Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/82

78 thou not that this is Ordination Day? So buckle up thy merchandise, and follow. Verily, none can tell from whose hand the blow shall come this day, that will save us from the sinful compliance with that offspring of old Mahoun, even patronage." I was glad of any pretext for withdrawing my goods from the hands of my unwelcome visitors; so I huddled them together, secured them with the lock, and followed the zealous dame, who with a proud look walked down the hill, to unite herself to a multitude of all ranks and sexes which the placing of the parish minister had collected together.

The place where this multitude of motley beliefs and feelings had assembled was one of singular beauty. At the bottom of a woody glen, the margin of a beautiful lake, and the foot of a high green mountain, with the sea of Solway seen rolling and sparkling in the distance, stood a populous and straggling village, through which a clear stream and a paved road winded side by side. Each house had its garden behind, and a bare-headed progeny running wild about the banks of the rivulet; beside which many old men and matrons, seated according to their convenience, enjoyed the light of the sun and the sweetness of the summer air. At the eastern extremity of the village, a noble religious ruin, in the purest style of the Saxons, raised its shattered towers and minarets far above all other buildings; while the wall flowers, shooting forth in the spring at every joint and crevice, perfumed the air for several roods around. The buttresses and exterior auxiliary walls were covered with a thick tapestry of ivy, which, with its close-clinging and smooth shining leaf, resembled a covering of velvet. One bell, which tradition declares to be of pure silver, remained on the top of one of the highest turrets, beyond the reach of man. It is never rung save by a violent storm, and its ringing is reckoned ominous—deaths at land and drownings at sea follow the sound of the silver bell of Bleeding Heart Abbey. Innumerable swarms of pigeons and daws shared the upper region of the ruin among them, and built and brought forth their young in the deserted niches of saints, and the holes from which corbels of carved wood had supported the painted ceiling. At the very foot of this majestic edifice stood the parish kirk, built in utter contempt of the beautiful proportions of its ancient neighbour, and for the purpose perhaps of proving in how mean a