The tread of a horse which came up behind him interrupted his reverie, and he soon saw he was mounted by the same wild rider whom he had left at the tower.
'Good even, my son, and benedicite,' said the sub-prior as he passed; but the rude soldier scarce acknowledged the greeting by bending his head; and dashing the spurs into his horse, went on at a pace which soon left the monk and his mule far behind. 'And there,' thought the sub-prior, 'goes another plague of the times—a fellow whose birth designed him to cultivate the earth, but who is perverted by the unhallowed and unchristian divisions of the country into a daring and dissolute robber. The barons of Scotland are now turned masterful thieves and ruffians, oppressing the poor by violence, and wasting the church, by extorting free quarters from abbeys and priories, without either shame or reason. I fear me I shall be too late to counsel the abbot to make a stand against these daring sorners[1]—I must make haste.' He struck his mule with his riding wand accordingly; but, instead of mending her pace, the animal suddenly started from the path, and the rider's utmost efforts could not force her forward.
'Art thou, too, infected with the spirit of the times?' said the sub-prior; 'thou wert wont to be ready and serviceable, and art now as restive as any wild jackman or stubborn heretic of them all.'
While he was contending with the startled animal, a voice, like that of a female, chanted in his ear, or at least very close to it,
'Good evening, sir priest, and so late as you ride,
With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill.
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
The volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back.'
- ↑ To sorne, in Scotland, is to exact free quarters against the will of the landlord. It is declared equivalent to theft, by a statute passed in the year 1445. The great chieftains oppressed the monasteries very much by exactions of this nature. The community of Aberbrothwick complained of an Earl of Angus, I think, who was in the regular habit of visiting them once a year, with a train of a thousand horse, and abiding till the whole winter provisions of the convent were exhausted.
