The monastery; The abbot.

INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 23
who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the
virtues necessary to his time-firmness and intrepidity-a true love of his
country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is surrounded. - For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope that
the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation has rent them from the
bosom of the church, will, in his own good time and manner, restore them
to its holy pale. The efforts of an individual, obscure and humble as
myself, might well retard, but could never advance, a work so mighty."
"May I then inquire, sir," said I, "with what purpose you seek this
country?'
Ere my companion replied, he took from his pocket a clasped paper book,
about the size of a regimental orderly-book, full, as it seemed, of memoranda; and, drawing one of the candles close to him, (for David, as a strong
proof of his respect for the stranger, had indulged us with two,) he seemed
to peruse the contents very earnestly.
" There is among the ruins of the western end of the Abbey church,"
said he, looking up to me, yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and
occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, "a sort of recess
or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate vicinity of one of
those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the magnificent roof,
whose fall has now encumbered that part of the building with its ruins."
" I think," said I, "that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in
the side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved
stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to
decipher?"
"You are right," answered the Benedictine; and again consulting his
memoranda, he added, "the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the
same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are
two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country - the arms part y
Ier pale."
" I think," said I, "there is no part of this ancient structure with which
you are not as well acquainted as was the mason who built it. But if your
information be correct, he who made out these bearings must have had
better eyes than mine."
" His eyes," said the Benedictine, " have long been closed in death; probably when he inspected the monument it was in a more perfect state, or he
may have derived his information from the tradition of the place."
" I assure you," said I, "that no such tradition now exists. I have made
several reconnoissances among the old people, in hopes to learn something
of the armorial bearings, but I never heard of such a circumstance. It
seems odd that you should have acquired it in a foreign land."
"These trifling particulars," he replied, "were formerly looked upon as
more important, and they were sanctified to the exiles who retained recollection of them, because they related to a place dear indeed to memory, but
which their eyes could never again behold. It is possible, in like manner,
that on the Potomac or Susquehannah, you may find traditions current concerning places in England, which are utterly forgotten in the neighbourhood
where they originated. But to my purpose. In this recess, marked by the
armorial bearings, lies buried a treasure, and it is in order to remove it that
I have undertaken my present journey.'
"A treasure 1" echoed I, in astonishment.
"Yes," replied the monk, "an inestimable treasure, for those who know
how to use it rightly."
I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having a smart
cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the room before
my eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced in my ear, " Captain Clut.