Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/52

 I replied to the Benedictine, that, as the rubbish amongst which he proposed to search was no part of the ordinary burial-ground, and as I was on the best terms with the sexton, I had little doubt that I could procure him the means of executing his pious purpose.

With this promise we parted for the night; and on the ensuing morning I made it my business to see the sexton, who, for a small gratuity, readily granted permission of search, on condition, however, that he should be present himself, to see that the stranger removed nothing of intrinsic value.

'To banes, and skulls, and hearts, if he can find ony, he shall be welcome,' said this guardian of the ruined monastery, 'there 's plenty a' about, an he 's curious of them; but if there be ony picts' (meaning perhaps pix) 'or chalishes, or the like of such Popish veshells of gold and silver, deil hae me an I conneeve at their being removed.'

The sexton also stipulated that our researches should take place at night, being unwilling to excite observation or give rise to scandal.

My new acquaintance and I spent the day as became lovers of hoar antiquity. We visited every corner of these magnificent ruins again and again during the forenoon; and, having made a comfortable dinner at David's, we walked in the afternoon to such places in the neighbourhood as ancient tradition or modern conjecture had rendered markworthy. Night found us in the interior of the ruins, attended by the sexton who carried a dark lantern, and stumbling alternately over the graves of the dead, and the fragments of that architecture, which they doubtless trusted would have canopied their bones till doomsday.

I am by no means particularly superstitious, and yet there was that in the present service which I did not very much like. There was something awful in the resolution of disturbing, at such an hour and in such a place, the still and mute sanctity of the grave. My companions were free from this impression—the stranger from his energetic desire to execute the purpose for which he came, and the sexton from habitual indifference. We soon stood in the aisle, which, by the account of the Benedictine, contained the bones of the family of Glendinning, and were busily