“I told you that two hours since,” said Christie of the Clinthill, “an you would have believed me. But it seems you are more willing to take the word of an old gray sorner, whose life has been spent in pattering heresy, than mine, though I never rode a foray in my life without duly saying my paternoster.”
“Go then,” said Father Eustace to Edward; “let thy sorrowing mother know that her son is restored to her from the grave, like the child of the widow of Zarephath; at the intercession,” he added, looking at Henry Warden, “of the blessed Saint whom I invoked in his behalf.”
“Deceived thyself,” said Warden, instantly, “thou art a deceiver of others. It was no dead man, no creature of clay, whom the blessed Tishbite invoked, when, stung by the reproach of the Shunamite woman, he prayed that her son's soul might come into him again.”
“It was by his intercession, however,” repeated the Sub-Prior; “for what says the Vulgate? Thus it is written: 'Et exaudivit Dominus vocem Helie; et reversa est anima pueri intra cum, et revixit;'—and thinkest thou the intercession of a glorified saint is more feeble than when he walks on earth, shrouded in a tabernacle of clay, and seeing but with the eye of flesh?”
During this controversy Edward Glendinning appeared restless and impatient, agitated by some internal feeling, but whether of joy, grief, or expectation, his countenance did not expressly declare. He took now the unusual freedom to break in upon the discourse of the Sub-Prior, who, notwithstanding his resolution to the contrary, was obviously kindling in the spirit of controversy, which Edward diverted by conjuring his reverence to allow him to speak a few words with him in private.
“Remove the prisoner,” said the Sub-Prior to Christie; “look to him carefully that he escape not; but for thy life do him no injury.”
His commands being obeyed, Edward and the monk were left alone, when the Sub-Prior thus addressed him:
“What hath come over thee, Edward, that thy eye kindles so wildly, and thy cheek is thus changing from scarlet to pale? Why didst thou break in so hastily and unadvisedly upon the argument with which I was prostrating yonder heretic? And wherefore dost thou not tell thy mother that her son is restored to her by the intercession, as Holy Church well warrants us to believe, of Blessed Saint Benedict, the patron of our Order? For if ever my prayers were put forth to him with zeal, it hath been in behalf of this house, and thine eyes have seen the result—go tell it to thy mother.”
“I must tell her then,” said Edward, “that if she has regained one son, another is lost to her.”
“What meanest thou, Edward? what language is this?” said the Sub-Prior.