The Bishop and the dignitaries of the Cathedral who composed his Chapter, had assembled in fear and trembling in the Chapel of the Palace, where they offered up prayers for deliverance from their scourge; and the Wolfe of Badenoch and his formidable party were no sooner ascertained to have permanently withdrawn, than they issued forth, bearing some of the most holy of their images, with the most precious relics of saints, which had been hastily snatched from their shrines on the first alarm of the enemy’s approach, and began to move in melancholy procession towards Elgin, guarded by the armed vassals of the Church, who had been summoned to man the Palace walls. As they rose over the hill, they beheld the flames still raging in all their fury. The sun was by this time rising over [[552]]the horizon, but his rays added little to the artificial day that already possessed the scene. The smiling morning, indeed, served to show the extent of the devastation which the flames had already occasioned; but the cheerful matin song of the birds accorded ill with the wailings that burst from those who beheld this dismal spectacle. The pride of the Bishop, if the good man ever had any, was indeed effectually humbled. As he rode on his palfrey at the head of the sad procession, the reins held by two attendants, one of whom walked on each side of him, he wept when he came within view of the town; and, ordering them to halt, he crossed his hands meekly over his breast, and looked up in silent ejaculation to Heaven.
“O speculum patriæ et decus regni,” cried he, turning his eyes again towards the Cathedral, whilst the tears rolled over his cheeks. “Oh, glory and honour of Scotland—thou holy fane, which we, poor wretched mortals, did fondly believe to be a habitation worthy of the omnipotent and mysterious Trinity, to whom thou wast dedicated—behold thee, for the sins of us the guilty servants of a just God, behold thee yielded up a prey to the destroyer! Oh, holy Father, and do thou, blessed Virgin Mother, cause our prayers to find acceptance at the Almighty throne, through the merits of thy beloved Son—may we, thy sinful creatures, be humbled before this thine avenging arm; and may the fasts, penances, and mortifications we shall impose be the means of bringing us down, both body and soul, unto the dust, that thy just wrath against us may be assuaged; for surely some great sin hath beset us, seeing it hath pleased thee to destroy thine own holy temple, that our evil condition might be made manifest to us.”
Those who formed the procession bent reverently to the ground as the venerable prelate uttered these words.
“And now, my sons,” said he with a sigh, “let us hasten onwards, and do what we can to preserve what may yet have escaped from the general destruction.”
The first care of the good Bishop was to collect the scattered townsmen, who had already begun to cluster in the streets; and every exertion was immediately used to put a stop to the conflagration. The Franciscan was there, but his attention was occupied with something very different from that which so painfully interested every one else. The Lady Beatrice—was she safe? At the risk of his life he had clambered over the blazing roof of the Maison Dieu to seek her in her chamber. She was gone from thence. He had searched anxiously through all the upper apartments of the building, and yet he had seen [[553]]no trace of her. Full of alarm, he had been compelled to rest on the hope that she might have escaped with others from the flames; and, with an unspeakable anxiety to have that hope confirmed, he went about inquiring impatiently of every one he met, whether any damsel, answering to the description of the Lady Beatrice, had been seen; but of all those to whom he addressed himself, there was no one who could say that she was known to have escaped.
“Miserable wretch that I am,” said he, “have her sins then been punished by so terrible a death—sins for the which I myself must be called to dread account both here and hereafter—I who deprived her of the blessing of a virtuous mother’s counsel, and of a father’s powerful protection? Holy St. Francis forgive me, the thought is agony.”
He sat him down on a stone in the court of the Maison Dieu, and he was soon joined by sister Marion, the lame housekeeper of the Hospital, who came to mourn over its smouldering ruins.
“Oh, dear heart and alas!” cried the withered matron—“the blessed St. Mary defend, protect, and be good unto us—and there is a dole sight to be sure. Under that very roof hae I been housed and sheltered, come the feast of Our Lady, full forty——nay, I should hae said fourteen years and upwards, and now I am to be turned out amidst the snares and temptations of this wicked world, to be the sport and the pastime of the profligate and ungodly. What will become of us, to whose lot beauty hath fallen as a snare, and fair countenance as an aid to the Evil One? Where, alas! shall we hide our heads that we fall not in the way of sinners? Where——”
“Tell me, sister!” cried the Franciscan, impatiently interrupting her—“tell me, didst thou see the Lady Beatrice, whom I escorted hither yesterday?”
“Yea, in good verity, did I that, brother,” replied Marion.