know no more than thou dost.”

“Piercie Shafton?” said the stranger; “Sir Piercie Shafton of Wilverton, a kinsman, as it is said, of the great Piercie of Northumberland? If thou hast slain him, to return to the territories of the proud Abbot is to give thy neck to the gallows. He is well known, that Piercie Shafton; the meddling tool of wiser plotters – a harebrained trafficker in treason – a champion of the Pope, employed as a forlorn hope by those more politic heads, who have more will to work mischief, than valour to encounter danger. – Come with me, youth, and save thyself from the evil consequences of this deed – Guide me to the Castle of Avenel, and thy reward shall be protection and safety.”

Again Halbert paused, and summoned his mind to a hasty council. The vengeance with which the Abbot was likely to visit the slaughter of Shafton, his friend, and in some measure his guest, was likely to be severe; yet, in the various contingencies which he had considered previous to their duel, he had unaccountably omitted to reflect what was to be his line of conduct in case of Sir Piercie falling by his hand. If he returned to Glendearg, he was sure to draw on his whole family, including Mary Avenel, the resentment of the Abbot and community, whereas it was possible that flight might make him be regarded as the sole author of the deed, and might avert the indignation of the monks from the rest of the inhabitants of his paternal tower. Halbert recollected also the favour expressed for the household, and especially for Edward, by the Sub-Prior; and he conceived that he could, by communicating his own guilt to that worthy ecclesiastic, when at a distance from Glendearg, secure his powerful interposition in favour of his family. These thoughts rapidly passed through his mind, and he determined on flight. The stranger’s company and his promised protection came in aid of that resolution; but he was unable to reconcile the invitation which the old man gave him to accompany him for safety to the Castle of Avenel, with the connexions of Julian, the present usurper of that inheritance.

“Good father,” he said, “I fear that you mistake the man with whom you wish me to harbour. Avenel guided Piercie Shafton into Scotland, and his henchman, Christie of the Clinthill, brought the Southron hither.”

“Of that,” said the old man, “I am well aware. Yet if thou wilt trust to me, as I have shown no reluctance to confide in thee, thou shalt find with Julian Avenel welcome, or at least safety.”

“Father,” replied Halbert, “though I can ill reconcile what thou sayest with what Julian Avenel hath done, yet caring little about the safety of a creature so lost as myself, and as thy words seem those of truth and honesty, and finally, as thou didst render thyself frankly up to my conduct, I will return the confidence thou hast shown, and accompany thee to the Castle of Avenel by a road which thou thyself couldst never have discovered.” He led the way, and the old man followed for some time in silence.

Chapter the Twenty-Third

 
  ‘Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold.
  The warrior first feels pain – ‘tis when the heat
  And fiery fever of his soul is pass’d,
  The sinner feels remorse.
 

OLD PLAY.

The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by better religious precepts, and more strictly trained under social laws; but still they were deep and severely felt, and divided in Halbert’s heart even the regret with which he parted from Mary Avenel and the tower of his fathers.

The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then addressed him. – “My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or die – Why art thou so much cast down? – Tell me thy unhappy tale, and it may be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young life.”

“Alas!” said Halbert Glendinning, “can you wonder why I am cast down? – I am at this instant a fugitive from my father’s house, from my mother, and from my friends, and I bear on my head the blood of a man who injured me but in idle words, which I have thus bloodily requited. My heart now tells me I have done evil – it were harder than these rocks if it could bear unmoved the thought, that I have sent this man to a long account, unhousled and unshrieved.”

“Pause there, my son,” said the traveller. “That thou hast defaced God’s image in thy neighbour’s person – that thou hast sent dust to dust in idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest dye – that thou hast cut short the space which Heaven might have allowed him for repentance, makes it yet more deadly – but for all this there is balm in Gilead.”

“I understand you not, father,” said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone which was assumed by his companion.

The old man proceeded. “Thou hast slain thine enemy – it was a cruel deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins – it is a fearful aggravation. Do yet by my counsel, and in lieu of him whom thou hast perchance consigned to the kingdom of Satan, let thine efforts wrest another subject from the reign of the Evil One.”

“I understand you, father,” said Halbert; “thou wouldst have me atone for my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary – But how may this be? I have no money to purchase masses, and gladly would I go barefoot to the Holy Land to free his spirit from purgatory, only that – ”

“My son,” said the old man, interrupting him, “the sinner for whose redemption I entreat you to labour, is not the dead but the living. It is not for the soul of thine enemy I would exhort thee to pray – that has already had its final doom from a Judge as merciful as he is just; nor, wert thou to coin that rock into ducats, and obtain a mass for each one, would it avail the departed spirit. Where the tree hath fallen, it must lie. But the sapling, which hath in it yet the vigour and juice of life, may be bended to the point to which it ought to incline.”

“Art thou a priest, father?” said the young man, “or by what commission dost thou talk of such high matters?”

“By that of my Almighty Master,” said the traveller, “under whose banner I am an enlisted soldier.”

Halbert’s acquaintance with religious matters was no deeper than could be derived from the Archbishop of Saint Andrew’s Catechism, and the pamphlet called the Twapennie Faith, both which were industriously circulated and recommended by the monks of Saint Mary’s. Yet, however indifferent and superficial a theologian, he began to suspect that he was now in company with one of the gospellers, or heretics, before whose influence the ancient system of religion now tottered to the very foundation. Bred up, as may well be presumed, in a holy horror against these formidable sectaries, the youth’s first feelings were those of a loyal and devoted church vassal. “Old man,” he said, “wert thou able to make good with thy hand the words that thy tongue hath spoken against our Holy Mother Church, we should have tried upon this moor which of our creeds hath the better champion.”

“Nay,” said the stranger, “if thou art a true soldier of Rome, thou wilt not pause from thy purpose because thou hast the odds of years and of strength on thy side. Hearken to me, my son. I have showed thee how to make thy peace with Heaven, and thou hast rejected my proffer. I will now show thee how thou shalt make thy reconciliation with the powers of this world. Take this gray head from the frail body which supports it, and carry it to the chair of proud Abbot Boniface; and when thou tellest him thou hast slain Piercie Shafton, and his ire rises at the deed, lay the head of Henry Warden at his foot, and thou shalt have praise instead of censure.”

Halbert Glendinning stepped back in surprise. “What! are you that Henry Warden so famous among the heretics, that even Knox’s name is scarce more frequently in their mouths? Art thou he, and darest thou to approach the Halidome of Saint Mary’s?”

“I am Henry Warden, of a surety,” said the old man, “far unworthy to be named in the same breath with Knox, but yet willing to venture on whatever dangers my master’s service may call me to.”

“Hearken to me, then,” said Halbert; “to slay thee, I have no heart – to make thee prisoner, were equally to bring thy blood on my head – to leave thee in this wild without a guide, were little better. I will conduct thee, as I promised, in safety to the Castle of Avenel; but breathe not, while we are on the journey, a word against the doctrines of the holy church of which I am an unworthy – but though an ignorant, a zealous member. – When thou art there arrived, beware of thyself – there is a high price upon thy head, and Julian Avenel loves the glance of gold bonnet-pieces.” {Footnote: A gold coin of James V., the most beautiful of the Scottish series; so called because the effigy of the sovereignty is represented wearing a bonnet.}

“Yet thou sayest not,” answered the Protestant preacher, for such he was, “that for lucre he would sell the blood of his guest?”

“Not if thou comest an invited stranger, relying on his faith,” said the youth; “evil as Julian may be, he dare not break the rites of hospitality; for, loose as we on these marches may be in all other ties, these are respected amongst us even to idolatry, and his nearest relations would think it incumbent on them to spill his blood themselves, to efface the disgrace such treason would bring upon their name and lineage. But if thou goest self-invited, and without assurance of safety, I promise thee thy risk is great.”

“I am in God’s hand,” answered the preacher; “it is on His errand that I traverse these wilds amidst dangers of every kind; while I am useful for my master’s service, they shall not prevail against me, and when, like the barren fig-tree, I can no longer produce fruit, what imports it when or by whom the axe is laid to the root?”

“Your courage and devotion,” said Glendinning, “are worthy of a better cause.”

“That,” said Warden, “cannot be – mine is the very best.”

They continued their journey in silence, Halbert Glendinning tracing with the utmost accuracy the mazes of the dangerous and intricate morasses and hills which divided the Halidome from the barony of Avenel. From time to time he was obliged to stop, in order to assist his companion to cross the black intervals of quaking bog, called in the Scottish dialect hags, by which the firmer parts of the morass were intersected.

“Courage, old man,” said Halbert, as he saw his companion almost exhausted with fatigue, “we shall soon be upon hard ground. And yet soft as this moss is, I have seen the merry falconers go through it as light as deer when the quarry was upon the flight.”

“True, my son,” answered Warden, “for so I will still call you, though you term me no longer father; and even so doth headlong youth pursue its pleasures, without regard to the mire and the peril of the paths through which they are hurried.”

“I have already told thee,” answered Halbert Glendinning, sternly, “that I will hear nothing from thee that savours of doctrine.”

“Nay, but, my son,” answered Warden, “thy spiritual father himself would surely not dispute the truth of what I have now spoken for your edification!”

Glendinning stoutly replied, “I know not how that may be – but I wot well it is the fashion of your brotherhood to bait your hook with fair discourse, and to hold yourselves up as angels of light, that you may the better extend the kingdom of darkness.”

“May God,” replied the preacher, “pardon those who have thus reported of his servants! I will not offend thee, my son, by being instant out of season – thou speakest but as thou art taught – yet sure I trust that so goodly a youth will be still rescued, like a brand from the burning.”

While he thus spoke, the verge of the morass was attained, and their path lay on the declivity. Green-sward it was, and, viewed from a distance, chequered with its narrow and verdant line the dark-brown heath which it traversed, though the distinction was not so easily traced when they were walking on it. {Footnote: This sort of path, visible when looked at from a distance, but not to be seen when you are upon it, is called on the Border by the significant name of a Blind-road.} The old man pursued his journey with comparative ease; and, unwilling again to awaken the jealous zeal of his young companion for the Roman faith, he discoursed on other matters. The tone of his conversation was still grave, moral, and instructive. He had travelled much, and knew both the language and manners of other countries, concerning which Halbert Glendinning, already anticipating the possibility of being obliged to leave Scotland for the deed he had done, was naturally and anxiously desirous of information. By degrees he was more attracted by the charms of the stranger’s conversation than repelled by the dread of his dangerous character as a heretic, and Halbert had called him father more than once, ere the turrets of Avenel Castle came in view.

The situation of this ancient fortress was remarkable. It occupied a small rocky islet in a mountain lake, or tarn, as such a piece of water is called in Westmoreland. The lake might be about a mile in circumference, surrounded by hills of considerable height, which, except where old trees and brushwood occupied the ravines that divided them from each other, were bare and heathy. The surprise of the spectator was chiefly excited by finding a piece of water situated in that high and mountainous region, and the landscape around had features which might rather be termed wild, than either romantic or sublime; yet the scene was not without its charms. Under the burning sun of summer, the clear azure of the deep unruffled lake refreshed the eye, and impressed the mind with a pleasing feeling of deep solitude. In winter, when the snow lay on the mountains around, these dazzling masses appeared to ascend far beyond their wonted and natural height, while the lake, which stretched beneath, and filled their bosom with all its frozen waves, lay like the surface of a darkened and broken mirror around the black and rocky islet, and the walls of the gray castle with which it was crowned.

As the castle occupied, either with its principal buildings, or with its flanking and outward walls, every projecting point of rock, which served as its site, it seemed as completely surrounded by water as the nest of a wild swan, save where a narrow causeway extended betwixt the islet and the shore. But the fortress was larger in appearance than in reality; and of the buildings which it actually contained, many had become ruinous and uninhabitable. In the times of the grandeur of the Avenel family, these had been occupied by a considerable garrison of followers and retainers, but they were now in a great measure deserted; and Julian Avenel would probably have fixed his habitation in a residence better suited to his diminished fortunes, had it not been for the great security which the situation of the old castle afforded to a man of his precarious and perilous mode of life. Indeed, in this respect, the spot could scarce have been more happily chosen, for it could be rendered almost completely inaccessible at the pleasure of the inhabitant. The distance betwixt the nearest shore and the islet was not indeed above an hundred yards; but then the causeway which connected them was extremely narrow, and completely divided by two cuts, one in the mid-way between the islet and shore, and another close under the outward gate of the castle. These formed a formidable, and almost insurmountable interruption to any hostile approach. Each was defended by a drawbridge, one of which, being that nearest to the castle, was regularly raised at all times during the day, and both were lifted at night. {Footnote: It is in vain to search near Melrose for any such castle as is here described. The lakes at the head of the Yarrow, and those at the rise of the water of Ale, present no object of the kind. But in Vetholm Loch, (a romantic sheet of water, in the dry march, as it is called,) there are the remains of a fortress called Lochside Tower, which, like the supposed Castle of Avenel, is built upon an island, and connected with the land by a causeway. It is much smaller than the Castle of Avenel is described, consisting only of a single tower.}