Chapter 8 - Page 2

convenient to live in close
retirement, and to avoid, as much as possible, drawing upon himself
observation or animadversion. The appearance of his habitation,
however, when Roland Graeme came before it in the close of the
evening, plainly showed that his caution had been finally ineffectual.

The page's first movement was to knock at the door, when he observed,
to his surprise, that it was open, not from being left unlatched, but
because, beat off its upper hinge, it was only fastened to the
door-post by the lower, and could therefore no longer perform its
functions. Somewhat alarmed at this, and receiving no answer when he
knocked and called, Roland began to look more at leisure upon the
exterior of the little dwelling before he ventured to enter it. The
flowers, which had been trained with care against the walls, seemed to
have been recently torn down, and trailed their dishonoured garlands
on the earth; the latticed window was broken and dashed in. The
garden, which the monk had maintained by his constant labour in the
highest order and beauty, bore marks of having been lately trod down
and destroyed by the hoofs of animals, and the feet of men.

The sainted spring had not escaped. It was wont to rise beneath a
canopy of ribbed arches, with which the devotion of elder times had
secured and protected its healing waters. These arches were now almost
entirely demolished, and the stones of which they were built were
tumbled into the well, as if for the purpose of choking up and
destroying the fountain, which, as it had shared in other days the
honour of the saint, was, in the present, doomed to partake his
unpopularity. Part of the roof had been pulled down from the house
itself, and an attempt had been made with crows and levers upon one of
the angles, by which several large corner-stones had been forced out
of their place; but the solidity of ancient mason-work had proved too
great for the time or patience of the assailants, and they had
relinquished their task of destruction. Such dilapidated buildings,
after the lapse of years, during which nature has gradually covered
the effects of violence with creeping plants, and with weather-stains,
exhibit, amid their decay, a melancholy beauty. But when the visible
effects of violence appear raw and recent, there is no feeling to
mitigate the sense of devastation with which they impress the
spectators; and such was now the scene on which the youthful page
gazed, with the painful feelings it was qualified to excite.

When his first momentary surprise was over, Roland Graeme was at no
loss to conjecture the cause of these ravages. The destruction of the
Popish edifices did not take place at once throughout Scotland, but at
different times, and