The monastery; The abbot.

78 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
left the monk and his mule far behind. - And there, thought the Sub-Prior,
goes another plague of the times — a fellow whose birth designed him to
cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and unchristian
divisions of the country, into a daring and dissolute robber. The barons
of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and ruffians, oppressing the
poor by violence, and wasting the Church, by extorting free-quarters from
abbeys and priories, without either shame or reason. I fear me I shall be
too late to counsel the Abbot to make a stand against these daring sorners*
-I must make haste." He struck his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from
the path, and the rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.
"Art thou, too, infected with the spirit of the times?" said the SubPrior; " thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as restive
as any wild jack-man or stubborn heretic of them all."
While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of a
female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,
"Good evening, Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
With vour mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you througli valley, or ride you o'er hill,
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
T'he volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back."
The Sub-Prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which
could conceal an ambushed songstress. "May Our Lady have mercy on
me!" he said; "I trust my senses have not forsaken me -yet how my
thoughts should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music
which I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice in
ears, in which its melody has been so long indifferent, baffles my comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the Sacristan. Come,
good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our judgment
serves us."
But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed from the
point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid close into
her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets, testified that she
was under great terror.
While the Sub-Prior, by alternate threats and soothing, endeavoured to
reclaim the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again
heard close beside him.
"What, ho! Sub-Prior, and came you but here
To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier
Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise.
Ride back with the book, or you'll pay for your prize.
Back, back,
There's death in the track l
In the name of my master I bid thee bear back."'In the name of MY Master," said the astonished monk, "that name
before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art
that hauntest me thus?'
The same voice replied,
"That which is neither ill nor well,
That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell,
A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream;
A form that men spy
With the half-shut eye.
In the beams of the setting sun, am."
"This is more than simple fantasy," said the Sub-Prior, rousing himself; though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the
* To sorne, in Scotland, is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is declared equivatent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very
much oy exactions of this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of Angus, I
think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once a-year, with a train of a thousand htrse, and
abiding till the whole winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.