Chapter 32

Then in my gown of sober gray
Along the mountain path I'll wander,
And wind my solitary way
To the sad shrine that courts me yonder.

There, in the calm monastic shade,
All injuries may be forgiven;
And there for thee, obdurate maid,
My orisons shall rise to heaven.
THE CRUEL LADY OF THE MOUNTAINS.

The first words which Edward uttered were,--"My brother is safe,
reverend father--he is safe, thank God, and lives!--There is not in
Corri-nan-shian a grave, nor a vestige of a grave. The turf around
the fountain has neither been disturbed by pick-axe, spade, nor
mattock, since the deer's-hair first sprang there. He lives as surely
as I live!"

The earnestness of the youth--the vivacity with which he looked and
moved--the springy step, outstretched hand, and ardent eye, reminded
Henry Warden of Halbert, so lately his guide. The brothers had indeed
a strong family resemblance, though Halbert was far more athletic and
active in his person, taller and better knit in the limbs, and though
Edward had, on ordinary occasions, a look of more habitual acuteness
and more profound reflection. The preacher was interested as well as
the Sub-Prior.

"Of whom do you speak, my son?" he said, in a tone as unconcerned as
if his own fate had not been at the same instant trembling in the
balance, and as if a dungeon and death did not appear to be his
instant doom--"Of whom, I say, speak you? If of a youth somewhat older
than you seem to be--brown-haired, open-featured, taller and stronger
than you appear, yet having much of the same air and of the same tone
of voice--if such a one is the brother whom you seek, it may be I can
tell you news of him."

"Speak, then, for Heaven's sake," said Edward--"life or death lies on
thy tongue!"

The Sub-Prior joined eagerly in the same request, and, without waiting
to be urged, the preacher gave so minute an account of the
circumstances under which he met the elder Glendinning, with so exact
a description of his person, that there remained no doubt as to his
identity. When he mentioned that Halbert Glendinning had conducted him
to a dell in which they found the grass bloody, and a grave newly
closed, and told how the youth accused himself of the slaughter of Sir
Piercie Shafton, the Sub-Prior looked on Edward with astonishment.

"Didst thou not say, even now," he said, "that there was no vestige of a
grave in that spot?"

"No more vestige of the earth having been removed than if the turf had
grown there since the days of Adam," replied Edward Glendinning. "It is
true," he added, "that the adjacent grass was trampled and bloody."