Читать книгу Jane Seton; or, The King's Advocate. A Scottish Historical Romance онлайн

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"Um! he is confessor of the Lady Ashkirk," muttered Redhall, making another memorandum.

"As we were talking of sorcery, what hath the high sheriff of Lothian done with your vassal, the forester of Kinleith, who buried a living cat under his hearthstone, as a charm against evil?"

"Ah," said Redhall, with a smile, "Birrel soon found such proofs against him, that he is sent to the justiciary court."

"Ho! ho!" said the little abbot, rubbing his hands; "Sanders Screw and his concurrents will bring mickle to light, or my name is not Robin——"

But here the advocate hurried abruptly away, for at that moment the dance ended; and flushed, heated, and fatigued, the two ladies were led away—De Montreuil, by her cavalier, into the adjoining apartment, and Lady Jane towards a staircase which descended from the hall to the level and grassy lawn, that lay between the palace and the foot of the craigs of Salisbury.

The green sides of the silent hills and rocky brows of those basaltic cliffs, which seem but the half of some vast mountain which volcanic throes have rent and torn asunder, were bathed in the splendour of the broad and cloudless moon; the palace towers and vanes stood forth in strong white light, while the curtain walls and cloistered courts were steeped in sable shadow. On the right were a cluster of small antique houses where some of the royal retainers dwelt, and where Roland had his temporary domicile. This was called St. Anne's Yard; on the left, apparently among the hills, two red lights were shining. One was from an ancient mansion at the foot of Salisbury craigs, where Robert, abbot of the Holy Cross, dwelt; the other was from the illuminated shrine of St. Antony's Hermitage.