Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/49

 'My proposal,' he replied, 'affects neither. May God bless the reigning family in Britain! They are not, indeed, of that dynasty to restore which my ancestors struggled and suffered in vain; but the Providence who has conducted his present Majesty to the throne, has given him the virtues necessary to his time—firmness and intrepidity, a true love of his country, and an enlightened view of the dangers by which she is surrounded. For the religion of these realms, I am contented to hope that the great Power, whose mysterious dispensation has rent them from the bosom of the church, will, in His own good time and manner, restore them to its holy pale. The efforts of an individual, obscure and humble as myself, might well retard, but could never advance, a work so mighty.'

'May I then inquire, sir,' said I, 'with what purpose you seek this country?'

Ere my companion replied, he took from his pocket a clasped paper book, about the size of a regimental orderly-book, full, as it seemed, of memoranda; and, drawing one of the candles close to him (for David, as a strong proof of his respect for the stranger, had indulged us with two), he seemed to peruse the contents very earnestly.

'There is among the ruins of the western end of the abbey church,' said he, looking up to me, yet keeping the memorandum-book half open, and occasionally glancing at it, as if to refresh his memory, 'a sort of recess or chapel beneath a broken arch, and in the immediate Vicinity of one of those shattered Gothic columns which once supported the magnificent roof, whose fall has now encumbered that part of the building with its ruins.'

'I think,' said I, 'that I know whereabouts you are. Is there not in the side wall of the chapel, or recess, which you mention, a large carved stone, bearing a coat of arms, which no one hitherto has been able to decipher?'

'You are right,' answered the Benedictine; and again consulting his memoranda, he added, 'the arms on the dexter side are those of Glendinning, being a cross parted by a cross indented and countercharged of the same; and on the sinister three spur-rowels for those of Avenel; they are two ancient families, now almost extinct in this country—the arms party per pale.'