Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/497

RV 429 (Rh) appearance of shrinking among them at the approach of the heretic lord, so dreaded and so powerful. But the abbot, casting on them a glance of rebuke and encouragement, stepped forth from their ranks like a courageous leader, when he sees that his personal valour must be displayed to revive the drooping courage of his followers. 'Lord James Stuart,' he said, 'or Earl of Murray, if that be thy title, I, Eustatius, Abbot of Saint Mary's, demand by what, right you have filled our peaceful village, and surrounded our brethren, with these bands of armed men? If hospitality is sought, we have never refused it to courteous asking; if violence be meant against peaceful Churchmen, let us know at once the pretext and the object?'

'Sir abbot,' said Murray, 'your language would better have become another age, and a presence inferior to ours. We come not here to reply to your interrogations, but to demand of you why you have broken the peace, collecting your vassals in arms, and convocating the queen's lieges, whereby many men have been slain, and much trouble, perchance breach of amity with England, is likely to arise?'

'Lupus in fabula,' answered the abbot, scornfully, 'The wolf accused the sheep of muddying the stream when he drank in it above her—but it served as a pretext for devouring her. Convocate the queen's lieges! I did so to defend the queen's land against foreigners. I did but my duty; and I regret I had not the means to do it more effectually.'

'And was it also a part of your duty to receive and harbour the Queen of England's rebel and traitor; and to inflame a war betwixt England and Scotland? ' said Murray.

'In my younger days, my lord,' answered the abbot, with the same intrepidity, 'a war with England was no such dreaded matter; and not merely a mitred abbot, bound by his rule to show hospitality and afford sanctuary to all, but the poorest Scottish peasant, would have been ashamed to have pleaded fear of England as the reason for shutting his door against a persecuted exile. But in those olden days, the English seldom saw the face of a Scottish nobleman, save through the bars of his visor.'

'Monk!' said the Earl of Morton, sternly, 'this insolence