The Monastery

Chapter 3

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.