The monastery; The abbot.

214 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
share of the prey which the others must necessarily claim, had as yet ab,
stained from despoiling the Halidome. The Community was also understood to be protected by the powerful Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, whose zealous attachment to the Catholic faith caused at a later
period the great rebellion of the tenth of Elizabeth.
Thus happily placed, it was supposed by the friends of the decaying cause
of the Roman Catholic faith, that some determined example of courage and
resolution, exercised where the franchises of the church were yet entire, and
her jurisdiction undisputed, might awe the progress of the new opinions
into activity; and, protected by the laws which still existed,.and by the
favour of the sovereign, might be the means of securing the territory which
Rome yet preserved in Scotland, and perhaps of recovering that which she
had lost.
The matter had been considered more than once by the northern Catholics
of Scotland, and they had held communication with those of the south.
Father Eustace,. devoted by his public and private vows, had caught the
flame, and had eagerly advised that they should execute the doom of heresy
on the first reformed preacher, or, according to his sense, on the first heretic
of eminence, who should venture within the precincts of the Halidome. A
heart, naturally kind and noble, was, in this instance, as it has been in
many more, deceived by its own generosity. Father Eustace would have
been a bad administrator of the inquisitorial power of Spain, where that
power was omnipotent, and where judgment was exercised without danger
to those who inflicted it. In such a situation his rigour might have relented
in favour of the criminal, whom it was at his pleasure to crush or to place
at fieedom. But in Scotland, during this crisis, the case was entirely different. The question was, whether one of the spirituality dared, at the
hazard of his own life, to step forward to assert and exercise the rights of
the church. Was there any who would venture to wield the thunder in
her cause, or must it remain like that in the hand of a painted Jupiter, the
object of derision instead of terror? The crisis was calculated to awake
the soul of Eustace; for it comprised the question, whether he dared, at all
hazards to himself, to execute with stoical severity a measure which, according to the general opinion, was to be advantageous to the church, and, according to ancient law, and to his firm belief, was not only justifiable but
meritorious.
While such resolutions were agitated amongst the Catholics, chance
placed a victim within their grasp. Ienry Warden had, with the animation
proper to the enthusiastic reformers of the age, transgressed, in the
vehemence of his zeal, the bounds of the discretional liberty allowed to his
sect so far, that it was thought the Queen's personal dignity was concerned
in bringing him to justice. He fled from Edinburgh, with recommendati.ons, however, from Lord James Stewart, afterwards the celebrated Earl
of Murray, to some of the Border chieftains of inferior rank, who were
privately conjured to procure him safe passage into England. One of the
principal persons to whom such recommendation was addressed, was Julian
Avenel; for as yet, and for a considerable time afterwards, the correspondence and interest of Lord James lay rather with the subordinate
leaders than with the chiefs of great power, and men of distinguished influence upon the Border. Julian Avenel had intrigued without scruple
with both parties-yet bad as he was, he certainly would not have practised
aught against the guest whom Lord James had recommended to his hospitality, had it not been for what he termed the preacher's officious intermeddling in his family affairs. But when he had determined to make
Warden rue the lecture he had read him, and the scene of public scandal
which he had caused in his hall, Julian resolved, with the constitutional
shrewdness of his disposition, to combine his vengeance with his interest.
And therefore, instead of doing violence. on the person of Henry Warden