The monastery; The abbot.

THE MONA-STERY. 95
Familiarized in some degree with marvels, and desperately desirous of
showing the courage he had boasted, Halbert plunged his hand, without
hesitation, into the flame, trusting to the rapidity of the motion, to snatch
out the volume before the fire could greatly affect him. But he was much
disappointed. The flame instantly caught upon his sleeve, and though he
withdrew his hand immediately, yet his arm was so dreadfully scorched,
that he had well-nigh screamed with pain. He suppressed the natural
expression of anguish, however, and only intimated the agony which he
felt by a contortion and a muttered groan. The White Lady passed her
cold hand over his arm, and, ere she had finished the following metrical
chant, his pain had entirely gone, and no mark of the scorching was
visible:
"Rash thy deed,
Mortal weed
To immortal flames applying;
Rasher trust
Has thing of dust,
On his own weak worth relying:
Strip thee of such fences vain,
Strip, and prove thy luck again."
Obedient to what he understood to be the meaning of his conductress,
IHalbert bared his arm to the shoulder, throwing down the remains of his
sleeve, which no sooner touched the floor on which he stood than it collected itself together, shrivelled itself up, and was without any visible fire
reduced to light tinder, which a sudden breath of wind dispersed into
empty space. The White Lady, observing the surprise of the youth, immediately repeated"Mortal warp and mortal woof,
Cannot brook this charmed roof;
All that mortal art hath wrought,
In our cell returns to nought.
The molten gold returns to clay,
The polish'd diamond melts away.
All is alter'd, all is flown,
Nought stands fast but truth alone.
Not for that thy quest give o'er:
Courage! prove thy chance once more."
Imboldened by her words, Halbert Glendinning made a second effort,
and, plunging his bare arm into the flame, took out the sacred volume without feeling either heat or inconvenience of any kind. Astonished, and
almost terrified at his own success, he beheld the flame collect itself, and
shoot up into one long and final stream, which seemed as if it would ascend
to the very roof of the cavern, and then, sinking as suddenly, became
totally extinguished. The deepest darkness ensued; but Halbert had no
time to consider his situation, for the White Lady had already caught his
hand, and they ascended to upper air with the same velocity with which
they had sunk into the earth.
They stood by the fountain in the Corri-nan-shian when they emerged
from the bowels of the earth; but on casting a bewildered glance around
him, the youth was surprised to observe, that the shadows had fallen far to
the east, and that the day was well-nigh spent. He gazed on his conductress for explanation, but her figure began to fade before his eyes - her
cheeks grew paler, her features less distinct, her form became shadowy,
and blended itself with the mist which was ascending the hollow ravine.
What had late the symmetry of form, and the delicate, yet clear hues of
feminine beauty, now resembled the flitting and pale ghost of some maiden
who has died for love, as it is seen indistinctly and by moonlight, by her
perjured lover.
" Stay, spirit 1" said the youth, imboldened by his success in the subterranean dome, "thy kindness must not leave me, as one encumbered with a
weapon he knows not how to wield. Thou must teach me the art to read,
and to understand this volume; else what avails it me that I possess it?"
But the figure of the White Lady still waned before his eye, until it