The Monastery, Walter Scott [if you liked this book txt] 📗

“This book, if it please your reverence, which Father Philip removed from Glendearg, was this morning returned to us in a strange manner,” said the good widow.

“Returned!” said the monk; “how mean you?”

“I mean,” answered Dame Glendinning, “that it was brought back to the tower of Glendearg, the saints best know how—that same book which Father Philip carried with him but yesterday. Old Martin, that is my tasker and the lady's servant, was driving out the cows to the pasture—for we have three good milk-cows, reverend father, blessed be Saint Waldave, and thanks to the holy Monastery—”

The monk groaned with impatience; but he remembered that a woman of the good dame's condition was like a top, which, if you let it spin on untouched, must at last come to a pause; but, if you interrupt it by flogging, there is no end to its gyrations. “But, to speak no more of the cows, your reverence, though they are likely cattle as ever were tied to a stake, the tasker was driving them out, and the lads, that is my Halbert and my Edward, that your reverence has seen at church on holidays, and especially Halbert,—for you patted him on the head and gave him a brooch of Saint Cuthbert, which he wears in his bonnet,—and little Mary Avenel, that is the lady's daughter, they ran all after the cattle, and began to play up and down the pasture as young folk will, your reverence. And at length they lost sight of Martin and the cows; and they began to run up a little cleugh which we call Corri-nan-Shian, where there is a wee bit stripe of a burn, and they saw there—Good guide us!—a White Woman sitting on the burnside wringing her hands—so the bairns were frighted to see a strange woman sitting there, all but Halbert, who will be sixteen come Whitsuntide; and, besides, he never feared ony thing—and when they went up to her—behold she was passed away!”

“For shame, good woman!” said Father Eustace; “a woman of your sense to listen to a tale so idle!—the young folk told you a lie, and that was all.”

“Nay, sir, it was more than that,” said the old dame; “for, besides that they never told me a lie in their lives, I must warn you that on the very ground where the White Woman was sitting, they found the Lady of Avenel's book, and brought it with them to the tower.”

“That is worthy of mark at least,” said the monk. “Know you no other copy of this volume within these bounds?”

“None, your reverence,” returned Elspeth; “why should there?—no one could read it were there twenty.”

“Then you are sure it is the very same volume which you gave to Father Philip?” said the monk.

“As sure as that I now speak with your reverence.”

“It is most singular!” said the monk; and he walked across the room in a musing posture.

“I have been upon nettles to hear what your reverence would say,” continued Dame Glendinning, “respecting this matter—There is nothing I would not do for the Lady of Avenel and her family, and that has been proved, and for her servants to boot, both Martin and Tibb, although Tibb is not so civil sometimes as altogether I have a right to expect; but I cannot think it beseeming to have angels, or ghosts, or fairies, or the like, waiting upon a leddy when she is in another woman's house, in respect it is no ways creditable. Ony thing she had to do was always done to her hand, without costing her either pains or pence, as a country body says; and besides the discredit, I cannot but think that there is no safety in having such unchancy creatures about ane. But I have tied red thread round the bairns's throats,” (so her fondness still called them,) “and given ilka ane of them a riding-wand of rowan-tree, forby sewing up a slip of witch-elm into their doublets; and I wish to know of your reverence if there be ony thing mair that a lone woman can do in the matter of ghosts and fairies?—Be here! that I should have named their unlucky names twice ower!”

“Dame Glendinning,” answered the monk, somewhat abruptly, when the good woman had finished her narrative, “I pray you, do you know the miller's daughter?”

“Did I know Kate Happer?” replied the widow; “as well as the beggar knows his dish—a canty quean was Kate, and a special cummer of my ain maybe twenty years syne.”

“She cannot be the wench I mean,” said Father Eustace; “she after whom I inquire is scarce fifteen, a black-eyed girl—you may have seen her at the kirk.”

“Your reverence must be in the right; and she is my cummer's nie'ce, doubtless, that you are pleased to speak of: but I thank God I have always been too duteous in attention to the mass, to know whether young wenches have black eyes or green ones.”

The good father had so much of the world about him, that he was unable to avoid smiling, when the dame boasted her absolute resistance to a temptation, which was not quite so liable to beset her as those of the other sex.

“Perhaps, then,” he said, “you know her usual dress, Dame Glendinning?”

“Ay, ay, father,” answered the dame readily enough, “a white kirtle the wench wears, to hide the dust of the mill, no doubt—and a blue hood, that might weel be spared, for pridefulness.”

“Then, may it not be she,” said the father, “who has brought back this book, and stepped out of the way when the children came near her?”

The dame paused—was unwilling to combat the solution suggested by the monk—but was at a loss to conceive why the lass of the mill should come so far from home into so wild a corner merely to leave an old book with three children, from whose observation she wished to conceal herself.

Above all, she could not understand why, since she had acquaintances in the family, and since the Dame Glendinning had always paid her multure and knaveship duly, the said lass of the mill had not come in to rest herself and eat a morsel, and tell her the current news of the water.

These very objections satisfied the monk that his conjectures were right. “Dame,” he said, “you must be cautious in what you say. This is an instance—I would it were the sole one—of the power of the Enemy in these days. The matter must be sifted—with a curious and a careful hand.”

“Indeed,” said Elspeth, trying to catch and chime in with the ideas of the Sub-Prior, “I have often thought the miller's folk at the Monastery-mill were far over careless in sifting our melder, and in bolting it too—some folk say they will not stick at whiles to put in a handful of ashes amongst Christian folk's corn-meal.”

“That shall be looked after also, dame,” said the Sub-Prior, not displeased to see that the good old woman went off on a false scent; “and now, by your leave, I will see this lady—do you go before, and prepare her to see me.”

Dame Glendinning left the lower apartment accordingly, which the monk