I’ll seek for other aid — Spirits, they say,

Flit round invisible, as thick as motes

Dance in the sunbeam. If that spell

Or necromancer’s sigil can compel them,

They shall hold council with me.

James Duff.

The reader’s attention must be recalled to Halbert Glendinning, who had left the Tower of Glendearg immediately after his quarrel with its new guest, Sir Piercie Shafton. As he walked with a rapid pace up the glen, Old Martin followed him, beseeching him to be less hasty.

“Halbert,” said the old man, “you will never live to have white hair, if you take fire thus at every spark of provocation.”

“And why should I wish it, old man,” said Halbert, “if I am to be the butt that every fool may aim a shaft of scorn against? — What avails it, old man, that you yourself move, sleep, and wake, eat thy niggard meal, and repose on thy hard pallet? — Why art thou so well pleased that the morning should call thee up to daily toil, and the evening again lay thee down a wearied-out wretch? Were it not better sleep and wake no more, than to undergo this dull exchange of labour for insensibility and of insensibility for labour?”

“God help me,” answered Martin, “there may be truth in what thou sayest — but walk slower, for my old limbs cannot keep pace with your young legs — walk slower, and I will tell you why age, though unlovely, is yet endurable.”

“Speak on then,” said Halbert, slackening his pace, “but remember we must seek venison to refresh the fatigues of these holy men, who will this morning have achieved a journey of ten miles; and if we reach not the Brocksburn head we are scarce like to see an antler.”

“Then know, my good Halbert,” said Martin, “whom I love as my own son, that I am satisfied to live till death calls me, because my Maker wills it. Ay, and although I spend what men call a hard life, pinched with cold in winter, and burnt with heat in summer, though I feed hard and sleep hard, and am held mean and despised, yet I bethink me, that were I of no use on the face of this fair creation, God would withdraw me from it.”

“Thou poor old man,” said Halbert, “and can such a vain conceit as this of thy fancied use, reconcile thee to a world where thou playest so poor a part?”

“My part was nearly as poor,” said Martin, “my person nearly as much despised, the day that I saved my mistress and her child from perishing in the wilderness.”

“Right, Martin,” answered Halbert; “there, indeed, thou didst what might be a sufficient apology for a whole life of insignificance.”

“And do you account it for nothing, Halbert, that I should have the power of giving you a lesson of patience, and submission to the destinies of Providence? Methinks there is use for the grey hairs on the old scalp, were it but to instruct the green head by precept and by example.”

Halbert held down his face, and remained silent for a minute or two, and then resumed his discourse: “Martin, seest thou aught changed in me of late?”

“Surely,” said Martin. “I have always known you hasty, wild, and inconsiderate, rude, and prompt to speak at the volley and without reflection; but now, methinks, your bearing, without losing its natural fire, has something in it of force and dignity which it had not before. It seems as if you had fallen asleep a carle, and awakened a gentleman.”

“Thou canst judge, then, of noble bearing?” said Halbert.

“Surely,” answered Martin, “in some sort I can; for I have travelled through court, and camp, and city, with my master, Walter Avenel, although he could do nothing for me in the long run, but give me room for two score of sheep on the hill — and surely even now, while I speak with you, I feel sensible that my language is more refined than it is my wont to use, and that — though I know not the reason — the rude northern dialect, so familiar to my tongue, has given place to a more town-bred speech.”

“And this change in thyself and me, thou canst by no means account for?” said young Glendinning.

“Change!” replied Martin, “by our Lady it is not so much a change which I feel, as a recalling and renewing sentiments and expressions which I had some thirty years since, ere Tibb and I set up our humble household. It is singular, that your society should have this sort of influence over me, Halbert, and that I should never have experienced it ere now.”

“Thinkest thou,” said Halbert, “thou seest in me aught that can raise me from this base, low, despised state, into one where I may rank with those proud men, who now despise my clownish poverty?”

Martin paused an instant, and then answered, “Doubtless you may, Halbert; as broken a ship has come to land. Heard ye never of Hughie Dun, who left this Halidome some thirty-five years gone by? A deliverly fellow was Hughie — could read and write like a priest, and could wield brand and buckler with the best of the riders. I mind him — the like of him was never seen in the Halidome of Saint Mary’s, and so was seen of the preferment that God sent him.”

“And what was that?” said Halbert, his eyes sparkling with eagerness.

“Nothing less,” answered Martin, “than body-servant to the Archbishop of Saint Andrews!”

Halbert’s countenance fell. —“A servant — and to a priest? Was this all that knowledge and activity could raise him to?”

Martin, in his turn, looked with wistful surprise in the face of his young friend. “And to what could fortune lead him farther?” answered he. “The son of a kirk-feuar is not the stuff that lords and knights are made of. Courage and school craft cannot change churl’s blood into gentle blood, I trow. I have heard, forby, that Hughie Dun left a good five hundred punds of Scots money to his only daughter, and that she married the Bailie of Pittenweem.”

At this moment, and while Halbert was embarrassed with devising a suitable answer, a deer bounded across their path. In an instant the crossbow was at the youth’s shoulder, the bolt whistled, and the deer, after giving one bound upright, dropt dead on the green sward.

“There lies the venison our dame wanted,” said Martin; “who would have thought of an out-lying stag being so low down the glen at this season? — And it is a hart of grease too, in full season, and three inches of fat on the brisket. Now this is all your luck, Halbert, that follows you, go where you like. Were you to put in for it, I would warrant you were made one of the Abbot’s yeoman-prickers, and ride about in a purple doublet as bold as the best.”

“Tush, man,” answered Halbert, “I will serve the Queen or no one. Take thou care to have down the venison to the Tower, since they expect it. I will on to the moss. I have two or three bird-bolts at my girdle, and it may be I shall find wild-fowl.”

He hastened his pace, and was soon out of sight. Martin paused for a moment, and looked after him. “There goes the making of a right gallant stripling, an ambition have not the spoiling of him — Serve the Queen! said he. By my faith, and she hath worse servants, from all that I e’er heard of him. And wherefore should he not keep a high head? They that ettle to the top of the ladder will at least get up some rounds. They that mint 44 at a gown of gold, will always get a sleeve of it. But come, sir, (addressing the stag,) you shall go to Glendearg on my two legs somewhat more slowly than you were frisking it even now on your own four nimble shanks. Nay, by my faith, if you be so heavy, I will content me with the best of you, and that’s the haunch and the nombles, and e’en heave up the rest on the old oak-tree yonder, and come back for it with one of the yauds.” 45

While Martin returned to Glendearg with the venison, Halbert prosecuted his walk, breathing more easily since he was free of his companion. “The domestic of a proud and lazy priest — body-squire to the Archbishop of Saint Andrews,” he repeated to himself; “and this, with the privilege of allying his blood with the Bailie of Pittenween, is thought a preferment worth a brave man’s struggling for — nay more, a preferment which, if allowed, should crown the hopes, past, present, and to come, of the son of a Kirk-vassal! By Heaven, but that I find in me a reluctance to practise their acts of nocturnal rapine, I would rather take the jack and lance, and join with the Border-riders. — Something I will do. Here, degraded and dishonoured, I will not live the scorn of each whiffling stranger from the South, because, forsooth, he wears tinkling spurs on a tawney boot. This thing — this phantom, be it what it will, I will see it once more. Since I spoke with her, and touched her hand, thoughts and feelings have dawned on me, of which my former life had not even dreamed; but shall I, who feel my father’s glen too narrow for my expanding spirit, brook to be bearded in it by this vain gewgaw of a courtier, and in the sight too of Mary Avenel? I will not stoop to it, by Heaven!”

As he spoke thus, he arrived in the sequestered glen of Corri-nan-shian, as it verged upon the hour of noon. A few moments he remained looking upon the fountain, and doubting in his own mind with what countenance the White Lady might receive him. She had not indeed expressly forbidden his again evoking her; but yet there was something like such a prohibition implied in the farewell, which recommended him to wait for another guide.

Halbert Glendinning did not long, however, allow himself to pause. Hardihood was the natural characteristic of his mind; and under the expansion and modification which his feelings had lately undergone, it had been augmented rather than diminished. He drew his sword, undid the buskin from his foot, bowed three times with deliberation towards the fountain, and as often towards the tree, and repeated the same rhyme as formerly —

“Thrice to the holy brake —

Thrice to the well:—

I bid thee awake,

White Maid of Avenel!

Noon gleams on the lake —

Noon glows on the fell —

Wake thee, O wake,

White Maid of Avenel!”

His eye was on the holly bush as he spoke the last line; and it was not without an involuntary shuddering that he saw the air betwixt his eye and that object become more dim, and condense, as it were, into the faint appearance of a form, through which, however, so thin and transparent was the first appearance of the phantom, he could discern the outline of the bush, as through a veil of fine crape. But, gradually, it darkened into a more subs............