Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/146

RV 78 (Rh) what, to our first parents, the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil unhappily proved—excellent indeed in itself, but fatal because used by those to whom it is prohibited.'

'Oh, blithely, reverend father,' said the widow of Simon Glendinning, 'will I give you the book, if so be I can wile it from the bairns; and indeed, poor things, as the case stands with them even now, you might take the heart out of their bodies, and they never find it out, they are sae begrutten.'

'Give them this missal instead, good dame,' said the father, drawing from his pocket one which was curiously illuminated with paintings, 'and I will come myself, or send one at a fitting time, and teach them the meaning of these pictures.'

'The bonny images!' said Dame Glendinning, forgetting for an instant her grief in her admiration, 'and weel I wot,' added she, 'it is another sort of a book than the poor Lady of Avenel's; and blessed might we have been this day, if your reverence had found the way up the glen, instead of Father Philip, though the sacristan is a powerful man too, and speaks as if he would ger the house fly abroad, save that the walls are gey thick. Simon's forebears (may he and they be blessed!) took care of that.'

The monk ordered his mule, and was about to take his leave; and the good dame was still delaying him with questions about the funeral, when a horseman, armed and accoutred, rode into the little courtyard which surrounded the keep.

Scottish laws, which were as wisely and judiciously made as they were carelessly and ineffectually executed, had in vain endeavoured to restrain the damage done to agriculture by the chiefs and landed proprietors retaining