The Monastery

Chapter 10

"Nay," said a monk to him, "say rather that Our Lady foils the

attempts of the wicked on her faithful servants--our dear brother

lives and moves."

"Lives and moves!" said the ruffian, rising and shuffling towards the

Sub-Prior as well as his chains would permit; "nay, then, I will never

trust ashen shaft and steel point more--It is even so," he added, as he

gazed on the Sub-Prior with astonishment; "neither wem nor wound--not

as much as a rent in his frock!"

"And whence should my wound have come?" said Father Eustace.

"From the good lance that never failed me before," replied Christie of

the Clinthill.

"Heaven absolve thee for thy purpose!" said the Sub-Prior; "wouldst

thou have slain a servant of the altar?"

"To choose!" answered Christie; "the Fifemen say, an the whole pack

of ye were slain, there were more lost at Flodden."

"Villain! art thou heretic as well as murderer?"

"Not I, by Saint Giles," replied the rider; "I listened blithely

enough to the Laird of Monance, when he told me ye were all cheats and

knaves; but when he would have had me go hear one Wiseheart, a

gospeller as they call him, he might as well have persuaded the wild

colt that had flung one rider to kneel down and help another into the

saddle."

"There is some goodness about him yet," said the Sacristan to the Abbot,

who at that moment entered--"He refused to hear a heretic preacher."

"The better for him in the next world," answered the Abbot. "Prepare

for death, my son,--we deliver thee over to the secular arm of our

bailie, for execution on the Gallow-hill by peep of light."

"Amen!" said the ruffian; "'tis the end I must have come by sooner or

later--and what care I whether I feed the crows at Saint Mary's or at

Carlisle?"

"Let me implore your reverend patience for an instant," said the

Sub-Prior; "until I shall inquire--"

"What!" exclaimed the Abbot, observing him for the first time--"Our

dear brother restored to us when his life was unhoped for!--nay, kneel

not to a sinner like me--stand up--thou hast my blessing. When this

villain came to the gate, accused by his own evil conscience, and

crying out he had murdered thee, I thought that the pillar of our main

aisle had fallen--no more shall a life so precious be exposed to such

risks as occur in this border country; no longer shall one beloved and

rescued of Heaven hold so low a station in the church as that of a

poor Sub-Prior--I will write by express to the Primate for thy speedy

removal and advancement."

"Nay, but let me understand," said the Sub-Prior; "did this soldier say

he had slain me?"

"That he had transfixed you," answered the Abbot, "in full career with

his lance--but it seems he had taken an indifferent aim. But no sooner

didst thou fall to the ground mortally gored, as he deemed, with his

weapon, than our blessed Patroness appeared to him, as he averred--"

"I averred no such thing," said the prisoner; "I said a woman in white

interrupted me, as I was about to examine the priest's cassock, for

they are usually well lined--she had a bulrush in her hand, with one

touch of which she struck me from my horse, as I might strike down a

child of four years old with an iron mace--and then, like a singing

fiend as she was, she sung to me.

I gathered myself up with fear and difficulty, threw myself on my horse,

and came hither like a fool to get myself hanged for a rogue."

"Thou seest, honoured brother," said the Abbot to the Sub-Prior, "in

what favour thou art with our blessed Patroness, that she herself

becomes the guardian of thy paths--Not since the days of our blessed

founder hath she shown such grace to any one. All unworthy were we to

hold spiritual superiority over thee, and we pray thee to prepare for

thy speedy removal to Aberbrothwick."

"Alas! my lord and father," said the Sub-Prior, "your words pierce my

very soul. Under the seal of confession will I presently tell thee why

I conceive myself rather the baffled sport of a spirit of another

sort, than the protected favourite of the heavenly powers. But first

let me ask this unhappy man a question or two."

"Do as ye list," replied the Abbot--"but you shall not convince me

that it is fitting you remain in this inferior office in the convent

of Saint Mary."

"I would ask of this poor man," said Father Eustace, "for what purpose

he nourished the thought of putting to death one who never did him

evil?"

"Ay! but thou didst menace me with evil," said the ruffian, "and no

one but a fool is menaced twice. Dost thou not remember what you said

touching the Primate and Lord James, and the black pool of Jedwood?

Didst thou think me fool enough to wait till thou hadst betrayed me to

the sack and the fork! There were small wisdom in that, methinks--as

little as in coming hither to tell my own misdeeds--I think the devil

was in me when I took this road--I might have remembered the proverb,

'Never Friar forgot feud.'"

"And it was solely for that--for that only hasty word of mine, uttered

in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?" said

Father Eustace.

"Ay! for that, and--for the love of thy gold crucifix," said Christie of

the Clinthill.

"Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal--the glittering earth--

so far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?--Father

Abbot, I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to

my mercy."

"Nay, brother," interposed the Sacristan, "to your doom, if you will,

not to your mercy--Remember, we are not all equally favoured by our

blessed Lady, nor is it likely that every frock in the Convent will

serve as a coat of proof when a lance is couched against it."

"For that very reason," said the Sub-Prior, "I would not that for my

worthless self the community were to fall at feud with Julian of Avenel,

this man's master."

"Our Lady forbid!" said the Sacristan, "he is a second Julian the

Apostate."

"With our reverend father the Abbot's permission, then," said Father

Eustace, "I desire this man be freed from his chains, and suffered to

depart uninjured;--and here, friend," he added, giving him the golden

crucifix, "is the image for which thou wert willing to stain thy hands

with murder. View it well, and may it inspire thee with other and

better thoughts than those which referred to it as a piece of bullion!

Part with it, nevertheless, if thy necessities require, and get thee

one of such coarse substance that Mammon shall have no share in any of

the reflections to which it gives rise. It was the bequest of a dear

friend to me; but dearer service can it never do than that of winning

a soul to Heaven."

The Borderer, now freed from his chains, stood gazing alternately on

the Sub-Prior, and on the golden crucifix. "By Saint Giles," said he,

"I understand ye not!--An ye give me gold for couching my lance at

thee, what would you give me to level it at a heretic?"

"The Church," said the Sub-Prior, "will try the effect of her

spiritual censures to bring these stray sheep into the fold, ere she

employ the edge of the sword of Saint Peter."

"Ay, but," said the ruffian, "they say the Primate recommends a little

strangling and burning in aid of both censure and of sword. But fare ye

weel, I owe you a life, and it may be I will not forget my debt."

The bailie now came bustling in, dressed in his blue coat and

bandaliers, and attended by two or three halberdiers. "I have been a

thought too late in waiting upon your reverend lordship. I am grown

somewhat fatter since the field of Pinkie, and my leathern coat slips

not on so soon as it was wont; but the dungeon is ready, and though,

as I said, I have been somewhat late--"

Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the officer's nose, to

his great amazement.

"You have been indeed somewhat late, bailie," said he, "and I am

greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put

it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner,

I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish

you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in

which you have much the air of a hog in armour."

Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire--"An it

were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave--"

"Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions," said Christie of the Clinthill,

"I will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well."

"Hardened wretch!" said Father Eustace, "art thou but this instant

delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of

slaughter?"

"I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave," said the bailie,

"and teach thee thine Oremus."

"I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day," said he

of the Clinthill.

"I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,"

answered the secular officer of the Church.

"Thou art thyself as strong a thief as ever rode," retorted Christie;

"and if the worms were once feasting on that fat carcass of thine I

might well hope to have thine office, by favour of these reverend

men."

"A cast of their office, and a cast of mine," answered the bailie; "a

cord and a confessor, that is all thou wilt have from us."

"Sirs," said the Sub-Prior, observing that his brethren began to take

more interest than was exactly decorous in this wrangling betwixt

justice and iniquity, "I pray you both to depart--Master Bailie,

retire with your halberdiers, and trouble not the man whom we have

dismissed.--And thou, Christie, or whatever be thy name, take thy

departure, and remember thou owest thy life to the Lord Abbot's

clemency."

"Nay, as to that," answered Christie, "I judge that I owe it to your

own; but impute it to whom ye list, I owe a life among ye, and there is

an end." And whistling as he went, he left the apartment, seeming as if

he held the life which he had forfeited not worthy further thanks.

"Obstinate even to brutality!" said Father Eustace; "and yet who

knows but some better ore may lie under so rude an exterior?"

"Save a thief from the gallows," said the Sacristan--"you know the rest

of the proverb; and admitting, as may Heaven grant, that our lives and

limbs are safe from this outrageous knave, who shall insure our meal and

our malt, our herds and our flocks?"

"Marry, that will I, my brethren," said an aged monk. "Ah, brethren,

you little know what may be made of a repentant robber. In Abbot

Ingilram's days--ay, and I remember them as it were yesterday--the

freebooters were the best welcome men that came to Saint Mary's. Ay,

they paid tithe of every drove that they brought over from the South,

and because they were something lightly come by, I have known them

make the tithe a seventh--that is, if their confessor knew his

business--ay, when we saw from the tower a score of fat bullocks, or a

drove of sheep, coming down the valley, with two or three stout

men-at-arms behind them with their glittering steel caps, and their

black-jacks, and their long lances, the good Lord Abbot Ingilram was

wont to say--he was a merry man--there come the tithes of the spoilers

of the Egyptians! Ay, and I have seen the famous John the Armstrang--a

fair man he was and a goodly, the more pity that hemp was ever heckled

for him--I have seen him come into the Abbey-church with nine tassels

of gold in his bonnet, and every tassel made of nine English nobles,

and he would go from chapel to chapel, and from image to image, and

from altar to altar, on his knees--and leave here a tassel, and there

a noble, till there was as little gold on his bonnet as on my

hood--you will find no such Border thieves now!"

"No, truly, Brother Nicolas," answered the Abbot; "they are more apt

to take any gold the Church has left, than to bequeath or bestow

any--and for cattle, beshrew me if I think they care whether beeves

have fed on the meadows of Lanercost Abbey or of Saint Mary's!"

"There is no good thing left in them," said Father Nicolas; "they are

clean naught--Ah, the thieves that I have seen!--such proper men! and

as pitiful as proper, and as pious as pitiful!"

"It skills not talking of it, Brother Nicolas," said the Abbot; "and I

will now dismiss you, my brethren, holding your meeting upon this our

inquisition concerning the danger of our reverend Sub-Prior, instead

of the attendance on the lauds this evening--Yet let the bells be duly

rung for the edification of the laymen without, and also that the

novices may give due reverence.--And now, benedicite, brethren! The

cellarer will bestow on each a grace-cup and a morsel as ye pass the

buttery, for ye have been turmoiled and anxious, and dangerous it is

to fall asleep in such case with empty stomach."

"_Gratias agimus quam maximas, Domine reverendissime_," replied the

brethren, departing in their due order.

But the Sub-Prior remained behind, and falling on his knees before the

Abbot, as he was about to withdraw, craved him to hear under the seal

of confession the adventures of the day. The reverend Lord Abbot

yawned, and would have alleged fatigue; but to Father Eustace, of all

men, he was ashamed to show indifference in his religious duties. The

confession, therefore, proceeded, in which Father Eustace told all the

extraordinary circumstances which had befallen him during the journey.

And being questioned by the Abbot, whether he was not conscious of any

secret sin, through which he might have been subjected for a time to

the delusions of evil spirits, the Sub-Prior admitted, with frank

avowal, that he thought he might have deserved such penance for having

judged with unfraternal rigour of the report of Father Philip the

Sacristan.

"Heaven," said the penitent, "may have been willing to convince me,

not only that he can at pleasure open a communication betwixt us and

beings of a different, and, as we word it, supernatural class, but

also to punish our pride of superior wisdom, or superior courage, or

superior learning."

It is well said that virtue is its own reward; and I question if duty

was ever more completely recompensed, than by the audience which the

reverend Abbot so unwillingly yielded to the confession of the

Sub-Prior. To find the object of his fear shall we say, or of his

envy, or of both, accusing himself of the very error with which he had

so tacitly charged him, was a corroboration of the Abbot's judgment, a

soothing of his pride, and an allaying of his fears. The sense of

triumph, however, rather increased than diminished his natural

good-humour; and so far was Abbot Boniface from being disposed to

tyrannize over his Sub-Prior in consequence of this discovery, that in

his exhortation he hovered somewhat ludicrously betwixt the natural

expression of his own gratified vanity, and his timid reluctance to

hurt the feelings of Father Eustace.

"My brother," said he, _ex cathedra_, "it cannot have escaped

your judicious observation, that we have often declined our own

judgment in favour of your opinion, even about those matters which

most nearly concerned the community. Nevertheless, grieved would we

be, could you think that we did this, either because we deemed our own

opinion less pregnant, or our wit more shallow, than that of our

brethren. For it was done exclusively to give our younger brethren,

such as your much esteemed self, my dearest brother, that courage

which is necessary to a free deliverance of your opinion,--we ofttimes

setting apart our proper judgment, that our inferiors, and especially

our dear brother the Sub-Prior, may be comforted and encouraged in

proposing valiantly his own thoughts. Which our deference and

humility may, in some sort, have produced in your mind, most reverend

brother, that self-opinion of parts and knowledge, which hath led

unfortunately to your over-estimating your own faculties, and thereby

subjecting yourself, as is but too visible, to the japes and mockeries

of evil spirits. For it is assured that Heaven always holdeth us in

the least esteem when we deem of ourselves most highly, and also, on

the other hand, it may be that we have somewhat departed from what

became our high seat in this Abbey, in suffering ourselves to be too

much guided, and even, as it were, controlled, by the voice of our

inferior. Wherefore," continued the Lord Abbot, "in both of us such

faults shall and must be amended--you hereafter presuming less upon

your gifts and carnal wisdom, and I taking heed not so easily to

relinquish mine own opinion for that of one lower in place and in

office. Nevertheless, we would not that we should thereby lose the

high advantage which we have derived, and may yet derive, from your

wise counsels, which hath been so often recommended to us by our most

reverend Primate. Wherefore, on affairs of high moment, we will call

you to our presence in private, and listen to your opinion, which, if

it shall agree with our own, we will deliver to the Chapter as

emanating directly from ourselves; thus sparing you, dearest brother,

that seeming victory which is so apt to engender spiritual pride, and

avoiding ourselves the temptation of falling into that modest facility

of opinion, whereby our office is lessened and our person (were that

of consequence) rendered less important in the eyes of the community

over which we preside."

Notwithstanding the high notions which, as a rigid Catholic, Father

Eustace entertained of the sacrament of confession, as his Church

calls it, there was some danger that a sense of the ridiculous might

have stolen on him, when he heard his Superior, with such simple

cunning, lay out a little plan for availing himself of the Sub-Prior's

wisdom and experience, while he should take the whole credit to

himself. Yet his conscience immediately told him he was right.

"I should have thought more," he reflected, "of the spiritual

Superior, and less of the individual. I should have spread my mantle

over the frailties of my spiritual father, and done what I might to

support his character, and, of course, to extend his utility among the

brethren, as well as with others. The Abbot cannot be humbled, but

what the community must be humbled in his person. Her boast is, that

over all her children, especially over those called to places of

distinction, she can diffuse those gifts which are necessary to render

them illustrious."

Actuated by these sentiments, Father Eustace frankly assented to the

charge which his Superior, even in that moment of authority, had

rather intimated than made, and signified his humble acquiescence in

any mode of communicating his counsel which might be most agreeable to

the Lord Abbot, and might best remove from himself all temptation to

glory in his own wisdom. He then prayed the reverend Father to assign

him such penance as might best suit his offence, intimating, at the

same time, that he had already fasted the whole day.

"And it is that I complain of," answered the Abbot, instead of giving

him credit for his abstinence; "it is these very penances, fasts, and

vigils, of which we complain; as tending only to generate airs and

fumes of vanity, which, ascending from the stomach into the head, do

but puff us up with vain-glory and self-opinion. It is meet and

beseeming that novices should undergo fasts and vigils; for some part

of every community must fast, and young stomachs may best endure it.

Besides, in them it abates wicked thoughts, and the desire of worldly

delights. But, reverend brother, for those to fast who are dead and

mortified to the world, as I and thou, is work of supererogation, and

is but the matter of spiritual pride. Wherefore, I enjoin thee, most

reverend brother, go to the buttery and drink two cups at least of

good wine, eating withal a comfortable morsel, such as may best suit

thy taste and stomach. And in respect that thine opinion of thy own

wisdom hath at times made thee less conformable to, and companionable

with, the weaker and less learned brethren, I enjoin thee, during the

said repast, to choose for thy companion, our reverend brother

Nicolas, and without interruption or impatience, to listen for a

stricken hour to his narration, concerning those things which befel in

the times of our venerable predecessor, Abbot Ingilram, on whose soul

may Heaven have mercy! And for such holy exercises as may farther

advantage your soul, and expiate the faults whereof you have

contritely and humbly avowed yourself guilty, we will ponder upon that

matter, and announce our will unto you the next morning."

It was remarkable, that after this memorable evening, the feelings of

the worthy Abbot towards his adviser were much more kindly and

friendly than when he deemed the Sub-Prior the impeccable and

infallible person, in whose garment of virtue and wisdom no flaw was

to be discerned. It seemed as if this avowal of his own imperfections

had recommended Father Eustace to the friendship of the Superior,

although at the same time this increase of benevolence was attended

with some circumstances, which, to a man of the Sub-Prior's natural

elevation of mind and temper, were more grievous than even undergoing

the legends of the dull and verbose Father Nicolas. For instance, the

Abbot seldom mentioned him to the other monks, without designing him

our beloved Brother Eustace, poor man!--and now and then he used to

warn the younger brethren against the snares of vainglory and

spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more rigidly righteous, with

such looks and demonstrations as did all but expressly designate the

Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time under such delusions. Upon

these occasions, it required all the votive obedience of a monk, all

the philosophical discipline of the schools, and all the patience of a

Christian, to enable Father Eustace to endure the pompous and

patronizing parade of his honest, but somewhat thick-headed Superior.

He began himself to be desirous of leaving the Monastery, or at least

he manifestly declined to interfere with its affairs, in that marked

and authoritative manner, which he had at first practised.