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emotion as he laid his hand upon her head.

"Daughter," said he, "I am a servant of the altar, and may not gird on sword again save in dire extremity; but before finger shall be laid upon you here, at Rivelsby, against your will, I will try whether good steel will bite yet, or whether the hand that was Guy Fitz-Waryn's has lost its cunning!"

"Thanks, thanks, noble lord abbot," said Gladice, still bending her head as she clasped his hand-" yet oh! why was I born, thus to bring harm and peril upon the few who love me!"

Waryn Foliot had lingered on the battlements as though he would satisfy himself, by a last look, of the character of the advancing foe, before he betook himself to the duties of the defence. His eyes were on the road that led from Swinford Bridge, but not a sound of the last speaker's voice escaped him. He had completed his reconnoissance, and as he passed close by Gladice, towards the terrace-steps, he laid his hand gently upon her arm. The touch was so light, it might have been only an involuntary emphasis to his words.

"Lady," he almost whispered, "that was not wisely said. The prayer in the cloister, the toil of the student, are well; but do not grudge us what is better still-the sacrifice for others, which is the true discipline of men." He neither looked at her as he spoke, nor waited for reply. With a quick light step he hurried down into the quadrangle below, where Dannequin the Brabanter, joyful with the news of expected battle, was showering encouraging epithets on his men, as they ran together from their quarters, with little reverence for the grave monks within hearing, who stood listening with a scandalised amusement. The abbot meanwhile accompanied his fair guests to their apartment in the garden tower-a quarter of the abbey which, protected as it was by a lofty range of buildings, consisting of the stabling and other conventual offices, lying between it and the outer wall of defence, gave the best promise of security against attack from without, and for that reason had always been assigned to the use of women and

children who, in former troublous times, had sought shelter at Rivelsby.

The threatened attack had not taken the abbot by surprise. Those few feudal retainers whose services he could still command had either been already quartered within the walls of St Mary's, or in the two home granges which stood in the adjacent meadows. Gaston the Angevin, to whom the superior intrusted his most private orders, had already, at the first alarm, sent to call in these latter; and although some took care not to obey the summons until it was too late to hope to escape the hostile riders who soon swept the abbey round, they were precisely those whose unwilling service could best be spared. Foliot, too, had despatched a trusty messenger to raise the tenants of the Leys; but the most of them had followed their lord and his elder son to join King Richard's banner, and the broad lands could furnish now but a sorry contingent of such as were either too young or too old for hard service: and the present resources of Rivelsby could not afford, in case of a continued investment, to maintain more idle mouths than legitimately belonged there. Only a very few, therefore, of the Foliot retainers, but those picked men and true, had come in to reinforce the little garrison. amongst the Benedictines themselves there were many who, like Gaston, had been stout soldiers in their youth; and though the abbot would have required from none of them a service which was against the letter of their vows, he had only smiled quietly when he looked in at the armourer's forge, and saw two or three of the quiet brotherhood trying on the quaint old armour which had lain there since the fighting times of King Stephen. There were others, too, who, though they might have conscientious scruples against donning the outward trappings of a soldier, were prepared to serve on the walls, and aid in working such scant artillery of arbalists and mangonels as the stores of Rivelsby could furnish; and who would not be found perhaps to do worse service because they looked for a higher defence than steel cap or cuirass.

But

CHAPTER XXXVIII.-THE LEAGUER.

It would have been doubtful whether Sir Godfrey, in his present mood, and followed as he was by many whose main object was plunder, would have thought it needful to use towards his present enemies even the common courtesies of war. It was Le Hardi whose calmer persuasion prevailed on him at least to send to the abbot a formal summons to surrender. He had even urged him, but in vain, to wait the arrival of de Lacy's force in case of refusal, before having recourse to extremities, in the hope that, in the face of such an overwhelming array, the defenders of the monastery would see the hopelessness of any resistance.

Abbot Martin received Sir Godfrey's emissary in his chapter-house, in the presence of his chief officers. The terms of the message were brief and peremptory.

"I am charged, my lord abbot," said Gundred, who wasted but scant courtesy at any time, least of all to those of the abbot's calling-"to bid you deliver up the persons of a chaplain priest by name Giacomo, and a boy called Giulio, whom you hold in despite of the Knight of Ladysmede; also of the Lady Gladice of Willan's Hope, his ward; and this within an hour's space."

"Not in an hour, nor in a lifetime, be it long or short," replied the abbot, flushing slightly at the man's insolent bearing "you have my answer."

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Softly, lord abbot," said Gundred, in a sneering tone; "I have done but half my errand. Also, the Knight of Ladysmede and the Lord de Lacy demand you to set free your prior, Hugh, whom you have unjustly placed in durance; and that you deliver up the custody of this abbey to the said Hugh, appointed by Prince John as the king's procurator here, until his majesty's good pleasure may be taken as to your own misused authority."

"Have you said all?" asked the superior, quietly.

No," replied the messenger, growing yet bolder as he caught an approving glance from a monk behind

the superior's chair, whose secret sympathies were known to be with the prior-" no, abbot; the best is to come; the noble Lord de Lacy and Sir Godfrey will hang thee over thy great gates, if thou keep them shut against their powers but an hour longer."

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Did the Lord de Lacy say this?" asked the abbot, in the same calm voice.

"Yea, and more," said Gundred. Possibly the quiver of Abbot Martin's lip deceived him.

"I have heard that Ralph de Lacy, misled by evil men, hath taken arms against the king; but I know he said no such word of the kinsman of the Lady Alice. You have lied, sir, in your office-lied, where truth and honour were your only warrant of protection. Get you gone! the Lord de Lacy uses no such tools as thee!"

"Liar in thy teeth!" shouted Gundred, whose hardihood had faced Sir Godfrey himself when the knight had chafed him. "But I came here on a fool's errand, to bandy words with shavelings!"

The abbot started from his seat, but, quick as the words were spoken, the sacrist's brawny arm had been raised, and had struck the ribald to the ground.

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Lie still, dog!" he said, as he planted his foot upon his chest, and menaced him with the formidable knuckles. I will drive the foul tongue into thy throat till thou shalt never find it more, if I catch but a mutter!"

The sacrist might have actually fulfilled his threat, for Gundred was beginning to find voice, and would have resisted had there been a hundred upon him instead of one, when the superior sternly interposed.

"Brother Andrew," he said, "you are over-hasty. We, of all men,

should not be the first to smite. You know the holy text,- Qui capit gladium'—"

Either the abbot was at fault in his quotation, or it struck him that it was not so entirely applicable to

poor Andrew's natural weapons; but the latter drew back discomfited in his turn by his superior's rebuke, and allowed his antagonist to rise. Muttering and blaspheming, though not yet recovered from the blow, it was with some difficulty that two stout serving-men forced him from the abbot's presence, and passing him across the drawbridge, where a groom waited with his horse, raised it again behind him, and cut off Rivelsby from all further parley with its enemies.

The disgraced messenger scarcely cared to carry back to his master the whole truth as to his reception. He told enough, however, to increase Sir Godfrey's rage, if that were possible. Archers and crossbow-men were at once thrown forward, and for some two hours a brisk attack was kept up against the walls of the monastery. But, unprovided with any of the larger engines for a siege, it soon became evident that the Crusader had given the more prudent counsel, and that little impression would be made upon those strong defences until the force of de Lacy joined them. As the evening fell, all active hostilities were suspended, and, drawing their forces all round, the confederates waited for the morning to bring them such aid as should secure their prey.

Heavily the shadows fell on Rivelsby, and, flashing up through the increasing darkness, the watchfires of their besiegers showed how close and complete was the leaguer. The shouts and challenges of their enemies, almost their very words, could be heard through the still air by the monks, who were listening on the ramparts. Nothing was spoken of that evening, after the vesper service, but the peril of their situation, and their chances of relief; for the maintaining themselves against a besieging force for any length of time was simply impossible with their present resources. As the old monks sat by their fire in the infirmary, they too discussed, with all the garrulity of their years, this new and terrible emergency. In a smaller chamber close adjoining lay the wounded man, who had been carried into the mo

nastery on the night of Foliot's arrival. He could hear much of the conversation in the outer room, and the lay brothers who ministered to his wants carried backward and forward to each other the last scraps of information. The patient's eyes were closed, as they had been usually when any of the monks were present; he had plainly suffered considerably from the pain of his wounds, though nothing more than a subdued groan had escaped him, and his replies to the brethren's attentions had been principally by signs. But that evening he raised himself on his pallet, and, beckoning one of the monks towards him, inquired in an indistinct voice for the abbot. There was some hesitation at first, knowing as all did the pressing calls upon the superior's attention, in complying with the sufferer's request for an interview. So urgent, however, did the man seem, eking out his few words with impatient signs, that out of pure compassion it was determined at least to inform the superior of his wishes. The same motive would alone have sufficed to have brought Abbot Martin to his bedside; but he did not comply less readily when he remembered that it was possible that his communication might have some reference to their enemies without. Carrying Foliot with him, the churchman repaired once more to the chamber where the wounded prisoner lay.

The bandages had been partly removed from the wounded jaws, and the instant that the abbot saw the hollow eyes that were anxiously turned upon him at his entrance, he recognised their expression. There was no doubt that he saw lying before him the Gascon esquire who had carried to Longchamp the information of the conspirators' intended movements. Dubois saw that the abbot knew him, and breaking the silence that he had hitherto maintained, as much from sullenness as from difficulty of speech,-though every word still cost him evident pain and effort,-he addressed him at once abruptly.

"Where is the Lady Gladice?" he asked.

It was Waryn answered him, with

something of haughtiness in his tone. Certainly they had hardly visited him in order to give him this information. "She is safe," he replied. Dubois took no notice, but looked from him to the abbot.

"Tell me," he said speak truly."

"you will

"She is here, and in safety-but you have scarce the right to ask."

"It is well," said the Gascon. "How?" exclaimed the abbot"it repents you, then, of your evil deed-you rejoice that it failed?" The Gascon gave no intelligible sign or answer.

"Confess, wretched man," said Abbot Martin,-"it was Sir Nicholas le Hardi set you on this accursed errand?"

Dubois nodded an assent. "You would have carried her to him at Huntingdon ?"

"No!" said the wounded man, raising himself on his elbow, and speaking more distinctly than before "Never!"

"Why, how then ?" asked the abbot in some surprise.

"Do you hold me for nothing but the slave of other men's passions -have I neither will nor object of my own?"

"What!" exclaimed Waryn, "you have not dared—”

"I have dared much, young sir," said the Gascon, contemptuously. "The lady had been far on the way to France, and mine, by this time

had all gone well. By hell, but she were worth the chance!"

"You dared to plan this bold game, then, for yourself," said the abbot, looking at him possibly with less disgust than before.

"Ay," replied Dubois-"why not? I have gold-honestly mine own. She might well have been worse mated, too; but it is over now -I have a hurt here I may scarce recover from." A half groan escaped him as he spoke, not so much from pain, it seemed, as from some other emotion. "I have had more kindness in your house, lord abbot, than I have known in life; I am glad that the lady is safe-and I have somewhat on my mind to say-if this be my last confession, as I guess.— But I can speak no longer now."

The wounds in his face had burst out afresh with the exertion, and his mouth was full of blood. The abbot turned from him with a face of charitable pity, and calling one of the brothers of the infirmary to attend him, returned thoughtfully to the yet more painful duties that awaited him.

It was near midnight when he stood again alone by the Gascon's pallet. Slowly, with painful efforts which drained his life at every word, Dubois poured into the abbot's patient ear the confession by which he sought thus late to make his peace with Heaven. If Giacomo's tale needed confirmation, Abbot Martin found it there.

ODE FOR THE FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY TO MESSRS GALEN AND GLAUBER.*

SAPPHIC and ADONIAN.

GALEN and GLAUBER! men of pill and potion,
Pestle at present pitilessly plying,

Say, which of all our friends of MERRY CHRISTMAS
Chiefly befriends you?

Is it THE GOOSE,† the wonder of beholders,
Boundless of breast, and fathomless of "apron❞—
Apron contriv'd expressly for containing
Savoury stuffing?

Or THE PLUM-PUDDING, that great globe of gladness,
Mild in his mirth, yet making longest faces
Round as his own, with inward satisfaction,
On his appearance ?

Or THE MINCE-PIE, his not unworthy kinsman,
Wreath'd in a flame that brightens all around him,
Making each plate a mimic MONGIBELLO,
Sometimes call'd ETNA ?

Or THE SCOTCH BUN, high-flavour'd with GLENLIVET,
Hard in his hide, and harder in his inwards,
Yet the belov'd of ev'ry youth and maiden
North of the Border?

Or THE SHORTBREAD, with richest pearls encrusted-
Not to be drunk like that of CLEOPATRA,

But to be met by simple mastication-

Tooth-trying process!

GALEN and GLAUBER! potent are these allies-
Faithful they are, and zealous in your service-
Bringing each year a still-increasing harvest
Into your garner.

Pleasant to all is dear old FATHER CHRISTMAS—
Pleasant his feasts and all his kind vagaries-
Pleasant to YOU are also his successors-
SADNESS and SENNA !

* Well-known as eminent druggists-gentlemen of much talent and humour, who will no doubt heartily enjoy our "Sapphics and Adonians."

+ Some of our English friends may perhaps not be aware that in Scotland a goose is an essential part of a Christmas dinner. A lady of our acquaintance went to order her goose for this last Christmas at a poulterer's shop in Edinburgh. "You sell," she said, "a good many geese just now, Mr Muirhead?" "A good many, ma'am," was the answer. "One gentleman has just ordered a hundred and sixty-three of them." We have great pleasure in adding the explanation of this remarkable fact a gentleman (the manager of a manufactory of articles in guttapercha) had ordered a Christmas goose for each of the workmen.

No true Scotchman need be told that " the goose's apron" is the part which contains the stuffing. It is melancholy to think that in " The Christmas Carol" (the best, perhaps, of all his inimitable works) Mr DICKENS should have put the stuffing in the breast of the goose.

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