The Monastery

“No, sir,” said Halbert, “my case is entirely different.”

“Then I warrant thee,” said the Baron, “thou hast stabbed some brother churl in a fray about a wench – thou art a likely lad to wrangle in such a cause.”

Ineffably disgusted at his tone and manner, Halbert Glendinning remained silent, while the thought darted across his mind, what would Julian Avenel have said, had he known the quarrel of which he spoke so lightly, had arisen on account of his own brother’s daughter! “But be thy cause of flight what it will,” said Julian, in continuation, “dost thou think the law or its emissaries can follow thee into this island, or arrest thee under the standard of Avenel? – Look at the depth of the lake, the strength of the walls, the length of the causeway – look at my men, and think if they are likely to see a comrade injured, or if I, their master, am a man to desert a faithful follower, in good or evil. I tell thee it shall be an eternal day of truce betwixt thee and justice, as they call it, from the instant thou hast put my colours into thy cap – thou shalt ride by the Warden’s nose as thou wouldst pass an old market-woman, and ne’er a cur which follows him shall dare to bay at thee!”

“I thank you for your offers, noble sir,” replied Halbert, “but I must answer in brief, that I cannot profit by them – my fortunes lead me elsewhere.”

“Thou art a self-willed fool for thy pains,” said Julian, turning from him; and signing Christie to approach, he whispered in his ear, “there is promise in that young fellow’s looks, Christie, and we want men of limbs and sinews so compacted – those thou hast brought to me of late are the mere refuse of mankind, wretches scarce worth the arrow that ends them: this youngster is limbed like Saint George. Ply him with wine and wassail – let the wenches weave their meshes about him like spiders – thou understandest?” Christie gave a sagacious nod of intelligence, and fell back to a respectful distance from his master. – “And thou, old man,” said the Baron, turning to the elder traveller, “hast thou been roaming the world after fortune too? – it seems not she has fallen into thy way.”

“So please you,” replied Warden, “I were perhaps more to be pitied than I am now, had I indeed met with that fortune, which, like others, I have sought in my greener days.”

“Nay, understand me, friend,” said the Baron; “if thou art satisfied with thy buckram gown and long staff, I also am well content thou shouldst be as poor and contemptible as is good for the health of thy body and soul – All I care to know of thee is, the cause which hath brought thee to my castle, where few crows of thy kind care to settle. Thou art, I warrant thee, some ejected monk of a suppressed convent, paying in his old days the price of the luxurious idleness in which he spent his youth. – Ay, or it may be some pilgrim with a budget of lies from Saint James of Compostella, or Our Lady of Loretto; or thou mayest be some pardoner with his budget of relics from Rome, forgiving sins at a penny a-dozen, and one to the tale. – Ay, I guess why I find thee in this boy’s company, and doubtless thou wouldst have such a strapping lad as he to carry thy wallet, and relieve thy lazy shoulders; but by the mass I will cross thy cunning. I make my vow to sun and moon, I will not see a proper lad so misleard as to run the country with an old knave like Simmie and his brother. {Footnote: Two quaestionarii, or begging friars, whose accoutrements and roguery make the subject of an old Scottish satirical poem} Away with thee!” he added, rising in wrath, and speaking so fast as to give no opportunity of answer, being probably determined to terrify the elder guest into an abrupt flight – “Away with thee, with thy clouted coat, scrip, and scallop-shell, or, by the name of Avenel, I will have them loose the hounds on thee.”

Warden waited with the greatest patience until Julian Avenel, astonished that the threats and violence of his language made no impression on him, paused in a sort of wonder, and said in a less imperious tone, “Why the fiend dost thou not answer me?”

“When you have done speaking,” said Warden, in the same composed manner, “it will be full time to reply.”

“Say on man, in the devil’s name – but take heed – beg not here – were it but for the rinds of cheese, the refuse of the rats, or a morsel that my dogs would turn from – neither a grain of meal, nor the nineteenth part of a gray groat, will I give to any feigned limmer of thy coat.”

“It may be,” answered Warden, “that you would have less quarrel with my coat if you knew what it covers, I am neither a friar nor mendicant, and would be right glad to hear thy testimony against these foul deceivers of God’s church, and usurpers of his rights over the Christian flock, were it given in Christian charity.”

“And who or what art thou, then,” said Avenel, “that thou comest to this Border land, and art neither monk, nor soldier, nor broken man?”

“I am an humble teacher of the holy word,” answered Warden. “This letter from a most noble person will speak why I am here at this present time.”

He delivered the letter to the Baron, who regarded the seal with some surprise, and then looked on the letter itself, which seemed to excite still more. He then fixed his eyes on the stranger, and said, in a menacing tone, “I think thou darest not betray me or deceive me?”

“I am not the man to attempt either,” was the concise reply.

Julian Avenel carried the letter to the window, where he perused, or at least attempted to peruse it more than once, often looking from the paper and gazing on the stranger who had delivered it, as if he meant to read the purport of the missive in the face of the messenger. Julian at length called to the female, – “Catherine, bestir thee, and fetch me presently that letter which I bade thee keep ready at hand in thy casket, having no sure lockfast place of my own.”

Catherine went with the readiness of one willing to be employed; and as she walked, the situation which requires a wider gown and a longer girdle, and in which woman claims from man a double portion of the most anxious care, was still more visible than before. She soon returned with the paper, and was rewarded with a cold – “I thank thee, wench; thou art a careful secretary.”

This second paper he also perused and reperused more than once, and still, as he read it, bent from time to time a wary and observant eye upon Henry Warden. This examination and re-examination, though both the man and the place were dangerous, the preacher endured with the most composed and steady countenance, seeming, under the eagle, or rather the vulture eye of the baron, as unmoved as under the gaze of an ordinary and peaceful peasant. At length Julian Avenel folded both papers, and having put them into the pocket of his cloak, cleared his brow, and, coming forward, addressed his female companion. “Catherine,” said he, “I have done this good man injustice, when I mistook him for one of the drones of Rome. He is a preacher, Catherine – a preacher of the – the new doctrine of the Lords of the Congregation.”

“The doctrine of the blessed Scriptures,” said the preacher, “purified from the devices of men.”

“Sayest thou?” said Julian Avenel – “Well, thou mayest call it what thou lists; but to me it is recommended, because it flings off all those sottish dreams about saints and angels and devils, and unhorses lazy monks that have ridden us so long, and spur-galled us so hard. No more masses and corpse-gifts – no more tithes and offerings to make men poor – no more prayers or psalms to make men cowards-no more christenings and penances, and confessions and marriages.”

“So please you,” said Henry Warden, “it is against the corruptions, not against the fundamental doctrines, of the church, which we desire to renovate, and not to abolish.”

“Prithee, peace, man,” said the Baron; “we of the laity care not what you set up, so you pull merrily down what stands in our way. Specially it suits well with us of the Southland fells; for it is our profession to turn the world upside down, and we live ever the blithest life when the downer side is uppermost.”

Warden would have replied; but the Baron allowed him not time, striking the table with the hilt of his dagger, and crying out, – “Ha! you loitering knaves, bring our supper-meal quickly. See you not this holy man is exhausted for lack of food? heard ye ever of priest or preacher that devoured not his five meals a-day?”

The attendants bustled to and fro, and speedily brought in several large smoking platters filled with huge pieces of beef, boiled and roasted, but without any variety whatsoever; without vegetables, and almost without bread, though there was at the upper end a few oat-cakes in a basket. Julian Avenel made a sort of apology to Warden.

“You have been commended to our care, Sir Preacher, since that is your style, by a person whom we highly honour.”

“I am assured,” said Warden, “that the most noble Lord – ”

“Prithee, peace, man,” said Avenel; “what need of naming names, so we understand each other? I meant but to speak in reference to your safety and comfort, of which he desires us to be chary. Now, for your safety, look at my walls and water. But touching your comfort, we have no corn of our own, and the meal-girnels of the south are less easily transported than their beeves, seeing they have no legs to walk upon. But what though? a stoup of wine thou shalt have, and of the best – thou shalt sit betwixt Catherine and me at the board-end. – And, Christie, do thou look to the young springald, and call to the cellarer for a flagon of the best.”

The Baron took his wonted place at the upper end of the board; his Catherine sate down, and courteously pointed to a seat betwixt them for their reverend guest. But notwithstanding the influence both of hunger and fatigue, Henry Warden retained his standing posture.

Chapter the Twenty-Fifth

  When lovely woman stoops to folly,  And finds too late that men betray —

Julian Avenel saw with surprise the demeanour of the reverend stranger. “Beshrew me,” he said, “these new-fashioned religioners have fast-days, I warrant me – the old ones used to confer these blessings chiefly on the laity.”

“We acknowledge no such rule,” said the preacher – “We hold that our faith consists not in using or abstaining from special meats on special days; and in fasting we rend our hearts, and not our garments.”

“The better – the better for yourselves, and the worse for Tom Tailor,” said the Baron; “but come, sit down, or, if thou needs must e’en give us a cast of thy office, mutter thy charm.”

“Sir Baron,” said the preacher, “I am in a strange land, where neither mine office nor my doctrine are known, and where, it would seem, both are greatly misunderstood. It is my duty so to bear me, that in my person, however unworthy, my Master’s dignity may be respected, and that sin may take not confidence from relaxation of the bonds of discipline.”

“Ho la! halt there,” said the Baron; “thou wert sent hither for thy safety, but not, I think, to preach to me, or control me. What is it thou wouldst have, Sir Preacher? Remember thou speakest to one somewhat short of patience, who loves a short health and a long draught.”

“In a word, then,” said Henry Warden, “that lady – ”

“How?” said the Baron, starting – “what of her? – what hast thou to say of that dame?”

“Is she thy house-dame?” said the preacher, after a moment’s pause, in which, he seemed to seek for the best mode of expressing what he had to say – “Is she, in brief, thy wife?”

The unfortunate young woman pressed both her hands on her face, as if to hide it, but the deep blush which crimsoned her brow and neck, showed that her cheeks were also glowing; and the bursting tears, which found their way betwixt her slender fingers, bore witness to her sorrow, as well as to her shame.

“Now, by my father’s ashes!” said the Baron, rising and spurning from him his footstool with such violence, that it hit the wall on the opposite side of the apartment – then instantly constraining himself, he muttered, “What need to run myself into trouble for a fool’s word?” – then resuming his seat, he answered coldly and scornfully – “No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife – Cease thy whimpering, thou foolish wench – she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman.”

“Handfasted?” – repeated Warden.

“Knowest thou not that rite, holy man?” said Avenel, in the same tone of derision; “then I will tell thee. We Border-men are more wary than your inland clowns of Fife and Lothian – no jump in the dark for us – no clenching the fetters around our wrists till we know how they will wear with us – we take our wives, like our horses, upon trial. When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and day – that space gone by, each may choose another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life – and this we call handfasting.” {Footnote: This custom of handfasting actually prevailed in the upland days. It arose partly from the want of priests. While the convents subsisted, monks were detached on regular circuits through the wilder districts, to marry those who had lived in this species of connexion. A practice of the same kind existed in the Isle of Portland.}

“Then,” said the preacher, “I tell thee, noble Baron, in brotherly love to thy soul, it is a custom licentious, gross, and corrupted, and, if persisted in, dangerous, yea, damnable. It binds thee to the frailer being while she is the object of desire – it relieves thee when she is most the subject of pity – it gives all to brutal sense, and nothing to generous and gentle affection. I say to thee, that he who can meditate the breach of such an engagement, abandoning the deluded woman and the helpless offspring, is worse than the birds of prey; for of them the males remain with their mates until the nestlings can take wing. Above all, I say it is contrary to the pure Christian doctrine, which assigns woman to man as the partner of his labour, the soother of his evil, his helpmate in peril, his friend in affliction; not as the toy of his looser hours, or as a flower, which, once cropped, he may throw aside at pleasure.”

“Now, by the Saints, a most virtuous homily!” said the Baron; “quaintly conceived and curiously pronounced, and to a well-chosen congregation. Hark ye, Sir Gospeller! trow ye to have a fool in hand? Know I not that your sect rose by bluff Harry Tudor, merely because ye aided him to change his Kate; and wherefore should I not use the same Christian liberty with mine? Tush, man! bless the good food, and meddle not with what concerns thee not – thou hast no gull in Julian Avenel.”

“He hath gulled and cheated himself,” said the preacher, “should he even incline to do that poor sharer of his domestic cares the imperfect justice that remains to him. Can he now raise her to the rank of a pure and uncontaminated matron? – Can he deprive his child of the misery of owing birth to a mother who has erred? He can indeed give them both the rank, the state of married wife and of lawful son; but, in public opinion, their names will be smirched and sullied with a stain which his tardy efforts cannot entirely efface. Yet render it to them, Baron of Avenel, render to them this late and imperfect justice. Bid me bind you together for ever, and celebrate the day of your bridal, not with feasting or wassail, but with sorrow for past sin, and the resolution to commence a better life. Happy then will have the chance been that has drawn me to this castle, though I come driven by calamity, and unknowing where my course is bound, like a leaf travelling on the north wind.”

The plain, and even coarse features, of the zealous speaker, were warmed at once and ennobled by the dignity of his enthusiasm; and the wild Baron, lawless as he was, and accustomed to spurn at the control whether of religious or moral law, felt, for the first time perhaps in his life, that he was under subjection to a mind superior to his own. He sat mute and suspended in his deliberations, hesitating betwixt anger and shame, yet borne down by the weight of the just rebuke thus boldly fulminated against him.

The unfortunate young woman, conceiving hopes from her tyrant’s silence and apparent indecision, forgot both her fear and shame in her timid expectation that Avenel would relent; and fixing upon him her anxious and beseeching eyes, gradually drew near and nearer to his seat, till at length, laying a trembling hand on his cloak, she ventured to utter, “O noble Julian, listen to the good man!”

The speech and the motion were ill-timed, and wrought on that proud and wayward spirit the reverse of her wishes.

The fierce Baron started up in a fury, exclaiming, “What! thou foolish callet, art thou confederate with this strolling vagabond, whom thou hast seen beard me in my own hall! Hence with thee, and think that I ana proof both to male and female hypocrisy!”

The poor girl started back, astounded at his voice of thunder and looks of fury, and, turning pale as death, endeavoured to obey his orders, and tottered towards the door. Her limbs failed in the attempt, and she fell on the stone floor in a manner which her situation might have rendered fatal – The blood gushed from her face. – Halbert Glendinning brooked not a sight so brutal, but, uttering a deep imprecation, started from his seat, and laid his hand on his sword, under the strong impulse of passing it through the body of the cruel and hard-hearted ruffian. But Christie of the Clinthill, guessing his intention, threw his arms around him, and prevented him from stirring to execute his purpose.

The impulse to such an act of violence was indeed but momentary, as it instantly appeared that Avenel himself, shocked at the effects of his violence, was lifting up and endeavouring to soothe in his own way the terrified Catherine.

“Peace,” he said, “prithee, peace, thou silly minion – why, Kate, though I listen not to this tramping preacher, I said not what might happen an thou dost bear me a stout boy. There – there – dry thy tears – Call thy women. – So ho! – where be these queans? – Christie – Rowley – Hutcheon – drag them hither by the hair of the head!”

A half dozen of startled wild-looking females rushed into the room, and bore out her who might be either termed their mistress or their companion. She showed little sign of life, except by groaning faintly and keeping her hand on her side.

No sooner had this luckless female been conveyed from the apartment, than the Baron, advancing to the table, filled and drank a deep goblet of wine; then, putting an obvious restraint on his passions, turned to the preacher, who stood horror-struck at the scene he had witnessed, and said, “You have borne too hard on us, Sir Preacher – but coming with the commendations which you have brought me, I doubt not but your meaning was good. But we are a wilder folk than you inland men of Fife and Lothian. Be advised, therefore, by me – Spur not an unbroken horse – put not your ploughshare too deep into new land – Preach to us spiritual liberty, and we will hearken to you. – But we will give no way to spiritual bondage. – Sit, therefore, down, and pledge me in old sack, and we will talk over these matters.”

“It is from spiritual bondage,” said the preacher, in the same tone of admonitory reproof, “that I came to deliver you – it is from a bondage more fearful than than that of the heaviest earthly gyves – it is from your own evil passions.”

“Sit down,” said Avenel, fiercely; “sit down while the play is good – else by my father’s crest and my mother’s honour! – ”

“Now,” whispered Christie of the Clinthill to Halbert, “if he refuse to sit down, I would not give a gray groat for his head.”

“Lord Baron,” said Warden, “thou hast placed me in extremity. But if the question be, whether I am to hide the light which I am commanded to show forth, or to lose the light of this world, my choice is made. I say to thee, like the Holy Baptist to Herod, it is not lawful for thee to have this woman; and I say it though bonds and death be the consequence, counting my life as nothing in comparison of the ministry to which I am called.”

Julian Avenel, enraged at the firmness of this reply, flung from his right hand the cup in which he was about to drink to his guest, and from the other cast off the hawk, which flew wildly through the apartment. His first motion was to lay hand upon his dagger. But, changing his resolution, he exclaimed, “To the dungeon with this insolent stroller! – I will hear no man speak a word for him – Look to the falcon, Christie, thou fool – an she escape, I will despatch you after her every man – Away with that hypocritical dreamer – drag him hence if he resist!”

He was obeyed in both points. Christie of the Clinthill arrested the hawk’s flight, by putting his foot on her jesses, and so holding her fast, while Henry Warden was led off, without having shown the slightest symptoms of terror, by two of the Baron’s satellites. Julian Avenel walked the apartment for a short time in sullen silence, and despatching one of his attendants with a whispered message, which probably related to the health of the unfortunate Catherine, he said aloud, “These rash and meddling priests – By Heaven! they make us worse than we would be without them.”

{Footnote: If it were necessary to name a prototype for this brutal, licentious and cruel Border chief, in an age which showed but too many such, the Laird of Black Ormiston might be selected for that purpose. He was a friend and confidant of Bothwell, and an agent in Henry Darnley’s murder. At his last stage, he was, like other great offenders, a seeming penitent; and, as his confession bears, divers gentlemen and servants being in the chamber, he said, “For God’s sake, sit down and pray for me, for I have been a great sinner otherwise,” (that is, besides his share in Darnley’s death,) “for the which God is this day punishing me; for of all men on the earth, I have been one of the proudest, and most high-minded, and most unclean of my body. But specially I have shed the innocent blood of one Michael Hunter with my own hands. Alas, therefore! because the said Michael, having me lying on my back, having a fork in his hand, might have slain me if he had pleased, and did it not, which of all things grieves me most in conscience. Also, in a rage, I hanged a poor man for a horse; – with many other wicked deeds, for whilk I ask my God mercy. It is not marvel I have been wicked, considering the wicked company that ever I have been in, but specially within the seven years by-past, in which I never saw two good men or one good deed, but all kind of wickedness, and yet God would not suffer me to be lost.” – See the whole confession in the State Trials.

Another worthy of the Borders, called Geordy Bourne, of somewhat subordinate rank, was a similar picture of profligacy. He had fallen into the hands of Sir Robert Carey, then Warden of the English East Marches, who gives the following account of his prisoner’s confession: —

“When all things were quiet, and the watch set at night, after supper, about ten of the clock, I took one of my men’s liveries, and put it about me, and took two other of my servants with me in their liveries; and we three, as the Warden’s men, came to the Provost Marshal’s where Bourne was, and were let into his chamber. We sate down by him, and told him that we were desirous to see him, because we heard he was stout and valiant, and true to his friend, and that we were sorry our master could not be moved to save his life. He voluntarily of himself said, that he had lived long enough to do so many villanies as he had done; and withal told us, that he had lain with above forty men’s wives, what in England what in Scotland; and that he had killed seven Englishmen with his own hands, cruelly murdering them; and that he had spent his whole time in whoring, drinking, stealing, and taking deep revenge for slight offences. He seemed to be very penitent, and much desired a minister for the comfort of his soul. We promised him to let our master know his desire, who, we knew would promptly grant it. We took leave of him; and presently I took order that Mr Selby, a very honest preacher, should go to him, and not stir from him till his execution the next morning; for after I had heard his own confession, I was resolved no conditions should save his life, and so took order, that at the gates opening the next morning, he should be carried to execution, which accordingly was performed.” —Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth.}