The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (popular romance novels txt) 📗

the best natured men living, was at present grave to the pitch of sternness, and not a little displeased with having the part he was playing forced upon him, without, as he was constrained to feel, a possibility of his declining it.

His dislike at his task extended itself to the innocent object of his protection, and he internally said to himself, as he surveyed her scornfully: “A proper queen of beggars to walk the streets of Perth with, and I a decent burgher! This tawdry minion must have as ragged a reputation as the rest of her sisterhood, and I am finely sped if my chivalry in her behalf comes to Catharine’s ears. I had better have slain a man, were he the best in Perth; and, by hammer and nails, I would have done it on provocation, rather than convoy this baggage through the city.”

Perhaps Louise suspected the cause of her conductor’s anxiety, for she said, timidly and with hesitation: “Worthy sir, were it not better I should stop one instant in that chapel and don my mantle?”

“Umph, sweetheart, well proposed,” said the armourer; but the monk interfered, raising at the same time the finger of interdiction.

“The chapel of holy St. Madox is no tiring room for jugglers and strollers to shift their trappings in. I will presently show thee a vestiary more suited to thy condition.”

The poor young woman hung down her humbled head, and turned from the chapel door which she had approached with the deep sense of self abasement. Her little spaniel seemed to gather from his mistress’s looks and manner that they were unauthorised intruders on the holy ground which they trode, and hung his ears, and swept the pavement with his tail, as he trotted slowly and close to Louise’s heels.

The monk moved on without a pause. They descended a broad flight of steps, and proceeded through a labyrinth of subterranean passages, dimly lighted. As they passed a low arched door, the monk turned and said to Louise, with the same stern voice as before: “There, daughter of folly—there is a robing room, where many before you have deposited their vestments.”

Obeying the least signal with ready and timorous acquiescence, she pushed the door open, but instantly recoiled with terror. It was a charnel house, half filled with dry skulls and bones.

“I fear to change my dress there, and alone. But, if you, father, command it, be it as you will.”

“Why, thou child of vanity, the remains on which thou lookest are but the earthly attire of those who, in their day, led or followed in the pursuit of worldly pleasure. And such shalt thou be, for all thy mincing and ambling, thy piping and thy harping—thou, and all such ministers of frivolous and worldly pleasure, must become like these poor bones, whom thy idle nicety fears and loathes to look upon.”

“Say not with idle nicety, reverend father,” answered the glee maiden, “for, Heaven knows, I covet the repose of these poor bleached relics; and if, by stretching my body upon them, I could, without sin, bring my state to theirs, I would choose that charnel heap for my place of rest beyond the fairest and softest couch in Scotland.”

“Be patient, and come on,” said the monk, in a milder tone, “the reaper must not leave the harvest work till sunset gives the signal that the day’s toil is over.”

They walked forward. Brother Cyprian, at the end of a long gallery, opened the door of a small apartment, or perhaps a chapel, for it was decorated with a crucifix, before which burned four lamps. All bent and crossed themselves; and the priest said to the minstrel maiden, pointing to the crucifix, “What says that emblem?”

“That HE invites the sinner as well as the righteous to approach.”

“Ay, if the sinner put from him his sin,” said the monk, whose tone of voice was evidently milder. “Prepare thyself here for thy journey.”

Louise remained an instant or two in the chapel, and presently reappeared in a mantle of coarse grey cloth, in which she had closely muffled herself, having put such of her more gaudy habiliments as she had time to take off in the little basket which had before held her ordinary attire.

The monk presently afterwards unlocked a door which led to the open air. They found themselves in the garden which surrounded the monastery of the Dominicans.

“The southern gate is on the latch, and through it you can pass unnoticed,” said the monk. “Bless thee, my son; and bless thee too, unhappy child. Remembering where you put off your idle trinkets, may you take care how you again resume them!”

“Alas, father!” said Louise, “if the poor foreigner could supply the mere wants of life by any more creditable occupation, she has small wish to profess her idle art. But—”

But the monk had vanished; nay, the very door though which she had just passed appeared to have vanished also, so curiously was it concealed beneath a flying buttress, and among the profuse ornaments of Gothic architecture.

“Here is a woman let out by this private postern, sure enough,” was Henry’s reflection. “Pray Heaven the good fathers never let any in! The place seems convenient for such games at bo peep. But, Benedicite, what is to be done next? I must get rid of this quean as fast as I can; and I must see her safe. For let her be at heart what she may, she looks too modest, now she is in decent dress, to deserve the usage which the wild Scot of Galloway, or the devil’s legion from the Liddel, are like to afford her.”

Louise stood as if she waited his pleasure which way to go. Her little dog, relieved by the exchange of the dark, subterranean vault for the open air, sprung in wild gambols through the walks, and jumped upon its mistress, and even, though more timidly, circled close round the smith’s feet, to express its satisfaction to him also, and conciliate his favour.

“Down, Charlot—down!” said the glee maiden. “You are glad to get into the blessed sunshine; but where shall we rest at night, my poor Charlot?”

“And now, mistress,” said the smith, not churlishly, for it was not in his nature, but bluntly, as one who is desirous to finish a disagreeable employment, “which way lies your road?”

Louise looked on the ground and was silent. On being again urged to say which way she desired to be conducted, she again looked down, and said she could not tell.

“Come—come,” said Henry, “I understand all that: I have been a galliard—a reveller in my day, but it’s best to be plain. As matters are with me now, I am an altered man for these many, many months; and so, my quean, you and I must part sooner than perhaps a light o’ love such as you expected to part with—a likely young fellow.”

Louise wept silently, with her eyes still cast on the ground, as one who felt an insult which she had not a right to complain of. At length, perceiving that her conductor was grown impatient, she faltered out, “Noble sir—”

“Sir is for a knight,” said the impatient burgher, “and noble is for a