The Monastery

Chapter 14

"The young Lady of Avenel, father," said the Maid of the Mill,

dropping as low a curtsy as her rustic manners enabled her to make.

The Miller, her father, doffed his bonnet, and made his reverence, not

altogether so low perhaps as if the young lady had appeared in the

pride of rank and riches, yet so as to give high birth the due homage

which the Scotch for a length of time scrupulously rendered to it.

Indeed, from having had her mother's example before her for so many

years, and from a native sense of propriety and even of dignity, Mary

Avenel had acquired a demeanour, which marked her title to

consideration, and effectually checked any attempt at familiarity on

the part of those who might be her associates in her present

situation, but could not be well termed her equals. She was by nature

mild, pensive, and contemplative, gentle in disposition, and most

placable when accidentally offended; but still she was of a retired

and reserved habit, and shunned to mix in ordinary sports, even--when

the rare occurrence of a fair or wake gave her an opportunity of

mingling with companions of her own age. If at such scenes she was

seen for an instant, she appeared to behold them with the composed

indifference of one to whom their gaiety was a matter of no interest,

and who seemed only desirous to glide away from the scene as soon as

she possibly could.

Something also had transpired concerning her being born on All-hallow

Eve, and the powers with which that circumstance was supposed to

invest her over the invisible world. And from all-these particulars

combined, the young men and women of the Halidome used to distinguish

Mary among themselves by the name of the Spirit of Avenel, as if the

fair but fragile form, the beautiful but rather colourless cheek, the

dark blue eye, and the shady hair, had belonged rather to the

immaterial than the substantial world. The general tradition of the

White Lady, who was supposed to wait on the fortunes of the family of

Avenel, gave a sort of zest to this piece of rural wit. It gave great

offence, however, to the two sons of Simon Glendinning; and when the

expression was in their presence applied to the young lady, Edward was

wont to check the petulance of those who used it by strength of

argument, and Halbert by strength of arm. In such cases Halbert had

this advantage, that although ho could render no aid to his brother's

argument, yet when circumstances required it, he was sure to have that

of Edward, who never indeed himself commenced a fray, but, on the

other hand, did not testify any reluctance to enter into combat in

Halbert's behalf or in his rescue.

But the zealous attachment of the two youths, being themselves, from

the retired situation in which they dwelt, comparative strangers in

the Halidome, did not serve in any degree to alter the feelings of the

inhabitants towards the young lady, who seemed to have dropped amongst

them from another sphere of life. Still, however, she was regarded

with respect, if not with fondness; and the attention of the Sub-Prior

to the family, not to mention the formidable name of Julian Avenel,

which every new incident of those tumultuous times tended to render

more famous, attached to his niece a certain importance. Thus some

aspired to her acquaintance out of pride while the more timid of the

feuars were anxious to inculcate upon their children the necessity of

being respectful to the noble orphan. So that Mary Avenel, little

loved because little known, was regarded with a mysterious awe, partly

derived from fear of her uncle's moss-troopers, and partly from her

own retired and distant habits, enhanced by the superstitious opinions

of the time and country.

It was not without some portion of this awe, that Mysie felt herself

left alone in company with a young person so distant in rank, and so

different in bearing, from herself; for her worthy father had taken

the first opportunity to step out unobserved, in order to mark how the

barnyard was filled, and what prospect it afforded of grist to the

mill. In youth, however, there is a sort of free-masonry, which,

without much conversation, teaches young persons to estimate each

other's character, and places them at ease on the shortest

acquaintance. It is only when taught deceit by the commerce of the

world, that we learn to shroud our character from observation, and to

disguise our real sentiments from those with whom we are placed in

communion.

Accordingly, the two young women were soon engaged in such objects of

interest as best became their age. They visited Mary Avenel's pigeons,

which she nursed with the tenderness of a mother; they turned over her

slender stores of finery, which yet contained some articles that

excited the respect of her companion, though Mysie was too

good-humoured to nourish envy. A golden rosary, and some female

ornaments marking superior rank, had been rescued in the moment of

their utmost adversity, more by Tibb Tacket's presence of mind, than

by the care of their owner,--who was at that sad period too much sunk

in grief to pay any attention to such circumstances. They struck

Mysie with a deep impression of veneration; for, excepting what the

Lord Abbot and the convent might possess, she did not believe there

was so much real gold in the world as was exhibited in these few

trinkets, and Mary, however sage and serious, was not above being

pleased with the admiration of her rustic companion.

Nothing, indeed, could exhibit a stronger contrast than the appearance

of the two girls;--the good-humoured laughter-loving countenance of

the Maid of the Mill, who stood gazing with unrepressed astonishment

on whatever was in her inexperienced eye rare and costly, and with an

humble, and at the same time cheerful acquiescence in her inferiority,

asking all the little queries about the use and value of the

ornaments, while Mary Avenel, with her quiet composed dignity and

placidity of manner, produced them one after another for the amusement

of her companion.

As they became gradually more familiar, Mysie of the Mill was just

venturing to ask, why Mary Avenel never appeared at the May-pole, and to

express her wonder when the young lady said she disliked dancing, when

a trampling of horses at the gate of the tower interrupted their

conversation.

Mysie flew to the shot-window in the full ardour of unrestrained female

curiosity. "Saint Mary! sweet lady! here come two well-mounted gallants;

will you step this way to look at them ?"

"No," said Mary Avenel, "you shall tell me who they are."

"Well, if you like it better," said Mysie--"but how shall I know

them?---Stay, I do know one of them, and so do you, lady; he is a

blithe man, somewhat light of hand, they say, but the gallants of

these days think no great harm of that. He is your uncle's henchman,

that they call Christie of the Clinthill; and he has not his old green

jerkin and the rusty blackjack over it, but a scarlet cloak, laid down

with silver lace three inches broad, and a breast-plate you might see

to dress your hair in, as well as in that keeking-glass in the ivory

frame that you showed me even now. Come, dear lady, come to the

shot-window and see him."

"If it be the man you mean, Mysie," replied the orphan of Avenel, "I

shall see him soon enough, considering either the pleasure or comfort

the sight will give me."

"Nay, but if you will not come to see gay Christie," replied the Maid

of the Mill, her face flushed with eager curiosity, "come and tell me

who the gallant is that is with him, the handsomest, the very

lovesomest young man I ever saw with sight."

"It is my foster-brother, Halbert Glendinning," said Mary, with,

apparent indifference; for she had been accustomed to call the sons of

Elspeth her foster-brethren, and to live with them as if they had been

brothers in earnest.

"Nay, by Our Lady, that it is not," said Mysie; "I know the favour of

both the Glendinnings well, and I think this rider be not of our

country. He has a crimson velvet bonnet, and long brown hair falling

down under it, and a beard on his upper lip, and his chin clean and

close shaved, save a small patch on the point of the chin, and a

sky-blue jerkin slashed and lined with white satin, and trunk-hose to

suit, and no weapon but a rapier and dagger--Well, if I was a man, I

would never wear weapon but the rapier! it is so slender and

becoming, instead of having a cartload of iron at my back, like my

father's broad-sword with its great rusty basket-hilt. Do you not

delight in the rapier and poniard, lady?"

"The best sword," answered Mary, "if I must needs answer a question of

the sort, is that which is drawn in the best cause, and which is best

used when it is out of the scabbard."

"But can you not guess who this stranger should be?" said Mysie.

"Indeed, I cannot even attempt it; but to judge by his companion, it is

no matter how little he is known," replied Mary.

"My benison on his bonny face," said Mysie, "if he is not going to

alight here! Now, I am as much pleased as if my father had given me

the silver earrings he has promised me so often;--nay, you had as well

come to the window, for you must see him by and by whether you will or

not." I do not know how much sooner Mary Avenel might have sought the

point of observation, if she had not been scared from it by the

unrestrained curiosity expressed by her buxom friend; but at length

the same feeling prevailed over her sense of dignity, and satisfied

with having displayed all the indifference that was necessary in point

of decorum, she no longer thought herself bound to restrain her

curiosity.

From the outshot or projecting window, she could perceive that

Christie of the Clinthill was attended on the present occasion by a

very gay and gallant cavalier, who, from the nobleness of his

countenance and manner, his rich and handsome dress, and the showy

appearance of his horse and furniture, must, she agreed with her new

friend, be a person of some consequence.

Christie also seemed conscious of something, which made him call out

with more than his usual insolence of manner, "What, ho! so ho! the

house! Churl peasants, will no one answer when I call?--Ho!

Martin,--Tibb,--Dame Glendinning--a murrain on you, must we stand

keeping our horses in the cold here, and they steaming with heat, when

we have ridden so sharply?"

At length he was obeyed, and old Martin made his appearance. "Ha!"

said Christie, "art thou there, old Truepenny? here, stable me these

steeds, and see them well bedded, and stretch thine old limbs by

rubbing them down; and see thou quit not the stable till there is not

a turned hair on either of them."

Martin took the horses to the stable as commanded, but suppressed not

his indignation a moment after he could vent it with safety. "Would

not any one think," he said to Jasper, an old ploughman, who, in

coming to his assistance, had heard Christie's imperious injunctions,

"that this loon, this Christie of the Clinthill, was laird or lord at

least of him? No such thing, man! I remember him a little dirty

turnspit boy in the house of Avenel, that every body in a frosty

morning like this warmed his fingers by kicking or cuffing! and now he

is a gentleman, and swears, d--n him and renounce him, as if the

gentlemen could not so much as keep their own wickedness to

themselves, without the like of him going to hell in their very

company, and by the same road. I have as much a mind as ever I had to

my dinner, to go back and tell him to sort his horse himself, since he

is as able as I am."

"Hout tout, man!" answered Jasper, "keep a calm sough; better to

fleech a fool than fight with him."

Martin acknowledged the truth of the proverb, and, much comforted

therewith, betook himself to cleaning the stranger's horse with great

assiduity, remarking, it was a pleasure to handle a handsome nag, and

turned over the other to the charge of Jasper. Nor was it until

Christie's commands were literally complied with that he deemed it

proper, after fitting ablutions, to join the party in the spence; not

for the purpose of waiting upon them, as a mere modern reader might

possibly expect, but that he might have his share of dinner in their

company.

In the meanwhile, Christie had presented his companion to Dame

Glendinning as Sir Piercie Shafton, a friend of his and of his master,

come to spend three or four days with little din in the tower. The

good dame could not conceive how she was entitled to such an honour,

and would fain have pleaded her want of every sort of convenience to

entertain a guest of that quality. But, indeed, the visiter, when he

cast his eyes round the bare walls, eyed the huge black chimney,

scrutinized the meagre and broken furniture of the apartment, and

beheld the embarrassment of the mistress of the family, intimated

great reluctance to intrude upon Dame Glendinning a visit, which could

scarce, from all appearances, prove otherwise than an inconvenience to

her, and a penance to himself.

But the reluctant hostess and her guest had to do with an inexorable

man, who silenced all expostulations with, "such was his master's

pleasure. And, moreover," he continued, "though the Baron of Avenel's

will must, and ought to prove law to all within ten miles around him,

yet here, dame," he said, "is a letter from your petticoated baron,

the lord-priest yonder, who enjoins you, as you regard his pleasure,

that you afford to this good knight such decent accommodation as is in

your power, suffering him to live as privately as he shall

desire.--And for you, Sir Piercie Shafton," continued Christie, "you

will judge for yourself, whether secrecy and safety is not more your

object even now, than soft beds and high cheer. And do not judge of

the dame's goods by the semblance of her cottage; for you will see by

the dinner she is about to spread for us, that the vassal of the kirk

is seldom found with her basket bare." To Mary Avenel, Christie

presented the stranger, after the best fashion he could, as to the

niece of his master the baron.

While he thus laboured to reconcile Sir Piercie Shafton to his fate,

the widow, having consulted her son Edward on the real import of the

Lord Abbot's injunction, and having found that Christie had given a

true exposition, saw nothing else left for her but to make that fate

as easy as she could to the stranger. He himself also seemed

reconciled to his lot by some feeling probably of strong necessity,

and accepted with a good grace the hospitality which the dame offered

with a very indifferent one.

In fact, the dinner, which soon smoked before the assembled guests,

was of that substantial kind which warrants plenty and comfort. Dame

Glendinning had cooked it after her best manner; and, delighted with

the handsome appearance which her good cheer made when placed on the

table, forgot both her plans and the vexations which interrupted them,

in the hospitable duty of pressing her assembled visiters to eat and

drink, watching every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with

fresh supplies ere the guest could utter a negative.

In the meanwhile, the company attentively regarded each other's

motions, and seemed endeavouring to form a judgment of each other's

character. Sir Piercie Shafton condescended to speak to no one but to

Mary Avenel, and on her he conferred exactly the same familiar and

compassionate, though somewhat scornful sort of attention, which a

pretty fellow of these days will sometimes condescend to bestow on a

country miss, when there is no prettier or more fashionable woman

present. The manner indeed was different, for the etiquette of those

times did not permit Sir Piercie Shafton to pick his teeth, or to

yawn, or to gabble like the beggar whose tongue (as he says) was cut

out by the Turks, or to affect deafness or blindness, or any other

infirmity of the organs. But though the embroidery of his conversation

was different, the groundwork was the same, and the high-flown and

ornate compliments with which the gallant knight of the sixteenth

century inter-larded his conversation, were as much the offspring of

egotism and self-conceit, as the jargon of the coxcombs of our own

days.

The English knight was, however, something daunted at finding that

Mary Avenel listened with an air of indifference, and answered with

wonderful brevity, to all the fine things which ought, as he

conceived, to have dazzled her with their brilliancy, and puzzled her

by their obscurity. But if he was disappointed in making the desired,

or rather the expected impression, upon her whom he addressed, Sir

Piercie Shafton's discourse was marvellous in the ears of Mysie the

Miller's daughter, and not the less so that she did not comprehend the

meaning of a single word which he uttered. Indeed, the gallant

knight's language was far too courtly to be understood by persons of

much greater acuteness than Mysie's.

It was about this period, that the "only rare poet of his time, the

witty, comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John

Lylly--he that sate at Apollo's table, and to whom Phoebus gave a

wreath of his own bays without snatching" [Footnote: Such, and yet

more extravagant, are the compliments paid to this author by his

editor, Blount. Notwithstanding all exaggeration, Lylly was really a

man of wit and imagination, though both were deformed by the most

unnatural affectation that ever disgraced a printed page.]--he, in

short, who wrote that singularly coxcomical work, called _Euphues

and his England_, was in the very zenith of his absurdity and his

reputation. The quaint, forced, and unnatural style which he

introduced by his "Anatomy of Wit," had a fashion as rapid as it was

momentary--all the court ladies were his scholars, and to _parler

Euphuisme_, was as necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant,

as those of understanding how to use his rapier, or to dance a

measure.

It was no wonder that the Maid of the Mill was soon as effectually

blinded by the intricacies of this erudite and courtly style of

conversation, as she had ever been by the dust of her father's own

meal-sacks. But there she sate with her mouth and eyes as open as the

mill-door and the two windows, showing teeth as white as her father's

bolted flour, and endeavouring to secure a word or two for her own

future use out of the pearls of rhetoric which Sir Piercie Shafton

scattered around him with such bounteous profusion.

For the male part of the company, Edward felt ashamed of his own

manner and slowness of speech, when he observed the handsome young

courtier, with an ease and volubility of which he had no conception,

run over all the commonplace topics of high-flown gallantry. It is

true the good sense and natural taste of young Glendinning soon

informed him that the gallant cavalier was speaking nonsense. But,

alas! where is the man of modest merit, and real talent, who has not

suffered from being outshone in conversation and outstripped in the

race of life, by men of less reserve, and of qualities more showy,

though less substantial? and well constituted must the mind be, that

can yield up the prize without envy to competitors more worthy than

himself.

Edward Glendinning had no such philosophy. While he despised the

jargon of the gay cavalier, he envied the facility with which he could

run on, as well as the courtly tone and expression, and the perfect

ease and elegance with which he offered all the little acts of

politeness to which the duties of the table gave opportunity. And if I

am to speak truth, I must own that he envied those qualities the more

as they were all exercised in Mary Avenel's service, and, although

only so far accepted as they could not be refused, intimated a wish on

the stranger's part to place himself in her good graces, as the only

person in the room to whom he thought it worth while to recommend

himself. His title, rank, and very handsome figure, together with some

sparks of wit and spirit which flashed across the cloud of nonsense

which he uttered, rendered him, as the words of the old song say, "a

lad for a lady's viewing;" so that poor Edward, with all his real

worth and acquired knowledge, in his home-spun doublet, blue cap, and

deerskin trowsers, looked like a clown beside the courtier, and,

feeling the full inferiority, nourished no good-will to him by whom he

was eclipsed.

Christie, on the other hand, as soon as he had satisfied to the full a

commodious appetite, by means of which persons of his profession

could, like the wolf and eagle, gorge themselves with as much food at

one meal as might serve them for several days, began also to feel

himself more in the back-ground than he liked to be. This worthy had,

amongst his other good qualities, an excellent opinion of himself;

and, being of a bold and forward disposition, had no mind to be thrown

into the shade by any one. With an impudent familiarity which such

persons mistake for graceful ease, he broke in upon the knight's

finest speeches with as little remorse as he would have driven the

point of his lance through a laced doublet. Sir Piercie Shafton, a

man of rank and high birth, by no means encouraged or endured this

familiarity, and requited the intruder either with total neglect, or

such laconic replies as intimated a sovereign contempt for the rude

spearman, who affected to converse with him upon terms of equality.

The Miller held his peace; for, as his usual conversation turned

chiefly on his clapper and toll-dish, he had no mind to brag of his

wealth in presence of Christie of the Clinthill, or to intrude his

discourse on the English cavalier.

A little specimen of the conversation may not be out of place, were it

but to show young ladies what fine things they have lost by living when

Euphuism is out of fashion.

"Credit me, fairest lady," said the knight, "that such is the cunning

of our English courtiers, of the hodiernal strain, that, as they have

infinitely refined upon the plain and rusticial discourse of our

fathers, which, as I may say, more beseemed the mouths of country

roisterers in a May-game than that of courtly gallants in a galliard,

so I hold it ineffably and unutterably impossible, that those who may

succeed us in that garden of wit and courtesy shall alter or amend it.

Venus delighted but in the language of Mercury, Bucephalus will stoop

to no one but Alexander, none can sound Apollo's pipe but Orpheus."

"Valiant sir," said Mary, who could scarcely help laughing, "we have

but to rejoice in the chance which hath honoured this solitude with a

glimpse of the sun of courtesy, though it rather blinds than

enlightens us."

"Pretty and quaint, fairest lady," answered the Euphuist. "Ah, that I

had with me my Anatomy of Wit--that all-to-be-unparalleled

volume--that quintessence of human wit--that treasury of quaint

invention--that exquisitively-pleasant-to-read, and

inevitably-necessary-to-be-remembered manual, of all that is worthy to

be known--which indoctrines the rude in civility, the dull in

intellectuality, the heavy in jocosity, the blunt in gentility, the

vulgar in nobility, and all of them in that unutterable perfection, of

human utterance, that eloquence which no other eloquence is sufficient

to praise, that art which, when we call it by its own name of

Euphuism, we bestow on it its richest panegyric."

"By Saint Mary," said Christie of the Clinthill, "if your worship had

told me that you had left such stores of wealth as you talk of at

Prudhoe Castle, Long Dickie and I would have had them off with us if

man and horse could have carried them; but you told us of no treasure

I wot of, save the silver tongs for turning up your mustachoes."

The knight treated this intruder's mistake--for certainly Christie had

no idea that all these epithets which sounded so rich and splendid,

were lavished upon a small quarto volume--with a stare, and then

turning again to Mary Avenel, the only person whom he thought worthy

to address, he proceeded in his strain of high-flown oratory, "Even

thus," said he, "do hogs contemn the splendour of Oriental pearls;

even thus are the delicacies of a choice repast in vain offered to the

long-eared grazer of the common, who turneth from them to devour a

thistle. Surely as idle is it to pour forth the treasures of oratory

before the eyes of the ignorant, and to spread the dainties of the

intellectual banquet before those who are, morally and metaphysically

speaking, no better than asses."

"Sir Knight, since that is your quality," said Edward, "we cannot

strive with you in loftiness of language; but I pray you in fair

courtesy, while you honour my father's house with your presence, to

spare us such vile comparisons."

"Peace, good villagio," said the knight, gracefully waving his hand,

"I prithee peace, kind rustic; and you, my guide, whom I may scarce

call honest, let me prevail upon you to imitate the laudable

taciturnity of that honest yeoman, who sits as mute as a mill-post,

and of that comely damsel, who seems as with her ears she drank in

what she did not altogether comprehend, even as a palfrey listening to

a lute, whereof, howsoever, he knoweth not the gamut."

"Marvellous fine words," at length said Dame Glendinning, who began

to be tired of sitting so long silent, "marvellous fine words, neighbour

Happer, are they not?"

"Brave words--very brave words--very exceeding pyet words," answered

the Miller; "nevertheless, to speak my mind, a lippy of bran were worth

a bushel of them."

"I think so too, under his worship's favour," answered Christie of the

Clinthill. "I well remember that at the race of Morham, as we call it,

near Berwick, I took a young Southern fellow out of saddle with my

lance, and cast him, it might be, a gad's length from his nag; and so,

as he had some gold on his laced doublet, I deemed he might ha' the

like on it in his pocket too, though that is a rule that does not aye

hold good--So I was speaking to him of ransom, and out he comes with a

handful of such terms as his honour there hath gleaned up, and craved

me for mercy, as I was a true son of Mars, and such like."

"And obtained no mercy at thy hand, I dare be sworn," said the knight,

who deigned not to speak Euphuism excepting to the fair s*x.

"By my troggs," replied Christie, "I would have thrust my lance down

his throat, but just then they flung open that accursed postern-gate,

and forth pricked old Hunsdon, and Henry Carey, and as many fellows at

their heels as turned the chase northward again. So I e'en pricked

Bayard with the spur, and went off with the rest; for a man should

ride when he may not wrestle, as they say in Tynedale."

"Trust me," said the knight, again turning to Mary Avenel, "if I do

not pity you, lady, who, being of noble blood, are thus in a manner

compelled to abide in the cottage of the ignorant, like the precious

stone in the head of the toad, or like a precious garland on the brow

of an ass.--But soft, what gallant have we here, whose garb savoureth

more of the rustic than doth his demeanour, and whose looks seem more

lofty than his habit; even as--"

"I pray you, Sir Knight," said Mary, "to spare your courtly similitudes

for refined ears, and give me leave to name unto you my foster-brother,

Halbert Glendinning."

"The son of the good dame of the cottage, as I opine," answered the

English knight; "for by some such name did my guide discriminate the

mistress of this mansion, which you, madam, enrich with your

presence.--And yet, touching this juvenal, he hath that about him

which belongeth to higher birth, for all are not black who dig

coals--"

"Nor all white who are millers," said honest Happer, glad to get in a

word, as they say, edgeways.

Halbert, who had sustained the glance of the Englishman with some

impatience, and knew not what to make of his manner and language,

replied with some asperity, "Sir Knight, we have in this land of

Scotland an ancient saying, 'Scorn not the bush that bields you'--you

are a guest of my father's house to shelter you from danger, if I am

rightly informed by the domestics. Scoff not its homeliness, nor that

of its inmates--ye might long have abidden at the court of England,

ere we had sought your favour, or cumbered you with our society. Since

your fate has sent you hither amongst us, be contented with such fare

and such converse as we can afford you, and scorn us not for our

kindness; for the Scots wear short patience and long daggers."

All eyes were turned on Halbert while he was thus speaking, and there

was a general feeling that his countenance had an expression of

intelligence, and his person an air of dignity, which they had never

before observed. Whether it were that the wonderful Being with whom

he had so lately held communication, had bestowed on him a grace and

dignity of look and bearing which he had not before, or whether the

being conversant in high matters, and called to a destiny beyond that

of other men, had a natural effect in giving becoming confidence to

his language and manner, we pretend not to determine. But it was

evident to all, that, from this day, young Halbert was an altered man;

that he acted with the steadiness, promptitude, and determination,

which belonged to riper years, and bore himself with a manner which

appertained to higher rank.

The knight took the rebuke with good humour. "By my mine honour," he

said, "thou hast reason on thy side, good juvenal--nevertheless, I

spoke not as in ridicule of the roof which relieves me, but rather in

your own praise, to whom, if this roof be native, thou mayst

nevertheless rise from its lowliness; even as the lark, which maketh

its humble nest in the furrow, ascendeth towards the sun, as well as

the eagle which buildeth her eyry in the cliff."

This high-flown discourse was interrupted by Dame Glendinning, who,

with all the busy anxiety of a mother, was loading her son's trencher

with food, and dinning in his ear her reproaches on account of his

prolonged absence. "And see," she said, "that you do not one day get

such a sight while you are walking about among the haunts of them that

are not of our flesh and bone, as befell Mungo Murray when he slept on

the greensward ring of the Auld Kirkhill at sunset, and wakened at

daybreak in the wild hills of Breadalbane. And see that, when you are

looking for deer, the red stag does not gall you as he did Diccon

Thorburn, who never overcast the wound that he took from a buck's

horn. And see, when you go swaggering about with a long broadsword by

your side, whilk it becomes no peaceful man to do, that you dinna meet

with them that have broadsword and lance both--there are enow of rank

riders in this land, that neither fear God nor regard man."

Here her eye "in a fine frenzy rolling," fell full upon that of

Christie of the Clinthill, and at once her fears for having given

offence interrupted the current of maternal rebuke, which, like rebuke

matrimonial, may be often better meant than timed. There was something

of sly and watchful significance in Christie's eye, an eye gray, keen,

fierce, yet wily, formed to express at once cunning, and malice, which

made the dame instantly conjecture she had said too much, while she

saw in imagination her twelve goodly cows go lowing down the glen in a

moonlight night, with half a score of Border spearsmen at their heels.

Her voice, therefore, sunk from the elevated tone of maternal

authority into a whimpering apologetic sort of strain, and she

proceeded to say, "It is no that I have ony ill thoughts of the Border

riders, for Tibb Tacket there has often heard me say that I thought

spear and bridle as natural to a Borderman as a pen to a priest, or a

feather-fan to a lady; and--have you not heard me say it, Tibb?"

Tibb showed something less than her expected alacrity in attesting her

mistress's deep respect for the freebooters of the southland hills;

but, thus conjured, did at length reply, "Hout ay, mistress, I'se

warrant I have heard you say something like that."

"Mother!" said Halbert, in a firm and commanding tone of voice, "what

or whom is it that you fear under my father's roof?--I well hope that

it harbours not a guest in whose presence you are afraid to say your

pleasure to me or my brother? I am sorry I have been detained so late,

being ignorant of the fair company which I should encounter on my

return.--I pray you let this excuse suffice: and what satisfies you,

will, I trust, be nothing less than acceptable to your guests."

An answer calculated so jistly betwixt the submission due to his

parent, and the natural feeling of dignity in one who was by birth

master of the mansion, excited universal satisfaction. And as Elspeth

herself confessed to Tibb on the same evening, "She did not think it

had been in the callant. Till that night, he took pets and passions

if he was spoke to, and lap through the house like a four-year-auld at

the least word of advice that was minted at him, but now he spoke as

grave and as douce as the Lord Abbot himself. She kendna," she said,

"what might be the upshot of it, but it was like he was a wonderfu'

callant even now."

The party then separated, the young men retiring to their apartments,

the elder to their household cares. While Christie went to see his horse

properly accommodated, Edward betook himself to his book, and Halbert,

who was as ingenious in employing his hands as he had hitherto appeared

imperfect in mental exertion, applied himself to constructing a place of

concealment in the floor of his apartment by raising a plank, beneath

which he resolved to deposit that copy of the Holy Scriptures which had

been so strangely regained from the possession of men and spirits.

In the meanwhile Sir Piercie Shafton sate still as a stone, in the

chair in which he had deposited himself, his hands folded on his

breast, his legs stretched straight out before him and resting upon

the heels, his eyes cast up to the ceiling as if he had meant to count

every mesh of every cobweb with which the arched roof was canopied,

wearing at the same time a face of as solemn and imperturbable

gravity, as if his existence had depended on the accuracy of his

calculation.

He could scarce be roused from his listless state of contemplative

absorption so as to take some supper, a meal at which the younger

females appeared not. Sir Piercie stared around twice or thrice as if

he missed something; but he asked not for them, and only evinced his

sense of a proper audience being wanting, by his abstraction and

absence of mind, seldom speaking until he was twice addressed, and

then replying, without trope or figure, in that plain English which

nobody could speak better when he had a mind.

Christie, finding himself in undisturbed possession of the

conversation, indulged all who chose to listen with details of his own

wild and inglorious warfare, while Dame Elspeth's curch bristled with

horror, and Tibb Tacket, rejoiced to find herself once more in the

company of a jackman, listened to his tales, like Desdemona to

Othello's, with undisguised delight. Meantime the two young

Glendinnings were each wrapped up in his own reflections, and only

interrupted in them by the signal to move bedward.