The Monastery, Walter Scott [if you liked this book txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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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 noble 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 noble 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 nobly independent in thought and character, the friend, besides, of his own happiest years, during which they had, side by side, striven in the noble race of knowledge, and indulged their intervals of repose in the lighter studies of classical 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 God, and lives!—There is not in Corri-nan-shian 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 circumstances under which he met the elder Glendinning, with so exact a description of his person, that there remained no doubt as to his identity. When he mentioned that Halbert Glendinning had conducted him to a dell in which they found the grass bloody, 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 grass was trampled and bloody.”
“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 impassive air, through which your hand passes, shall as soon bear the imprint of your action, as the external action shall avail the fond bigot who substitutes 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
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