Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/157

RV 89 (Rh) In reply to his demand, the voice again sang:—

While the sub-prior listened, with his head turned in the direction from which the sounds seemed to come, he felt as if something rushed against him; and ere he could discover the cause, he was pushed from his saddle with gentle but irresistible force. Before he reached the ground his senses were gone, and he lay long in a state of insensibility; for the sunset had not ceased to gild the top of the distant hill when he fell, and when he again became conscious of existence the pale moon was gleaming on the landscape. He awakened in a state of terror, from which, for a few minutes, he found it difficult to shake himself free. At length he sat up on the grass, and became sensible, by repeated exertion, that the only personal injury which he had sustained was the numbness arising from extreme cold. The motion of something near him made the blood again run to his heart, and by a sudden effort he started up, and, looking around, saw to his relief that the noise was occasioned by the footsteps of his own mule. The peaceable animal had remained quietly beside her master during his trance, browsing on the grass which grew plentifully in that sequestered nook.

With some exertion he collected himself, remounted the animal, and meditating upon his wild adventure, descended the glen till its junction with the broader valley through which the Tweed winds. The drawbridge was readily dropped at his first summons; and so much had he won upon the heart of the churlish warden, that Peter appeared himself with a lantern to show the sub-prior his way over the perilous pass.

'By my sooth, sir,' he said, holding the light up to Father Eustace's face, 'you look sorely travelled and deadly pale; but a little matter serves to weary out you men of the cell. I now who speak to you—I have ridden, before I was perched up here on this pillar betwixt wind and