Part 18

"Enough," said the abbot; "we may pity his infirmity; but let him be sent to the mill for punishment. Now to business, which I fear me hath suffered by this untimely interruption."

"Happen you'll let me be one of the guests," said the incorrigible Dick, thrusting himself forward, even to the abbot's chair, which so discomposed his reverence that he cried in a loud and authoritative tone--

"Will none of ye rid me of this pestilence? By the beard of St Cuthbert, I will dispose of him, and that presently!"

Seizing him by the shoulder, the abbot would have thrust him forth, but Dick slipped dexterously aside. Taking out the packet, he broke open the seals, and immediately began to tumble about the contents, seating himself at the same time in the vacant chair of the abbot, with great solemnity, and an air of marvellous profundity in his demeanour. It was the work of a few moments only; a pause of silent astonishment ensued, when the abbot's eye, catching, from their appearance, something of the nature of the documents, he started forward with great eagerness and surprise. He snatched them from the hands of their crack-brained possessor, and soon all other matters were forgotten. The abbot in breathless haste ran through the contents. The assembly was all eye and ear, and some were absolutely paralysed with wonder. There was not an indifferent observer but Dick, who, with a chuckling laugh, rubbed his hands, and fidgeted about in the chair with a look of almost infantile delight.

"I've done it brawly, ha'n't I? Dick wi' the lang neb! an' I'll hae two messes o' parritch an' sour milk, an' a barley-cake; I'm waesome hungry i' the waum here."

The abbot was too deeply involved in the subject before him to heed a craving appetite. Dick's stomach, however, was not to be silenced by diplomatic food; not having tasted anything for a considerable time, his wants immediately assumed the language of inquiry.

"Old dad, ha' ye any bones to pick? I'd like to have a lick at the trencher."

The abbot made signals that he should not be disturbed; but Dick was not to be put off or convinced by such unsubstantial arguments, and they were fain to rid themselves from further annoyance by ordering him into the kitchen, where he was speedily absorbed in devouring a pan of browis, left there for morning use--the breakfast of the labourers about the abbey.

During this interval matters of the deepest importance were discussed, the contents of the packet having furnished abundant materials for deliberation. When the bearer was effectually replenished, he was led into the council-chamber again, where the abbot, in a tone of deep and serious thought, thus addressed him:--

"Who gave thee these despatches? It is plain they were not meant for our eyes; but Heaven, by the weakest instrument, often works the mightiest and most important events. Where and how came they into thy keeping?"

Dick looked cunningly round the apartment ere he replied, surveying the floor, the walls, and the ceiling; even the groinings of the roof did not escape a minute and accurate examination; whether to give time for the contriving of a suitable reply, or merely to gratify his own peevish humour, is of little consequence that we should inquire. After a long and anxious silence on the part of his auditors, he replied--

"I told ye when ye spiered afore." Another pause. The abbot was fearful that Dick's ideas, if not carefully handled, might get so entangled and confused that he would be unable to give any intelligible account of the matter. He therefore addressed him coaxingly as follows--

"Nay, nay, Dickon, thou hast not; answer me now, and thou shalt have the fat from the roast to-morrow, and a sop to season it withal."

Dick leered again at this prospective dainty, as he replied--

"I tou'd ye, and ye heeded not, belike; and who's the fool now? Come, I'll set you my riddle again. If ye set your back to a door, see that it be tyned, or ye may get a broken head, and then"----

Here he paused, and looked round with a vacant eye; but they wisely forbore to interrupt the current of his ideas, hoping that ere long they might trickle into the right channel.

"There was a big room, and a bed in it," he continued, "and a priest, which the fule body has cheated. A fule's wit is worth more nor a wise man's folly."

A vague apprehension of the truth crossed the abbot's mind. Being now on the right scent, he no longer forbore to follow up the chase, but endeavoured to hasten the development by a gentle stimulating of his pace in the required direction.

"The priest yonder at the castle gave it thee?" said the abbot carelessly.

"Well, and if he did," replied Dick sharply, "he didna ken I was a-peeping into his chamber, as I've done many an unlucky time here in the abbey, and gotten a good licking for my pains."

"To whom was it sent?"

"Ask the bairn yon', that I ha' brought by th' scut o' th' neck. He woudna come bout tugging for."

"Was he the messenger?" asked Roger, the abbot's secretary and prime agent.

"Help thine ignorant face, father!--I was peeping about, you see, in the dark. The priest thought it waur the laddy yonder, a-comin' for his bag; so he gied it me, and tou'd me to carry it safe, but forgot to grease my pate forbye wi' the direction. I ken'd ye could read aught at the abbey here, and so ye may e'en run wi' it to the right owner for yere pains."

The cunning knave glossed over his treachery with this excuse; for he evidently knew better, and had a notion that he should serve his masters by this piece of diplomatic craft.

"Thou mayest depart, and ere morrow we will give thee a largess for thy dexterity."

Dick did not care to be long a-snuffing the chill air of the vaults and passages after his dismissal, but in a warm cell near the kitchen fire he was soon wrapped in the delights of oblivion. Such, however, was the importance of the documents he had so strangely intercepted, that a messenger was immediately despatched to London with a packet for the Privy Council.

The same morning, with the early dawn, the abbot and his secretary were together in the cloisters. It was a fitting place and opportunity either for intrigue or devotion, and many a masterstroke of church policy has issued from those dim and sepulchral arches in "the Glen of the deadly Nightshade."