The monastery; The abbot.

172 WAVE RLEY NOVELS.
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."
" landfasted?"-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."*
"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: This cus.tom 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
sle of Portlaud.