Page:The Lady of the Lake - Scott (1810).djvu/351

 ried, by the speedy running of some active young man, unto that village or city, with this command,-that on the 3. 4. or 3. day. one, two, or three, or else every man in particular, from 15 years old, shall come with his arms, and expences for ten or twenty days, upon pain that his or their houses shall be burnt, (which is intimated by the burning of the staff) or else the master to be hanged, (which is signified by the cord tied to it,) to appear speedily on such a bank, or field, or valley, to hear the cause he is called, and to receive orders from the said provincial governours what he shall do. Wherefore that messenger, swifter than any post or waggon, having done his commission, comes slowly back again, bringing a token with him that he hath done all legally; and every moment one or another runs to every village, and tells those places what they must do.""The messengers, therefore, of the footmen, that are to give warning to the people to meet for the battail, run fiercely and swiftly; for no snow, nor rain, nor heat can stop them, nor night hold them; but they will soon run the race they undertake. The first messenger tells it to the next village, and that to the next; and so the hubbub runs all over, till they all know it in that stift or territory, where, when, and wherefore they must meet."—' History of the Goths, englished by J. S. Lond. 1658. book iv. chap. 3, 4.

The state of religion in the middle ages afforded consider-