The monastery; The abbot.

THE ABBOT. 863
their journey westward, those whose route lay across the river, and was
directed towards the north, summoned the Bridgeward, and demanded a
free passage.
" I will not lower the bridge," answered Peter, in a voice querulous with
age and ill-humour.-"Come Papist, come Protestant, ye are all the same.
The Papist threatened us with Purgatory, and fleeched us with pardons —
the Protestant mints at us with his sword, and cuttles us with the liberty
of conscience; but never a one of either says,' Peter, there is your penny.'
I am well tired of all this, and for no man shall the bridge fall that pays
me not ready money; and I would have you know I care as little for
Geneva as for Rome —as little for homilies as for pardons; and the silver
Fennies are the only passports I will hear of."'
"Here is a proper old chuff!" said Woodcock to his companion; then
raising his voice, he exclaimed, "Hark thee, dog-Bridgeward, villain, dost
thou think we have refused thy namesake Peter's pence to Rome, to pay
thine at the bridge of Kennaquhair? Let thy bridge down instantly to the
followers of the house of Avenel, or by the hand of my father, and that
handled many a bridle rein, for he was a bluff Yorkshireman-I say, by
my father's hand, our Knight will blow thee out of thy solan-goose's nest
there in the middle of the water, with the light falconet which we are
bringing southward from Edinburgh to-morrow."
The Bridgeward heard, and muttered, " A plague on falcon and falconet,
on cannon and demicannon, and all the barking bull-dogs whom they halloo
against stone and lime in these our days! It was a merry time when there
was little besides handy blows, and it may be a flight of arrows that harmed
an ashler wall as little as so many hailstones. But we must jouk and let
the jaw gang by." Comforting himself in his state of diminished consequence with this pithy old proverb, Peter Bridgeward lowered the drawbridge, and permitted them to pass over. At the sight of his white hair,
albeit it discovered a visage equally peevish through age and misfortune,
Roland was inclined to give him an alms, but Adam Woodcock prevented
him. "E'en let him pay the penalty of his former churlishness and greed,"
he said; " the wolf, when he has lost his teeth, should be treated no better
than a cur."
Leaving the Bridgeward to lament the alteration of times, which sent
domineering soldiers and feudal retainers to his place of passage, instead
of peaceful pilgrims, and reduced him to become the oppressed, instead of
playing the extortioner, the travellers turned them northward; and Adam
Woodcock, well acquainted with that part of the country, proposed to cut
short a considerable portion of the road, by traversing the little vale of
Glendearg, so famous for the adventures which befell therein during the
earlier part of the Benedictine's manuscript. With these, and with the
thousand commentaries, representations, and misrepresentations, to which
they had given rise, Roland Groeme was, of course, well acquainted; for in
the Castle of Avenel, as well as in other great establishments, the inmates
talked of nothing so often, or with such pleasure, as of the private affairs
of their lord and lady. But while Roland. was viewing with interest these
haunted scenes, in which things were said to have passed beyond the ordinary laws of nature, Adam Woodcock was still regretting in his secret soul
the unfinished revel and the unsung ballad, and kept every now and then
breaking out with some such verses as these:"The Friars of Fail drank berry-brown ale,
The best that e'er was tasted;
The Monks of Melrose made gude kale
On Fridays, when they fasted.
Saint Monance' sister,
The gray priest kist herFiend save the company!
Sing hay trix, trim-gro-lrix,
Under the greenwood tree."
" By my hand, friend Woodcock," said the page, " though X know you