fully occupied elsewhere; but the steep banks under the willows, where the full course of the stream lay, and where the water was many feet in depth to the very edge, offered no footing to the struggling animal, already exhausted with loss of blood. Raoul, after many attempts, finding him failing under his weight, endeavoured to throw himself off to the bank; but in the effort his foot caught either in the stirrup or the housings, and the animal, plunging more wildly than ever, dragged him along under the willows in the direction of the combatants. In vain were all his desperate struggles to extricate himself; and by the time that Foliot had touched the opposite bank, the young esquire was being carried all but senseless down the stream.

It was with a mixed feeling of relief and of painful apprehension that Waryn, upon gaining the bank, saw Gladice rise from the ground, and struggle towards him. He could see that her white dress was stained with blood.

"Mother of heaven!" said he, as he rushed to meet her-" you surely are not hurt!"

"No," she said, trying in vain to command her feelings, and bursting into a fit of violent weeping, the reaction of long excitement, as she recognised the face of a friend, and leant on him for a moment for support-"No! I have taken no harm; this blood"-she gave a sickly, shuddering smile as she looked down at it -"is not mine; but are we safe now?"

She clung to Foliot, while she looked round still in trembling ap

prehension. Disheartened by their leader's fall, and being themselves probably more interested in their own safety than in the success of their object, the men had taken to their horses and were already galloping off. The appearance of Foliot, and the plunging of Raoul's horse in the water, had made them think it possible that the attacking party were crossing the river in greater force. Gladice's eyes rested in alarm upon the struggling animal, which now rose with his fore-legs on the bank almost at their feet.

Dazzled and bewildered as he was, Waryn guessed at once that Raoul had tried to swim the stream.

"Where is the boy?" he exclaimed, as he saw that the horse was riderless.

"Who? what?" said Gladice, only clinging to him in fresh alarm. Gently but rapidly Foliot unclasped the arm from his shoulder. Raoul was drowning. He rushed to the bank and called his name, but there was no answer. He was about plunging into the river again, when he saw that the horse was prevented from making good his landing by an arm that still clutched his rein. In another moment he had drawn the insensible body of the young esquire to land; and Gladice, who had now come to some half-comprehension of what had happened, was kneeling with him by Raoul's side, chafing the cold breast, and using such simple means as their unskilled zeal could suggest to restore warmth and vitality.

"Ride round to the abbey gates, men," shouted Foliot to the archers on the other side, as soon as he could collect his thoughts-"get help at once, and, above all, a boat, for the love of heaven!"

Again old Peter was disturbed, and muttered subdued anathemas against all unseasonable travellers; but this time he did his office by deputy. The bell rang out for lauds while the men were telling their hurried story, and the sacrist and two or three others, who were already on their way to the church, and had stopped to listen, no sooner heard Foliot's name, and the nature of the service required, than they hastened at once to the water-gate, where a small boat usually lay for the accommodation of the brotherhood. The boat, however, was not there; and some little time was lost in procuring a larger one from the boat-house. At length it was launched, and the sacrist and his brethren arrived just when the almost despairing efforts which had been made for poor Raoul's recovery were beginning to have some effect, and he was giving signs of returning consciousness. The good Benedictines at once took his further treatment into their own more ex

perienced hands-Brother Andrew, shrewd and prompt in all emergencies, had even found time to bring a stimulating cordial with him-and in a few minutes their patient was sufficiently restored to admit of being placed in the boat and carried over with the rest to the other side. No words could have expressed the worthy monks' horror and astonishment, when they had time to comprehend the whole particulars of the scene; the Lady Gladice, whom they had thought safe within their own walls, stood pale and shivering by the riverside, while the bodies of the fallen archers lay bleeding before them. No words, indeed, did they speak, whatever their feelings were, but wisely confined their attention at first exclusively to Raoul; and when his case seemed in favourable progress, with the unfailing charity of their order, they turned their attention to the wounded men who lay near. Three, when gently moved and spoken to, gave signs of life, and were lifted carefully into the boat by the Benedictines. Waryn could not resist an exclamation of impatience when, after carefully wrapping his cloak round Gladice, who was shivering with cold and terror, he had placed her in the boat, and was waiting for them to push off.

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Let the hounds lie," he said, as they went to fetch the second man"there are lives here in peril which were ill risked to save a hundred such-let them reap their own deserts."

Nay, my son," said one of the Benedictines, old and grey-headed, "all lives are alike in the sight of Heaven."

They soon completed their work of

mercy; and Waryn, rebuked and silent, said no more until they reached the water-gate.

As they touched the steps at the landing-place, Gladice suddenly rose, and looked wildly round her.

"Bertha !" she cried,-" Bertha!Harry! where are they?" A low groan çame from the bottom of the boat, where the wounded men lay. The sacrist put down his oar, and looked in the face of the one who lay next him.

"He it is, sure enough," said the monk, "if Harry be his name: how he came here is another matter-he is sore hurt, I fear."

"And Bertha-my poor Bertha ! where is she? She was with us in the boat! Shame on me that I should forget her! Oh! for Heaven's love," Gladice cried, laying her hand on Waryn's shoulder, "seek her for me we must not leave her in such hands-I pray you, let us seek her at once!"

It was an unanswerable appeal. Reluctantly giving Gladice herself into the sacrist's charge, and leaving the rest to carry the wounded men, Waryn took two of the archers with him in the boat, and pulled again across the stream. After searching in vain the bank where the struggle had taken place, and shouting loudly the poor tire-woman's name, he bethought himself of the boat which had disappeared, and proceeded up the stream, though with little hope of overtaking it.

At the distance of about a mile they found it lying under the bank, but empty. Of poor Bertha (who had followed her mistress to Rivelsby only, as it seemed, to share a new peril) they could find no trace.

It was high noon on the day following when Abbot Martin again made his appearance at Rivelsby, on his return from Huntingdon. Peter, when he opened the great gates for his admission, stared at his superior and his strange retinue with evident alarm and misgiving, as if his nerves had not yet recovered the shock which they had experienced from

VOL. LXXXVII.-NO. DXXXI.

the strange visitant two nights ago. The abbot spoke to the old man with his usual frank and kindly greeting, but Peter only shook his head, fumbled with his keys, and muttered something which sounded but ominously for a welcome. He looked more and more bewildered as the wild-looking train of lances and bowmen filed through the entrance after

F

the churchmen, and addressed to each other rough expressions of admiration at the noble quadrangle which opened upon their view, and promised such substantial and wellprovided quarters. He lifted his hands once or twice, as in a kind of pious protest, as the Brabanters passed; although, in fact, they exhibited what was for them an unusual degree of gravity and decorum. Abbot Martin remarked the old porter's strange expression, which he attributed entirely to the effect produced by the sight of the legate's retainers.

"Peter does not love strange faces," he observed quietly to Wolfert as they passed on.

"Our new friends, it must be granted, have not a very taking cast of countenance," replied the chaplain. "Peter grows too old for his office, methinks," remarked the treasurer, who was less charitably disposed; "he were far better in the infirmary.'

He spoke out of a laudable disgust at his superior's reception; and besides, he had a brother in the monastery who was expecting promotion, and the porter's was a place of trust, and enjoyed privileges and perquisites accordingly.

The abbot had arrived at the hour of refection, which might in part account for the fact that few of his house came forward to greet him. Waryn Foliot, however, had long been anxiously on the watch for his coming. Hours before it was possible that the journey could have been accomplished, he had been impatiently pacing the terrace, looking out towards Swinford Bridge. It was with a feeling of intense relief that he at last made out the abbot's train winding over it, and knew that he had escaped the dangers of the road. He might have found the time pass less slowly, had he been able to question the Lady Gladice herself in person as to the cause of her last night's danger, and have received the explanation from her own lips. But he had not seen her since his return to the abbey from his ineffectual search after Bertha, for she had not left her chamber, nor would he have chosen to intrude upon her privacy until the abbot's return. He

had, however, visited her wounded. follower in company with the sacrist, and had gleaned from him such particulars as served to throw some light upon the late outrage. He found cropt Harry sitting on his pallet, weak and pale, but sufficiently master of his faculties to give a tolerably connected account of all that had happened within his own knowledge. He had been summoned at midnight to attend his lady, as he understood, to Huntingdon. A boat was waiting for them at the riversteps, and they were to go part of the way by water, because the roads were dangerous-an escort was awaiting them farther on. He had found his mistress apparently in considerable tribulation at the suddenness of the message, and the unseasonableness of the hour; and two of the brethren were endeavouring to cheer and comfort her. They had it, they said, under the abbot's hand, that she was to go; some powerful kinsman of hers, a bishop or the like, had sent for her; so that at last she was overpersuaded. One of the monks-the prior, as he believed-had been very anxious to the last, that he, Harry, should be left behind, saying that it was ill to be cumbered with too many in the boat, and that Bertha's company would be sufficient; nay, that the churchmen themselves would go with her until they met the escort; but that the Lady Gladice had refused to stir without him, and that he himself would have surely found a place in the boat if he had been forced to tumble one of the reverend fathers out of it; indeed, he added with an oath, that he was just now inclined to believe that for so doing St Bennet himself would have given him absolution. He went on to say that the prior-for it surely was the prior-had let them out at the river-gate, where a boat and men were waiting; that they had crossed the river to get out of the stream, as the churchmen said, and touched upon the bank, as though it had been by accident; that two or three men jumped up from among the reeds, and sprang into the boat-that Bertha screamed, and that he had raised his axe and would have given short account of one of them, but that,

as he believed, one of the monks had caught his arm-then came a crashing blow upon his own head, and the moon and stars seemed strangely multiplied, but he had struggled ashore, as he believed-and there his reminiscences of the night ended.

Of the other wounded men, whom the monks had carried into the abbey, one was in a dying state, the other had been shot through the face, and either could, or would, say nothing.

There could be no doubt but that Gladice had been decoyed from the abbey by a false message from the abbot, and little that the prior himself had been the chief agent in this detestable treachery. The horsemen whom Foliot had tracked from Huntingdon, and of whom he had lost sight so strangely at Swinford Bridge, had no doubt ridden along the further bank of the river, and awaited there, by a preconcerted plan, the crossing of the boat from the monastery. It was no wonder that Waryn had chafed with indignation and anxiety as he walked to and fro, watching what little he could see of the road by which the abbot was to come; if anything should have occurred to detain him at Huntingdon, or if, as was by no means improbable, he should be cut off in his return by some new movement on the part of Sir Godfrey or his fellow-conspirators, in what a position should he find himself at Rivelsby! knowing himself to be in such a nest of traitorsfor in the first burst of his wrath Waryn was inclined to class all the poor Benedictines in that categorywithout authority or power to take any measures for his own or others' safety. He did not feel the burden of his responsibilities the less, perhaps, since that piteous appeal to his protection had wrung across the water.

In the sacrist, indeed, he believed that he had found one that he could implicitly trust. Brother Andrew had been present while Foliot had extracted from Gladice's follower the information which has already been recorded; nay, he had heard it all piecemeal beforehand, while he was dressing the man's wound: he had even taken the precaution of impressing upon him the necessity of a cau

tious silence upon all these particulars, and especially as to the prior's supposed share in the transaction, to any in the monastery except Foliot and himself; and for this reason had taken upon himself an office which would have been more naturally performed by the servants of the infirmary. His patient, though inclined to be garrulous enough upon all matters which concerned himself or others a quality which had already gained him some popularity in his new quarters-was shrewd and faithful enough to see the need of this precaution, and feigned either sleep or ignorance when others of the brethren-one an emissary from the prior himself - tried to ascertain from him what he remembered of his last night's adventure. But when Foliot was disposed to take brother Andrew into council, and to question him as to what he might know or suspect of the prior's dealings, he did not find his confidence as fully reciprocated as he could have wished. Mysterious shakes of the head and short ejaculations were pretty nearly all that the sacrist vouchsafed in answer. He looked upon all outside the walls of his convent as Gentiles, who were not to be trusted with the secrets, or admitted to a knowledge of the failings, of a privileged people. Besides, Waryn was young; which was synonymous in his eyes with the sins of folly, rashness, and, in short, all the opposite qualities to sound counsel. Though he bestowed on him, therefore, many words of what he intended for gracious encouragement and patronising kindness, and endeavoured to show in his peculiar manner that he appreciated his services, they did not advance much in the way of a mutual understanding. It did not contribute to this result, perhaps, in the young man's present mood, that in discussing the circumstances and probable motives of the last night's outrage, Brother Andrew introduced by way of comparison some profoundly moral observations as to Mother Eve, Delilah, Helen of Troy, and other characters, profane and sacred. If there was a sly twinkle in the sacrist's eye as he thus philosophised, which might have led to a doubt whether he was altogether

in earnest, Waryn was too angry to observe it.

He had been almost as anxious, however, as Foliot or Raoul could be, for his superior's safe return, and had been sitting quietly in brother Peter's chamber at the gate, awaiting him. He knew that expected arrivals do not come the quicker for being watched along the road.

"I would he were come too, brother Peter," he had said, as Raoul left them together after coming for the third time at least to look out from the upper room in the gatetower, which was ascended by a little stair from that in which they were sitting, which he fancied commanded rather a more distant view than the terrace. Ay, I am fain enough for him to be here-St Mary bring him safely by the way! But the mother of Sisera, I reckon, did not hasten the chariot by looking forth of the lattice window."

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He was the first to assist the abbot to dismount when he at last arrived.

"The saints be praised, father," said he as he held the stirrup, "that we have you home again-we little hoped for you so early. Nay,” he added in a whisper," there be some here who scarce looked for your reverence to return at all."

The abbot did not reply at once, for his eyes were fixed on Foliot's face, who was assisting him on the other side. He saw at once, by its expression, that there was something to be told his own forebodings helped him to the conclusion that it was evil.

"Is all well, Waryn?" he inquired, anxiously.

"Welcome home, my good lordyou come in good time," replied Foliot, evading a direct answer to his question, while others were by to listen. He led the abbot aside a few steps, and proceeded to explain to him, briefly and hurriedly, so much as he knew of the events of the past night.

"I told you," said he, "that the prior was false; you need now no further proof of it."

The abbot's honest indignation scarcely left him the power of speech for the first few moments. Unsuspi

cicus to a fault, treachery and falsehood struck him with tenfold abhorrence when they were proved.

"By St Mary! but he shall rue it," he exclaimed, "if it were the last act of my life! I have used the power which Heaven hath given me all too lightly, hitherto-it has been my sin, my grievous sin; but I were more unworthy even than yon false traitor himself, if I let such a deed go unpunished for an hour.-Where is the prior?" he asked, turning to the sacrist, who stood at a respectful distance.

"He is in the refectory with the brethren," said the sacrist.

"Let us go thither at once.” Through the lofty archway, which connected the two quadrangles, to the refectory Abbot Martin straightway proceeded, followed by Foliot and the sacrist. He acknowledged the lowly obeisance of the few monks whom he passed on his way in a more constrained manner than usual; he had but too much at the moment to occupy his thoughts.

Prior Hugh sat in the place of honour amongst the assembled brethren. Not in the abbot's chair, which was left vacant; but in all other respects he had assumed, as of right, the superior's office and authority. He had done what he could, during these few hours of rule, to increase his popularity not only with those whom he already counted amongst his friends, but with the large mass of indifferentism which at Rivelsby, as elsewhere, was always ready to go with the stream of present success which might be likely to carry their own advantage with it. An ample allowance of mead, at the prior's private cost, was being set upon the board (though it was a maigre day) as the abbot entered, as if to inaugurate a new and more liberal administration.

All rose as Abbot Martin passed up the long line of tables, and without a word took his own proper seat. His sudden appearance-perhaps also the unusually stern expression upon his features-produced an evident consternation. Some ominous foreboding kept even those voices silent, which would have been most ready to welcome heartily his safe