Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/225

RV 157 (Rh) 'You may well call her your Protection, sir knight,' said Halbert; 'by Saint Andrew, it is the only sensible word I have heard you speak! But we may meet where her protection shall no longer afford you shelter.'

'Fairest Protection,' continued the courtier, not even honouring with a look, far less with a direct reply, the threat of the incensed Halbert, 'doubt not that thy faithful Affability will be more commoved by the speech of this rudesby than the bright and serene moon is perturbed by the baying of the cottage cur, proud of the height of his own dunghill, which, in his conceit, lifteth him nearer unto the majestic luminary.'

To what lengths so unsavoury a simile might have driven Halbert's indignation, is left uncertain; for at that moment Edward rushed into the apartment with the intelligence that two most important officers of the convent, the kitchener and refectioner, were just arrived, with a sumpter-mule loaded with provisions, announcing that the lord abbot, the sub-prior, and the sacristan, were on their way thither. A circumstance so very extraordinary had never been recorded in the annals of Saint Mary's, or in the traditions of Glendearg, though there was a faint legendary report that a certain abbot had dined there in old days, after having been bewildered in a hunting expedition amongst the wilds which lie to the northward. But that the present lord abbot should have taken a voluntary journey to so wild and dreary a spot, the very Kamtschatka of the halidome, was a thing never dreamt of; and the news excited the greatest surprise in all the members of the family, saving Halbert alone.

This fiery youth was too full of the insult he had received to think of anything as unconnected with it. 'I am glad of it,' he exclaimed; 'I am glad the abbot comes hither. I will know of him by what right this stranger is sent hither to domineer over us under our father's roof, as if we were slaves and not freemen. I will tell the proud priest to his beard '

'Alas! alas! my brother,' said Edward, 'think what these words may cost thee!'

'And what will, or what can, they cost me,' said Halbert, 'that I should sacrifice my human feelings and