The monastery; The abbot.

176 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
grounded upon the deepest conviction which duty and principle could afford;
and Glendinning, who had viewed the conduct of Avenel with the deepest
abhorrence, was proportionally interested in the brave old man, who had
ventured life rather than withhold the censure due to guilt. This pitch of
virtue seemed to him to be in religion what was demanded by chivalry of
her votaries in war; an absolute surrender of all selfish feelings, and a come
bination of every energy proper to the human mind, to discharge the task
which duty demanded.
Halbert was at the period when youth was most open to generous emotions, and knows best how to appreciate them in others, and he felt, although
he hardly knew why, that, whether catholic or heretic, the safety of this
man deeply interested him. Curiosity mingled with the feeling, and led
him to wonder what the nature of those doctrines could be, which stole their
votary so completely from himself, and devoted him to chains or to death as
their sworn champion. He had indeed been told of saints and martyrs of
former days, who had braved for their religious faith the extremity of death
and torture. But their spirit of enthusiastic devotion had long slept in the
ease and indolent habits of their successors, and their adventures, like those
of knights-errant, were rather read for amusement than for edification. A
new impulse had been necessary to rekindle the energies of religious zeal,
and that impulse was now operating in favour of a purer religion, with one
of whose steadiest votaries the youth had now met for the first time.
The sense that he himself was a prisoner, under the power of this savage
chieftain, by no means diminished Halbert's interest in the fate of his fellow sufferer, while he determined at the same time so far to emulate his
fortitude, that neither threats nor suffering should compel him to enter into
the service of such a master. The possibility of escape next occurred to
him, and though with little hope of effecting it in that way, Glendinning
proceeded to examine more particularly the window of the apartment. The
apartment was situated in the first story of the castle; and was not so far
from the rock on which it was founded, but that an active and bold man
might with little assistance descend to a shelf of rock which was immediately below the window, and from thence either leap or drop himself down
into the lake which lay before his eye, clear and blue in the placid light of
a full summer's moon.-" Were I once placed on that ledge," thought Glendinning,'Julian Avenel and Christie had seen the last of me." The size
of the window favoured such an attempt, but the stanchions or iron bars
seemed to form an insurmountable obstacle.
While Halbert Glendinning gazed from the window with that eagerness
of hope which was prompted by the energy of his character and his determination not to yield to circumstances, his ear caught some sounds from
below, and listening with more attention, he could distinguish the voice of
the preacher engaged in his solitary devotions. To open a correspondence
with him became immediately his object, and failing to do so by less marked
sounds, he at length ventured to speak, and was answered from beneath"Is it thou, my son?" The voice of the prisoner now sounded more distinctly than when it was first heard, for Warden had approached the small
aperture, which, serving his prison for a window, opened just betwixt the
wall and the rock, and admitted a scanty portion of light through a wall
of immense thickness. This soupirail being placed exactly under Halbert's
window, the contiguity permitted the prisoners to converse in a low tone,
when Halbert declared his intention to escape, and the possibility he saw
of achieving his purpose, but for the iron stanchions of the window"Prove thy strength, my son, in the name of God!" said the preacher.
Halbert obeyed him more in despair than hope, but to his great astonishment, and somewhat to his terror, the bar parted asunder near the bottom,
and the longer part being easily bent outwards, and not secured with lead
in the upper socket, dropt out into Halbert's hand. He immediately whis