by Walter Scott
Chapter the Seventeenth.
I'll seek for other aid--Spirits, they say, Flit round invisible, as thick as motes Dance in the sunbeam. If that spell Or necromancer's sigil can compel them, They shall hold council with me. JAMES DUFF.
The reader's attention must be recalled to Halbert Glendinning, who hadleft the Tower of Glendearg immediately after his quarrel with its newguest, Sir Piercie Shafton. As he walked with a rapid pace up the glen,Old Martin followed him, beseeching him to be less hasty.
"Halbert," said the old man, "you will never live to have white hair, ifyou take fire thus at every spark of provocation."
"And why should I wish it, old man," said Halbert, "if I am to be thebutt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against?--What avails it,old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal,and repose on thy hard pallet?--Why art thou so well pleased that themorning should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again laythee down a wearied-out wretch? Were it not better sleep and wake nomore, than to undergo this dull exchange of labour for insensibility andof insensibility for labour?"
"God help me," answered Martin, "there may be truth in what thousayest--but walk slower, for my old limbs cannot keep pace with youryoung legs--walk slower, and I will tell you why age, though unlovely,is yet endurable."
"Speak on then," said Halbert, slackening his pace, "but remember wemust seek venison to refresh the fatigues of these holy men, who willthis morning have achieved a journey of ten miles; and if we reach notthe Brocksburn head we are scarce like to see an antler."
"Then know, my good Halbert," said Martin, "whom I love as my own son,that I am satisfied to live till death calls me, because my Maker willsit. Ay, and although I spend what men call a hard life, pinched withcold in winter, and burnt with heat in summer, though I feed hard andsleep hard, and am held mean and despised, yet I bethink me, that were Iof no use on the face of this fair creation, God would withdraw me fromit."
"Thou poor old man," said Halbert, "and can such a vain conceit as thisof thy fancied use, reconcile thee to a world where thou playest so poora part?"
"My part was nearly as poor," said Martin, "my person nearly as muchdespised, the day that I saved my mistress and her child from perishingin the wilderness."
"Right, Martin," answered Halbert; "there, indeed, thou didst what mightbe a sufficient apology for a whole life of insignificance."
"And do you account it for nothing, Halbert, that I should havethe power of giving you a lesson of patience, and submission to thedestinies of Providence? Methinks there is use for the grey hairs onthe old scalp, were it but to instruct the green head by precept and byexample."
Halbert held down his face, and remained silent for a minute or two, andthen resumed his discourse: "Martin, seest thou aught changed in me oflate?"
"Surely," said Martin. "I have always known you hasty, wild, andinconsiderate, rude, and prompt to speak at the volley and withoutreflection; but now, methinks, your bearing, without losing its naturalfire, has something in it of force and dignity which it had not before.It seems as if you had fallen asleep a carle, and awakened a gentleman."
"Thou canst judge, then, of noble bearing?" said Halbert.
"Surely," answered Martin, "in some sort I can; for I have travelledthrough court, and camp, and city, with my master, Walter Avenel,although he could do nothing for me in the long run, but give me roomfor two score of sheep on the hill--and surely even now, while I speakwith you, I feel sensible that my language is more refined than it is mywont to use, and that--though I know not the reason--the rude northerndialect, so familiar to my tongue, has given place to a more town-bredspeech."
"And this change in thyself and me, thou canst by no means account for?"said young Glendinning.
"Change!" replied Martin, "by our Lady it is not so much a change whichI feel, as a recalling and renewing sentiments and expressions which Ihad some thirty years since, ere Tibb and I set up our humble household.It is singular, that your society should have this sort of influenceover me, Halbert, and that I should never have experienced it ere now."
"Thinkest thou," said Halbert, "thou seest in me aught that can raiseme from this base, low, despised state, into one where I may rank withthose proud men, who now despise my clownish poverty?"
Martin paused an instant, and then answered, "Doubtless you may,Halbert; as broken a ship has come to land. Heard ye never of HughieDun, who left this Halidome some thirty-five years gone by? A deliverlyfellow was Hughie--could read and write like a priest, and could wieldbrand and buckler with the best of the riders. I mind him--the like ofhim was never seen in the Halidome of Saint Mary's, and so was seen ofthe preferment that God sent him."
"And what was that?" said Halbert, his eyes sparkling with eagerness.
"Nothing less," answered Martin, "than body-servant to the Archbishop ofSaint Andrews!"
Halbert's countenance fell.--"A servant--and to a priest? Was this allthat knowledge and activity could raise him to?"
Martin, in his turn, looked with wistful surprise in the face of hisyoung friend. "And to what could fortune lead him farther?" answeredhe. "The son of a kirk-feuar is not the stuff that lords and knightsare made of. Courage and school craft cannot change churl's blood intogentle blood, I trow. I have heard, forby, that Hughie Dun left a goodfive hundred punds of Scots money to his only daughter, and that shemarried the Bailie of Pittenweem."
At this moment, and while Halbert was embarrassed with devising asuitable answer, a deer bounded across their path. In an instant thecrossbow was at the youth's shoulder, the bolt whistled, and the deer,after giving one bound upright, dropt dead on the green sward.
"There lies the venison our dame wanted," said Martin; "who wouldhave thought of an out-lying stag being so low down the glen at thisseason?--And it is a hart of grease too, in full season, and threeinches of fat on the brisket. Now this is all your luck, Halbert, thatfollows you, go where you like. Were you to put in for it, I wouldwarrant you were made one of the Abbot's yeoman-prickers, and ride aboutin a purple doublet as bold as the best."
"Tush, man," answered Halbert, "I will serve the Queen or no one. Takethou care to have down the venison to the Tower, since they expect it. Iwill on to the moss. I have two or three bird-bolts at my girdle, and itmay be I shall find wild-fowl."
He hastened his pace, and was soon out of sight. Martin paused for amoment, and looked after him. "There goes the making of a right gallantstripling, an ambition have not the spoiling of him--Serve the Queen!said he. By my faith, and she hath worse servants, from all that I e'erheard of him. And wherefore should he not keep a high head? They thatettle to the top of the ladder will at least get up some rounds. Theythat mint [Footnote: _Mint_--aim at.] at a gown of gold, will always geta sleeve of it. But come, sir, (addressing the stag,) you shall go toGlendearg on my two legs somewhat more slowly than you were frisking iteven now on your own four nimble shanks. Nay, by my faith, if you be soheavy, I will content me with the best of you, and that's the haunch andthe nombles, and e'en heave up the rest on the old oak-tree yonder, andcome back for it with one of the yauds." [Footnote: _Yauds_--horses;more particularly horses of labour.]
While Martin returned to Glendearg with the venison, Halbert prosecutedhis walk, breathing more easily since he was free of his companion. "Thedomestic of a proud and lazy priest--body-squire to the Archbishop ofSaint Andrews," he repeated to himself; "and this, with the privilege ofallying his blood with the Bailie of Pittenween, is thought a prefermentworth a brave man's struggling for;--nay more, a preferment which, ifallowed, should crown the hopes, past, present, and to come, of theson of a Kirk-vassal! By Heaven, but that I find in me a reluctance topractise their acts of nocturnal rapine, I would rather take the jackand lance, and join with the Border-riders.--Something I will do. Here,degraded and dishonoured, I will not live the scorn of each whifflingstranger from the South, because, forsooth, he wears tinkling spurs on atawney boot. This thing--this phantom,
be it what it will, I will seeit once more. Since I spoke with her, and touched her hand, thoughtsand feelings have dawned on me, of which my former life had not evendreamed; but shall I, who feel my father's glen too narrow for myexpanding spirit, brook to be bearded in it by this vain gewgaw of acourtier, and in the sight too of Mary Avenel? I will not stoop to it,by Heaven!"
As he spoke thus, he arrived in the sequestered glen of Corri-nan-shian,as it verged upon the hour of noon. A few moments he remained lookingupon the fountain, and doubting in his own mind with what countenancethe White Lady might receive him. She had not indeed expresslyforbidden his again evoking her; but yet there was something like sucha prohibition implied in the farewell, which recommended him to wait foranother guide.
Halbert Glendinning did not long, however, allow himself to pause.Hardihood was the natural characteristic of his mind; and under theexpansion and modification which his feelings had lately undergone, ithad been augmented rather than diminished. He drew his sword, undid thebuskin from his foot, bowed three times with deliberation towards thefountain, and as often towards the tree, and repeated the same rhyme asformerly,--
"Thrice to the holy brake-- Thrice to the well:-- I bid thee awake, White Maid of Avenel!
Noon gleams on the lake-- Noon glows on the fell-- Wake thee, O wake, White Maid of Avenel!"
His eye was on the holly bush as he spoke the last line; and it was notwithout an involuntary shuddering that he saw the air betwixt his eyeand that object become more dim, and condense, as it were, intothe faint appearance of a form, through which, however, so thin andtransparent was the first appearance of the phantom, he could discernthe outline of the bush, as through a veil of fine crape. But,gradually, it darkened into a more substantial appearance, and the WhiteLady stood before him with displeasure on her brow. She spoke, and herspeech was still song, or rather measured chant; but, as if now morefamiliar, it flowed occasionally in modulated blank-verse, and at othertimes in the lyrical measure which she had used at their former meeting.
"This is the day when the fairy kind Sits weeping alone for their hopeless lot, And the wood-maiden sighs to the sighing wind, And the mer-maiden weeps in her crystal grot: For this is the day that a deed was wrought, In which we have neither part nor share. For the children of clay was salvation bought, But not for the forms of sea or air! And ever the mortal is most forlorn. Who meeteth our race on the Friday morn."
"Spirit," said Halbert Glendinning, boldly, "it is bootless to threaten.one who holds his life at no rate. Thine anger can but slay; nor do Ithink thy power extendeth, or thy will stretcheth, so far. The terrorswhich your race produce upon others, are vain against me. My heart ishardened against fear, as by a sense of despair. If I am, as thy wordsinfer, of a race more peculiarly the care of Heaven than thine, it ismine to call, it must be thine to answer. I am the nobler being."
As he spoke, the figure looked upon him with a fierce and irefulcountenance, which, without losing the similitude of that which itusually exhibited, had a wilder and more exaggerated cast of features.The eyes seemed to contract and become more fiery, and slightconvulsions passed over the face, as if it was about to be transformedinto something hideous. The whole appearance resembled those faces whichthe imagination summons up when it is disturbed by laudanum, but whichdo not remain under the visionary's command, and, beautiful in theirfirst appearance, become wild and grotesque ere we can arrest them.
But when Halbert had concluded his bold speech, the White Lady stoodbefore him with the same pale, fixed, and melancholy aspect, which sheusually bore. He had expected the agitation which she exhibited wouldconclude in some frightful metamorphosis. Folding her arms on her bosom,the phantom replied,--
"Daring youth! for thee it is well, Here calling me in haunted dell, That thy heart has not quail'd, Nor thy courage fail'd, And that thou couldst brook The angry look Of Her of Avenel.
Did one limb shiver, Or an eyelid quiver, Thou wert lost for ever. Though I am form'd from the ether blue, And my blood is of the unfallen dew. And thou art framed of mud and dust, 'Tis thine to speak, reply I must."
"I demand of thee, then," said the youth, "by what charm it is that Iam thus altered in mind and in wishes--that I think no longer of deeror dog, of bow or bolt--that my soul spurns the bounds of this obscureglen--that my blood boils at an insult from one by whose stirrup Iwould some days since have run for a whole summer's morn, contented andhonoured by the notice of a single word? Why do I now seek to mateme with princes, and knights, and nobles?--Am I the same, who butyesterday, as it were, slumbered in contented obscurity, but who amto-day awakened to glory and ambition?--Speak--tell me, if thou canst,the meaning of this change?--Am I spell-bound?--or have I till now beenunder the influence of a spell, that I feel as another being, yetam conscious of remaining the same? Speak and tell me, is it to thyinfluence that the change is owing?"
The White Lady replied,--
"A mightier wizard far than I Wields o'er the universe his power; Him owns the eagle in the sky, The turtle in the bower. Chanceful in shape, yet mightiest still, He wields the heart of man at will, From ill to good, from good, to ill, In cot and castle-tower."
"Speak not thus darkly," said the youth, colouring so deeply, thatface, neck, and hands were in a sanguine glow; "make me sensible of thypurpose."
The spirit answered,--
"Ask thy heart,--whose secret cell Is fill'd with Marv Avenel! Ask thy pride,--why scornful look In Mary's view it will not brook? Ask it, why thou seek'st to rise Among the mighty and the wise?-- Why thou spurn'st thy lowly lot?-- Why thy pastimes are forgot? Why thou wouldst in bloody strife Mend thy luck or lose thy life? Ask thy heart, and it shall tell, Sighing from its secret cell, 'Tis for Mary Avenel."
"Tell me, then," said Halbert, his cheek still deeply crimsoned, "thouwho hast said to me that which I dared not say to myself, by what meansshall I urge my passion--by what means make it known?"
The White Lady replied,--
"Do not ask me; On doubts like these thou canst not task me. We only see the passing show Of human passions' ebb and flow; And view the pageant's idle glance As mortals eye the northern dance, When thousand streamers, flashing bright, Career it o'er the brow of night. And gazers mark their changeful gleams, But feel no influence from their beams."
"Yet thine own fate," replied Halbert, "unless men greatly err, islinked with that of mortals?"
The phantom answered,
"By ties mysterious link'd, our fated race Holds strange connexion with the sons of men. The star that rose upon the House of Avenel, When Norman Ulric first assumed the name, That star, when culminating in its orbit, Shot from its sphere a drop of diamond dew, And this bright font received it--and a Spirit Rose from the fountain, and her date of life Hath co-existence with the House of Avenel, And with the star that rules it."
"Speak yet more plainly," answered young Glendinning; "of this Ican understand nothing. Say, what hath forged thy wierded [Footnote:_Wierded_--fated.] link of destiny with the House of Avenel? Say,especially, what fate now overhangs that house?"
The White Lady replied,--
"Look on my girdle--on this thread of gold-- 'Tis fine as web of lightest gossamer. And, but there is a spell on't, would not bind, Light as they are, the folds of my thin robe. But when 'twas donn'd, it was a massive chain, Such as might bind the champion of the Jews,
Even when his looks were longest--it hath dwindled, Hath minish'd in its substance and its strength, As sunk the greatness of the House of Avenel. When this frail thread gives way. I to the elements Resign the principles of life they lent me. Ask me no more of this!--the stars forbid it."
"Then canst thou read the stars," answered the youth; "and mayest tellme the fate of my passion, if thou canst not aid it?"
The White Lady again replied,--
"Dim burns the once bright star of Avenel, Dim as the
beacon when the morn is nigh, And the o'er-wearied warder leaves the light-house; There is an influence sorrowful and fearful. That dogs its downward course. Disastrous passion, Fierce hate and rivalry, are in the aspect That lowers upon its fortunes."
"And rivalry?" repeated Glendinning; "it is, then, as I feared!--Butshall that English silkworm presume to beard me in my father's house,and in the presence of Mary Avenel?--Give me to meet him, spirit--giveme to do away the vain distinction of rank on which he refuses me thecombat. Place us on equal terms, and gleam the stars with what aspectthey will, the sword of my father shall control their influences."
She answered as promptly as before,--
"Complain not of me, child of clay, If to thy harm I yield the way. We, who soar thy sphere above, Know not aught of hate or love; As will or wisdom rules thy mood, My gifts to evil turn, or good."
"Give me to redeem my honour," said Halbert Glendinning--"give me toretort on my proud rival the insults he has thrown on me, and let therest fare as it will. If I cannot revenge my wrong, I shall sleep quiet,and know nought of my disgrace."
The phantom failed not to reply,--
"When Piercie Shafton boasteth high, Let this token meet his eye. The sun is westering from the dell, Thy wish is granted--fare thee well!"
As the White Lady spoke or chanted these last words, she undid from herlocks a silver bodkin around which they were twisted, and gave it toHalbert Glendinning; then shaking her dishevelled hair till it fell likea veil around her, the outlines of her form gradually became as diffuseas her flowing tresses, her countenance grew pale as the moon in herfirst quarter, her features became indistinguishable, and she meltedinto the air.
Habit inures us to wonders; but the youth did not find himself aloneby the fountain without experiencing, though in a much less degree,the revulsion of spirits which he had felt upon the phantom's formerdisappearance. A doubt strongly pressed upon his mind, whether itwere safe to avail himself of the gifts of a spirit which did not evenpretend to belong to the class of angels, and might, for aught he knew,have a much worse lineage than that which she was pleased to avow. "Iwill speak of it," he said, "to Edward, who is clerkly learned, and willtell me what I should do. And yet, no--Edward is scrupulous and wary.--Iwill prove the effect of her gift on Sir Piercie Shafton, if he againbraves me, and by the issue, I will be myself a sufficient judge whetherthere is danger in resorting to her counsel. Home, then, home--and weshall soon learn whether that home shall longer hold me; for not againwill I brook insult, with my father's sword by my side, and Mary for thespectator of my disgrace."
