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

his energetic desire to execute the purpose for which he came—and the sexton from habitual indifference. We soon stood in the aisle, which, by the account of the Benedictine, contained the bones of the family of Glendinning, and were busily employed in removing the rubbish from a corner which the stranger pointed out. If a half-pay Captain could have represented an ancient Border-knight, or an ex-Benedictine of the nineteenth century a wizard monk of the sixteenth, we might have aptly enough personified the search after Michael Scott's lamp and book of magic power. But the sexton would have been de trop in the group. {Footnote: This is one of those passages which must now read awkwardly, since every one knows that the Novelist and the author of the Lay of the Minstrel, is the same person. But before the avowal was made, the author was forced into this and similar offences against good taste, to meet an argument, often repeated, that there was something very mysterious in the Author of Waverley's reserve concerning Sir Walter Scott, an author sufficiently voluminous at least. I had a great mind to remove the passages from this edition, but the more candid way is to explain how they came there.}

Ere the stranger, assisted by the sexton in his task, had been long at work, they came to some hewn stones, which seemed to have made part of a small shrine, though now displaced and destroyed.

“Let us remove these with caution, my friend,” said the stranger, “lest we injure that which I come to seek.”

“They are prime stanes,” said the sexton, “picked free every ane of them;—warse than the best wad never serve the monks, I'se warrant.”

A minute after he had made this observation, he exclaimed, “I hae fund something now that stands again' the spade, as if it were neither earth nor stane.”

The stranger stooped eagerly to assist him.

“Na, na, haill o' my ain,” said the sexton; “nae halves or quarters;”—and he lifted from amongst the ruins a small leaden box.

“You will be disappointed, my friend,” said the Benedictine, “if you expect any thing there but the mouldering dust of a human heart, closed in an inner case of porphyry.”

I interposed as a neutral party, and taking the box from the sexton, reminded him, that if there were treasure concealed in it, still it could not become the property of the finder. I then proposed, that as the place was too dark to examine the contents of the leaden casket, we should adjourn to David's, where we might have the advantage of light and fire while carrying on our investigation. The stranger requested us to go before, assuring us that he would follow in a few minutes.

I fancy that old Mattocks suspected these few minutes might be employed in effecting farther discoveries amongst the tombs, for he glided back through a side-aisle to watch the Benedictine's motions, but presently returned, and told me in a whisper that “the gentleman was on his knees amang the cauld stanes, praying like ony saunt.”

I stole back, and beheld the old man actually employed as Mattocks had informed me. The language seemed to be Latin; and as, the whispered, yet solemn accent, glided away through the ruined aisles, I could not help reflecting how long it was since they had heard the forms of that religion, for the exercise of which they had been reared at such cost of time, taste, labour, and expense. “Come away, come away,” said I; “let us leave him to himself, Mattocks; this is no business of ours.”

“My certes, no, Captain,” said Mattocks; “ne'ertheless, it winna be amiss to keep an eye on him. My father, rest his saul, was a horse-couper, and used to say he never was cheated in a naig in his life, saving by a west-country whig frae Kilmarnock, that said a grace ower a dram o' whisky. But this gentleman will be a Roman, I'se warrant?”

“You are perfectly right in that, Saunders,” said I.

“Ay, I have seen twa or three of their priests that were chased ower here some score o' years syne. They just danced like mad when they looked on the friars' heads, and the nuns' heads, in the cloister yonder; they took to them like auld acquaintance like.—Od, he is not stirring yet, mair than he were a through-stane! {Footnote: A tombstone.} I never kend a Roman, to say kend him, but ane—mair by token, he was the only ane in the town to ken—and that was auld Jock of the Pend. It wad hae been lang ere ye fand Jock praying in the Abbey in a thick night, wi' his knees on a cauld stane. Jock likit a kirk wi' a chimley in't. Mony a merry ploy I hae had wi' him down at the inn yonder; and when he died, decently I wad hae earded him; but, or I gat his grave weel howkit, some of the quality, that were o' his ain unhappy persuasion, had the corpse whirried away up the water, and buried him after their ain pleasure, doubtless—they kend best. I wad hae made nae great charge. I wadna hae excised Johnnie, dead or alive.—Stay, see—the strange gentleman is coming.”

“Hold the lantern to assist him, Mattocks,” said I.—“This is rough walking, sir.”

“Yes,” replied the Benedictine; “I may say with a poet, who is doubtless familiar to you——”

I should be surprised if he were, thought I internally.

The stranger continued:

“Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves!”

“We are now clear of the churchyard,” said I, “and have but a short walk to David's, where I hope we shall find a cheerful fire to enliven us after our night's work.”

We entered, accordingly, the little parlour, into which Mattocks was also about to push himself with sufficient effrontery, when David, with a most astounding oath, expelled him by head and shoulders, d—ning his curiosity, that would not let gentlemen be private in their own inn. Apparently mine host considered his own presence as no intrusion, for he crowded up to the table on which I had laid down the leaden box. It was frail and wasted, as might be guessed, from having lain so many years in the ground. On opening it, we found deposited within, a case made of porphyry, as the stranger had announced to us.

“I fancy,” he said, “gentlemen, your curiosity will not be satisfied,—perhaps I should say that your suspicions will not be removed,—unless I undo this casket; yet it only contains the mouldering remains of a heart, once the seat of the noblest thoughts.”

He undid the box with great caution; but the shrivelled substance which it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been, the means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay. We were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily promised his influence in the village, which was almost co-ordinate with that of the bailie himself, to silence all idle rumours. He was, moreover, pleased to favour us with his company to supper; and having taken the lion's share of two bottles of sherry, he not only sanctioned with his plenary authority the stranger's removal of the heart, but, I believe, would have authorized the removal of the Abbey itself, were it not that it happens considerably to advantage the worthy publican's own custom.