Chapter 9 - Page 2

like
you are to have trouble--you understand me? Let me have a peck of corn
for my horse, and beef and beer for myself, for I must go on to the
Monastery--though I think this monk hero might do mine errand."

"Thine errand, rude man!" said the Sub-Prior, knitting his brows--

"For God's sake" cried poor Dame Glendinning, terrified at the idea of
a quarrel between them,--"O Christie!---it is the Sub-Prior--O
reverend sir, it is Christie of the Clinthill, the laird's chief
jack-man; ye know that little havings can be expected from the like o'
them."

"Are you a retainer of the Laird of Avenel?" said the monk, addressing
himself to the horseman, "and do you speak thus rudely to a Brother of
Saint Mary's, to whom thy master is so much beholden?"

"He means to be yet more beholden to your house, Sir Monk," answered
the fellow; "for hearing his sister-in-law, the widow of Walter of
Avenel, was on her death-bed, he sent me to say to the Father Abbot
and the brethren, that he will hold the funeral-feast at their
convent, and invites himself thereto, with a score of horse and some
friends, and to abide there for three days and three nights,--having
horse-meat and men's-meat at the charge of the community; of which his
intention he sends due notice, that fitting preparation may be
timeously made."

"Friend," said the Sub-Prior, "believe not that I will do to the
Father Abbot the indignity of delivering such an errand.--Think'st
thou the goods of the church were bestowed upon her by holy princes
and pious nobles, now dead and gone, to be consumed in revelry by
every profligate layman who numbers in his train more followers than
he can support by honest means, or by his own incomings? Tell thy
master, from the Sub-Prior of Saint Mary's, that the Primate hath
issued his commands to us that we submit no longer to this compulsory
exaction of hospitality on slight or false pretences. Our lands and
goods were given to relieve pilgrims and pious persons, not to feast
bands of rude soldiers."

"This to me!" said the angry spearman, "this to me and to my master
--Look to yourself then, Sir Priest, and try if _Ave_ and
_Credo_ will keep bullocks from wandering, and hay-stacks from
burning."

"Dost thou menace the Holy Church's patrimony with waste and
fire-raising," said the Sub-Prior, "and that in the face of the sun? I
call on all who hear me to bear witness to the words this ruffian has
spoken. Remember how the Lord James drowned such as you by scores in
the black pool at Jeddart.-To him and to the Primate will I complain."
The soldier shifted the