Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/200

RV 132 (Rh) of him; for if it should be his misfortune to be in the like case, he has the best pair of heels in the halidome, and could run almost as fast as your mare herself.'

'Is this he, neighbour?' quoth the miller.

'No,' replied the mother; 'that is my youngest son, Edward, who can read and write like the lord abbot himself, if it were not a sin to say so.'

'Aye,' said the miller; 'and is that the young clerk the sub-prior thinks so much of? they say he will come far ben, that lad; wha kens but he may come to be subprior himself? As broken a ship has come to land.'

'To be a prior, neighbour miller,' said Edward, 'a man must first be a priest, and for that I judge I have little vocation.'

'He will take to the pleugh-pettle, neighbour,' said the good dame; 'and so will Halbert too, I trust. I wish you saw Halbert. Edward, where is your brother?'

'Hunting, I think,' replied Edward; 'at least he left us this morning to join the Laird of Colmslie and his hounds. I have heard them baying in the glen all day.'

'And if I had heard that music,' said the miller, 'it would have done my heart good, aye, and maybe taken me two or three miles out of my road. When I was the miller of Morebattle's knave, I have followed the hounds from Eckford to the foot of Hounam-law—followed them on foot, Dame Glendinning, aye, and led the chase when the Laird of Cessford and his gay riders were all thrown out by the mosses and gills. I brought the stag on my back to Hounam Cross, when the dogs had pulled him down. I think I see the old gny knight, as he sat so upright on his strong war-horse, all white with foam; and "Miller," said he to me, "an thou wilt turn thy back on the mill, and wend with me, I will make a man of thee." But I chose rather to abide by clap and happer, and the better luck was mine; for the proud Percy caused hang five of the laird's henchmen at Alnwick for burning a rickle of houses some gate beyond Fowberry, and it might have been my luck as well as another man's.'

'Ah, neighbour, neighbour,' said Dame Glendinning, 'you were ay wise and wary; but if you like hunting, I must say Halbert 's the lad to please you. He hath all those fair