Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/108

RV 40 (Rh) effects the book was the last she would have thought of securing, for of what use or interest could it be in a family who neither read themselves, nor were in the habit of seeing any who did? so that Dame Elspeth had no difficulty in possessing herself of the volume, although her heart all the while accused her of an ungenerous and an inhospitable part towards her friend and inmate. The double power of a landlord and a feudal superior was before her eyes; and to say truth, the boldness, with which she might otherwise have resisted this double authority, was, I grieve to say it, much qualified by the curiosity she entertained, as a daughter of Eve, to have some explanation respecting the mysterious volume which the lady cherished with so much care, yet whose contents she imparted with such caution. For never had Alice of Avenel read them any passage from the book in question until the iron door of the tower was locked and all possibility of intrusion prevented. Even then she had shown, by the selection of particular passages, that she was more anxious to impress on their minds the principles which the volume contained, than to introduce them to it as a new rule of faith.

When Elspeth, half curious, half remorseful, had placed the book in the monk's hands, he exclaimed, after turning over the leaves, 'Now, by mine order, it is as I suspected! My mule, my mule! I will abide no longer here. Well hast thou done, dame, in placing in my hands this perilous volume.'

'Is it then witchcraft or devil's work?' said Dame Elspeth, in great agitation.

'Nay, God forbid!' said the monk, signing himself with the cross, 'it is the Holy Scripture. But it is rendered into the vulgar tongue, and therefore, by the order of the Holy Catholic Church, unfit to be in the hands of any lay person.'

'And yet is the Holy Scripture communicated for our common salvation,' said Elspeth. 'Good father, you must instruct mine ignorance better; but lack of wit cannot be a deadly sin, and truly, to my poor thinking, I should be glad to read the Holy Scripture.'

'I dare say thou wouldst,' said the monk; 'and even thus did our mother Eve seek to have knowledge of good