The sub-prior looked around, but neither bush nor brake was near which could conceal an ambushed songstress. 'May Our Lady have mercy on me!' he said; 'I trust my senses have not forsaken me; yet how my thoughts should arrange themselves into rhymes which I despise, and music which I care not for, or why there should be the sound of a female voice in ears to which its melody has been so long indifferent, baffles my comprehension, and almost realizes the vision of Philip the sacristan. Come, good mule, betake thee to the path, and let us hence while our judgement serves us.'
But the mule stood as if it had been rooted to the spot, backed from the point to which it was pressed by its rider, and by her ears laid close into her neck, and her eyes almost starting from their sockets, testified that she was under great terror.
While the sub-prior, by alternate threats and soothing, endeavoured to reclaim the wayward animal to her duty, the wild musical voice was again heard close beside him.
'What, ho! sub-prior, and came you but here
To conjure a book from a dead woman's bier?
Sain you, and save you, be wary and wise,
Ride back with the book, or you’ll pay for your prize.
Back, back,
There's death in the track!
In the name of my master I bid thee bear back?
'In the name of my Master,' said the astonished monk, 'that name before which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what thou art that hauntest me thus?'
The same voice replied,
'That which is neither ill nor well,
That which belongs not to Heaven nor to hell,
A wreath of the mist, a bubble of the stream,
'Twixt a waking thought and a sleeping dream;
A form that men spy
With the half-shut eye,
In the beams of the setting sun, am I.'
'This is more than simple fantasy,' said the sub-prior, rousing himself; though, notwithstanding the natural hardihood of his temper, the sensible presence of a supernatural being so near him, failed not to make his blood run cold and his hair bristle. 'I charge thee,' he said
