“Ay! but thou didst menace me with evil,” said the ruffian, “and no one but a fool is menaced twice. Dost thou not remember what you said touching the Primate and Lord James, and the black pool of Jedwood? Didst thou think me fool enough to wait till thou hadst betrayed me to the sack and the fork! There were small wisdom in that, methinks—as little as in coming hither to tell my own misdeeds—I think the devil was in me when I took this road—I might have remembered the proverb, 'Never Friar forgot feud.'”
“And it was solely for that—for that only hasty word of mine, uttered in a moment of impatience, and forgotten ere it was well spoken?” said Father Eustace.
“Ay! for that, and—for the love of thy gold crucifix,” said Christie of the Clinthill.
“Gracious Heaven! and could the yellow metal—the glittering earth—so far overcome every sense of what is thereby represented?—Father Abbot, I pray, as a dear boon, you will deliver this guilty person to my mercy.”
“Nay, brother,” interposed the Sacristan, “to your doom, if you will, not to your mercy—Remember, we are not all equally favoured by our blessed Lady, nor is it likely that every frock in the Convent will serve as a coat of proof when a lance is couched against it.”
“For that very reason,” said the Sub-Prior, “I would not that for my worthless self the community were to fall at feud with Julian of Avenel, this man's master.”
“Our Lady forbid!” said the Sacristan, “he is a second Julian the Apostate.”
“With our reverend father the Abbot's permission, then,” said Father Eustace, “I desire this man be freed from his chains, and suffered to depart uninjured;—and here, friend,” he added, giving him the golden crucifix, “is the image for which thou wert willing to stain thy hands with murder. View it well, and may it inspire thee with other and better thoughts than those which referred to it as a piece of bullion! Part with it, nevertheless, if thy necessities require, and get thee one of such coarse substance that Mammon shall have no share in any of the reflections to which it gives rise. It was the bequest of a dear friend to me; but dearer service can it never do than that of winning a soul to Heaven.”
The Borderer, now freed from his chains, stood gazing alternately on the Sub-Prior, and on the golden crucifix. “By Saint Giles,” said he, “I understand ye not!—An ye give me gold for couching my lance at thee, what would you give me to level it at a heretic?”
“The Church,” said the Sub-Prior, “will try the effect of her spiritual censures to bring these stray sheep into the fold, ere she employ the edge of the sword of Saint Peter.”