The Monastery by Walter Scott (top ten books of all time .txt) 📗

yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, “a sort of recess or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate vicinity of one of those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the magnificent roof, whose fall has now encumbered that part of the building with its ruins.”

“I think,” said I, “that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in the side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to decipher?”

“You are right,” answered the Benedictine; and again consulting his memoranda, he added, “the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country—the arms part y per pale.”

“I think,” said I, “there is no part of this ancient structure with which you are not as well acquainted as was the mason who built it. But if your information be correct, he who made out these bearings must have had better eyes than mine.”

“His eyes,” said the Benedictine, “have long been closed in death; probably when he inspected the monument it was in a more perfect state, or he may have derived his information from the tradition of the place.”

“I assure you,” said I, “that no such tradition now exists. I have made several reconnoissances among the old people, in hopes to learn something of the armorial bearings, but I never heard of such a circumstance. It seems odd that you should have acquired it in a foreign land.”

“These trifling particulars,” he replied, “were formerly looked upon as more important, and they were sanctified to the exiles who retained recollection of them, because they related to a place dear indeed to memory, but which their eyes could never again behold. It is possible, in like manner, that on the Potomac or Susquehannah, you may find traditions current concerning places in England, which are utterly forgotten in the neighbourhood where they originated. But to my purpose. In this recess, marked by the armorial bearings, lies buried a treasure, and it is in order to remove it that I have undertaken my present journey.”

“A treasure!” echoed I, in astonishment.

“Yes,” replied the monk, “an inestimable treasure, for those who know how to use it rightly.”

I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having a smart cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the room before gay eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced my ear, “Captain Clutterbuck's tilbury—drive up.” But I resisted the devil, and he fled from me.

“I believe,” said I, “all hidden treasure belongs either to the king or the lord of the soil; and as I have served his majesty, I cannot concern myself in any adventure which may have an end in the Court of Exchequer.”

“The treasure I seek,” said the stranger, smiling, “will not be envied by princes or nobles,—-it is simply the heart of an upright man.”

“Ah! I understand you,” I answered; “some relic, forgotten in the confusion of the Reformation. I know the value which men of your persuasion put upon the bodies and limbs of saints. I have seen the Three Kings of Cologne.”

“The relics which I seek, however,” said the Benedictine, “are not precisely of that nature. The excellent relative whom I have already mentioned, amused his leisure hours with putting into form the traditions of his family, particularly some remarkable circumstances which took place about the first breaking out of the schism of the church in Scotland. He became so much interested in his own labours, that at length he resolved that the heart of one individual, the hero of his tale, should rest no longer in a land of heresy, now deserted by all his kindred. As he knew where it was deposited, he formed the resolution to visit his native country for the purpose of recovering this valued relic. But age, and at length disease, interfered with his resolution, and it was on his deathbed that he charged me to undertake the task in his stead. The various important events which have crowded upon each other, our ruin and our exile, have for many years obliged me to postpone this delegated duty. Why, indeed, transfer the relics of a holy and worthy man to a country, where religion and virtue are become the mockery of the scorner? I have now a home, which I trust may be permanent, if any thing in this earth can be, termed so. Thither will I transport the heart of the good father, and beside the shrine which it shall occupy, I will construct my own grave.”

“He must, indeed, have been an excellent man,” replied I, “whose memory, at so distant a period, calls forth such strong marks of regard.”

“He was, as you justly term him,” said the ecclesiastic, “indeed excellent—excellent in his life and doctrine—excellent, above all, in his self-denied and disinterested sacrifice of all that life holds dear to principle and to friendship. But you shall read his history. I shall be happy at once to gratify your curiosity, and to show my sense of your kindness, if you will have the goodness to procure me the means of accomplishing my object.” I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the rubbish amongst which he proposed to search was no part of the ordinary burial-ground, and as I was on the best terms with the sexton, I had little doubt that I could procure him the means of executing his pious purpose.

With this promise we parted for the night; and on the ensuing morning I made it my business to see the sexton, who, for a small gratuity, readily granted permission of search, on condition, however, that he should be present himself, to see that the stranger removed nothing of intrinsic value.

“To banes, and skulls, and hearts, if he can find ony, he shall be welcome,” said this guardian of the ruined Monastery, “there's plenty a' about, an he's curious of them; but if there be ony picts” (meaning perhaps pyx) “or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of gold and silver, deil hae me an I conneve at their being removed.”

The sexton also stipulated, that our researches should take place at night, being unwilling to excite observation, or give rise to scandal. My new acquaintance and I spent the day as became lovers of hoar antiquity. We visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again and again during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at David's, we walked in the afternoon to such places in the neighbourhood as ancient tradition or modern conjecture had rendered mark worthy. Night found us in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton, who carried a dark lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of the dead, and the fragments of that architecture, which they doubtless trusted would have canopied their bones till doomsday.

I am by no means particularly superstitious, and yet there was that in the present service which I did not very much like. There was something awful in the resolution of disturbing, at such an hour, and in such a place, the still and mute sanctity of the grave. My companions were free from this impression—the stranger from