The Monastery Part 43

"Silence, blasphemer," said the Sub-Prior, sternly, "or I will have thy blatant obloquy stopped with a gag!"

"Ay," replied Warden, "such is the freedom of the Christian conference to which Rome's priests so kindly invite us!--the gag--the rack--the axe--is the _ratio ultima Romae_. But know thou, mine ancient friend, that the character of thy former companion is not so changed by age, but that he still dares to endure for the cause of truth all that thy proud hierarchy shall dare to inflict."

"Of that," said the monk, "I nothing doubt--Thou wert ever a lion to turn against the spear of the hunter, not a stag to be dismayed at the sound of his bugle."--He walked through the room in silence.

"Wellwood," he said at length, "we can no longer be friends. Our faith, our hope, our anchor on futurity, is no longer the same."

"Deep is my sorrow that thou speakest truth. May G.o.d so judge me,"

said the Reformer, "as I would buy the conversion of a soul like thine with my dearest heart's blood."

"To thee, and with better reason, do I return the wish," replied the Sub-Prior; "it is such an arm as thine that should defend the bulwarks of the Church, and it is now directing the battering-ram against them, and rendering practicable the breach through which all that is greedy, and all that is base, and all that is mutable and hot-headed in this innovating age, already hope to advance to destruction and to spoil.

But since such is our fate, that we can no longer fight side by side as friends, let us at least act as generous enemies. You cannot have forgotten,

'O gran bonta dei caralieri antiqui!

Erano nemici, eran' de fede diversa'--

Although, perhaps," he added, stopping short in his quotation, "your new faith forbids you to reserve a place in your memory, even for what high poets have recorded of loyal faith and generous sentiment."

"The faith of Buchanan," replied the preacher, "the faith of Buchanan and of Beza, cannot be unfriendly to literature. But the poet you have quoted affords strains fitter for a dissolute court than for a convent."

"I might retort on your Theodore Beza," said the Sub-Prior, smiling; "but I hate the judgment that, like the flesh-fly, skims over whatever is sound, to detect and settle upon some spot which is tainted. But to the purpose. If I conduct thee or send thee a prisoner to St. Mary's, thou art to-night a tenant of the dungeon, to-morrow a burden to the gibbet-tree. If I were to let thee go hence at large, I were thereby wronging the Holy Church, and breaking mine own solemn vow. Other resolutions may be adopted in the capital, or better times may speedily ensue. Wilt thou remain a true prisoner upon thy parole, rescue or no rescue, as is the phrase amongst the warriors of this country? Wilt thou solemnly promise that thou wilt do so, and at my summons thou wilt present thyself before the Abbot and Chapter at Saint Mary's, and that thou wilt not stir from this house above a quarter of a mile in any direction? Wilt thou, I say, engage me thy word for this? and such is the sure trust which I repose in thy good faith, that thou shalt remain here unharmed and unsecured, a prisoner at large, subject only to appear before our court when called upon."

The preacher paused--"I am unwilling," he said, "to fetter my native liberty by any self-adopted engagement. But I am already in your power, and you may bind me to my answer. By such promise, to abide within a certain limit, and to appear when called upon, I renounce not any liberty which I at present possess, and am free to exercise; but, on the contrary, being in bonds, and at your mercy, I acquire thereby a liberty which I at present possess not. I will therefore accept of thy proffer, as what is courteously offered on thy part, and may be honourably accepted on mine."

"Stay yet," said the Sub-Prior; "one important part of thy engagement is forgotten--thou art farther to promise, that while thus left at liberty, thou wilt not preach or teach, directly or indirectly, any of those pestilent heresies by which so many souls have been in this our day won over from the kingdom of light to the kingdom of darkness."

"There we break off our treaty," said Warden, firmly--"Wo unto me if I preach not the Gospel!"

The Sub-Prior's countenance became clouded, and he again paced the apartment, and muttered, "A plague upon the self-willed fool!" then stopped short in his walk, and proceeded in his argument.--"Why, by thine own reasoning, Henry, thy refusal here is but peevish obstinacy.

It is in my power to place you where your preaching can reach no human ear; in promising therefore to abstain from it, you grant nothing which you have it in your power to refuse."

"I know not that," replied Henry Warden; "thou mayest indeed cast me into a dungeon, but can I foretell that my Master hath not task-work for me to perform even in that dreary mansion? The chains of saints have, ere now, been the means of breaking the bonds of Satan. In a prison, holy Paul found the jailor whom he brought to believe the word of salvation, he and all his house."

"Nay," said the Sub-Prior, in a tone betwixt anger and scorn, "if you match yourself with the blessed Apostle, it were time we had done-- prepare to endure what thy folly, as well as thy heresy, deserves.--Bind him, soldier."

With proud submission to his fate, and regarding the Sub-Prior with something which almost amounted to a smile of superiority, the preacher placed his arms so that the bonds could be again fastened round him.

"Spare me not," he said to Christie; for even that ruffian hesitated to draw the cord straitly.

The Sub-Prior, meanwhile, looked at him from under his cowl, which he had drawn over his head, and partly over his face, as if he wished to shade his own emotions. They were those of a huntsman within point-blank shot of a n.o.ble stag, who is yet too much struck with his majesty of front and of antler to take aim at him. They were those of a fowler, who, levelling his gun at a magnificent eagle, is yet reluctant to use his advantage when he sees the n.o.ble sovereign of the birds pruning himself in proud defiance of whatever may be attempted against him. The heart of the Sub-Prior (bigoted as he was) relented, and he doubted if he ought to purchase, by a rigorous discharge of what he deemed his duty, the remorse he might afterwards feel for the death of one so n.o.bly independent in thought and character, the friend, besides, of his own happiest years, during which they had, side by side, striven in the n.o.ble race of knowledge, and indulged their intervals of repose in the lighter studies of cla.s.sical and general letters.

The Sub-Prior's hand pressed his half-o'ershadowed cheek, and his eye, more completely obscured, was bent on the ground, as if to hide the workings of his relenting nature.

"Were but Edward safe from the infection," he thought to himself--"Edward, whose eager and enthusiastic mind presses forward in the chase of all that hath even the shadow of knowledge, I might trust this enthusiast with the women, after due caution to them that they cannot, without guilt, attend to his reveries."

As the Sub-Prior revolved these thoughts, and delayed the definitive order which was to determine the fate of the prisoner, a sudden noise at the entrance of the tower diverted his attention for an instant, and, his cheek and brow inflamed with all the glow of heat and determination, Edward Glendinning rushed into the room.

Chapter the Thirty-Second.

Then in my gown of sober gray Along the mountain path I'll wander, And wind my solitary way To the sad shrine that courts me yonder.

There, in the calm monastic shade, All injuries may be forgiven; And there for thee, obdurate maid, My orisons shall rise to heaven.

THE CRUEL LADY OF THE MOUNTAINS.

The first words which Edward uttered were,--"My brother is safe, reverend father--he is safe, thank G.o.d, and lives!--There is not in Corri-nan-s.h.i.+an a grave, nor a vestige of a grave. The turf around the fountain has neither been disturbed by pick-axe, spade, nor mattock, since the deer's-hair first sprang there. He lives as surely as I live!"

The earnestness of the youth--the vivacity with which he looked and moved--the springy step, outstretched hand, and ardent eye, reminded Henry Warden of Halbert, so lately his guide. The brothers had indeed a strong family resemblance, though Halbert was far more athletic and active in his person, taller and better knit in the limbs, and though Edward had, on ordinary occasions, a look of more habitual acuteness and more profound reflection. The preacher was interested as well as the Sub-Prior.

"Of whom do you speak, my son?" he said, in a tone as unconcerned as if his own fate had not been at the same instant trembling in the balance, and as if a dungeon and death did not appear to be his instant doom--"Of whom, I say, speak you? If of a youth somewhat older than you seem to be--brown-haired, open-featured, taller and stronger than you appear, yet having much of the same air and of the same tone of voice--if such a one is the brother whom you seek, it may be I can tell you news of him."

"Speak, then, for Heaven's sake," said Edward--"life or death lies on thy tongue!"

The Sub-Prior joined eagerly in the same request, and, without waiting to be urged, the preacher gave so minute an account of the circ.u.mstances under which he met the elder Glendinning, with so exact a description of his person, that there remained no doubt as to his ident.i.ty. When he mentioned that Halbert Glendinning had conducted him to a dell in which they found the gra.s.s b.l.o.o.d.y, and a grave newly closed, and told how the youth accused himself of the slaughter of Sir Piercie Shafton, the Sub-Prior looked on Edward with astonishment.

"Didst thou not say, even now," he said, "that there was no vestige of a grave in that spot?"

"No more vestige of the earth having been removed than if the turf had grown there since the days of Adam," replied Edward Glendinning. "It is true," he added, "that the adjacent gra.s.s was trampled and b.l.o.o.d.y."

"These are delusions of the Enemy," said the Sub-Prior, crossing himself.--"Christian men may no longer doubt of it."

"But an it be so," said Warden, "Christian men might better guard themselves by the sword of prayer than by the idle form of a cabalistical spell."

"The badge of our salvation," said the Sub-Prior, "cannot be so termed--the sign of the cross disarmeth all evil spirits."

"Ay," answered Henry Warden, apt and armed for controversy, "but it should be borne in the heart, not scored with the fingers in the air.

That very impa.s.sive air, through which your hand pa.s.ses, shall as soon bear the imprint of your action, as the external action shall avail the fond bigot who subst.i.tutes vain motions of the body, idle genuflections, and signs of the cross, for the living and heart-born duties of faith and good works."

"I pity thee," said the Sub-Prior, as actively ready for polemics as himself,--"I pity thee, Henry, and reply not to thee. Thou mayest as well winnow forth and measure the ocean with a sieve, as mete out the power of holy words, deeds, and signs, by the erring gauge of thine own reason."

"Not by mine own reason would I mete them," said Warden; "but by His holy Word, that unfading and unerring lamp of our paths, compared to which human reason is but as a glimmering and fading taper, and your boasted tradition only a misleading wildfire. Show me your Scripture warrant for ascribing virtue to such vain signs and motions!"

"I offered thee a fair field of debate," said the Sub-Prior, "which thou didst refuse. I will not at present resume the controversy."

"Were these my last accents," said the reformer, "and were they uttered at the stake, half-choked with smoke, and as the f.a.gots kindled into a blaze around me, with that last utterance I would testify against the superst.i.tious devices of Rome."

The Sub-Prior suppressed with pain the controversial answer which arose to his lips, and, turning to Edward Glendinning, he said, "there could be now no doubt that his mother ought presently to be informed that her son lived."

"I told you that two hours since," said Christie of the Clinthill, "an you would have believed me. But it seems you are more willing to take the word of an old gray sorner, whose life has been spent in pattering heresy, than mine, though I never rode a foray in my life without duly saying my paternoster."

"Go then," said Father Eustace to Edward; "let thy sorrowing mother know that her son is restored to her from the grave, like the child of the widow of Zarephath; at the intercession," he added, looking at Henry Warden, "of the blessed Saint whom I invoked in his behalf."

"Deceived thyself," said Warden, instantly, "thou art a deceiver of others. It was no dead man, no creature of clay, whom the blessed Tishbite invoked, when, stung by the reproach of the Shunamite woman, he prayed that her son's soul might come into him again."

"It was by his intercession, however," repeated the Sub-Prior; "for what says the Vulgate? Thus it is written: '_Et exaudivit Dominus vocem Helie; et reversa est anima pueri intra c.u.m, et revixit_;'--and thinkest thou the intercession of a glorified saint is more feeble than when he walks on earth, shrouded in a tabernacle of clay, and seeing but with the eye of flesh?"