Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/149

RV 81 (Rh) and to my master! Look to yourself then, sir priest, and try if Ave and Credo will keep bullocks from wandering, and haystacks from burning.'

'Dost thou menace the Holy Church's patrimony with waste and fire-raising,' said the sub-prior, 'and that in the face of the sun? I call on all who hear me to bear witness to the words this ruffian has spoken. Remember how the Lord James drowned such as you by scores in the black pool at Jeddart. To him and to the Primate will I complain.' The soldier shifted the position of his lance, and brought it down to a level with the monk's body.

Dame Glendinning began to shriek for assistance. 'Tibb Tacket! Martin! where be ye all? Christie, for the love of God, consider he is a man of Holy Kirk!'

'I care not for his spear,' said the sub-prior; 'if I am slain in defending the rights and privileges of my community, the Primate will know how to take vengeance.'

'Let him look to himself,' said Christie, but at the same time depositing his lance against the wall of the tower; 'if the Fife men spoke true who came hither with the governor in the last raid, Norman Leslie has him at feud, and is like to set him hard. We know Norman a true bloodhound, who will never quit the slot. But I had no design to offend the holy father,' he added, thinking perhaps he had gone a little too far; 'I am a rude man, bred to lance and stirrup, and not used to deal with book-learned men and priests; and I am willing to ask his forgiveness and his blessing, if I have said aught amiss.'

'For God's sake! your reverence,' said the widow of Glendearg apart to the sub-prior, 'bestow on him your forgiveness; how shall we poor folk sleep in security in the dark nights, if the convent is at feud with such men as he is?'

'You are right, dame,' said the sub-prior, 'your safety should, and must, be in the first instance consulted. Soldier, I forgive thee, and may God bless thee and send thee honesty.'

Christie of the Clinthill made an unwilling inclination with his head, and muttered apart, 'that is as much as to say, God send thee starvation. But now to my master's demand, Sir Priest? What answer am I to return?'

'That the body of the widow of Walter of Avenel,'