garment of Mother Church, and guarded from
hostile approach by bell, book, arid candle,
fifty slightly apoplectic monks, and the
tutelary name of the patroness of Dumfries.
There came over from foreign parts—from
the valleys of Savoy, and from Geneva, a sort
of subdued whisper that a reformation of
heart and life was universally required; that
the purity of the original law had been
departed from; that Christianity consisted in
forgiveness of injuries, love to our fellow men,
unselfishness, and doing unto others as we
would they should do unto us; and Sir
Torquil at once became a reformer, and
determined if he could to get possession of
the church's lands, and starve out the Abbot
of Strathwoden and all his monks. Accordingly,
after deep consultation with Sir Reinhold,
who had been knighted by the Regent
at Linlithgow after slaying a gentleman in
single combat, whose horse he had borrowed
and declined to return, Sir Torquil determined
to lay claim to a snug little farm of a
thousand acres or so, that lay next his
western march, and looked about for some
perjured witnesses to swear they remembered
the land in his father's possession, and
that they had seen the lease for nineteen
years, under which it was held by the monastery.
The abbot was a fat man—a jolly man
—overflowing with good nature, and a sort
of Christian charity which consisted in
making himself and everybody else as
comfortable as he could. He was very much
shocked at the audacious attempt. He
declined for a while to take legal notice of
the claim, and determined therefore to
proceed in a strictly clerical and Christian
manner. Thereupon he procured some of the
peasantry, and one or two of the chief farmers
on his demesne to give formal notice to the
bishop of the diocese that Sir Torquil was
possessed; that they had on several occasions
seen him accompanied by a large black dog,
and that it was very well known in the
neighbourhood that he had sold himself to the
devil. So, while the retainers of the abbey,
well armed, and commanded by the liveliest of
the monks, under a banner in which was
sewn a portion of the petticoat of their patron
saint, ejected the intruders with many a
whack and many a bang, a body of more aged
and reverend divines started in solemn
procession across the moor with a great quantity
of holy relics, and several censers swaying
about with sweet-smelling perfumes, and on
arriving in the courtyard of the Tower proceeded
to exorcise the evil spirit out of the
unfortunate knight.

It was a very evil spirit that had got possession
of that worthy man—a violent spirit
—an angry spirit—a most irreverent spirit;
and it incited him to do a variety of things
unbecoming a Christian gentleman in any
business he may have to transact with a
mitred abbot and eighteen venerable monks.
He rushed forth from his hall, where he had
been refreshing himself with a half-ox
roasted and a kilderkin of ale, and with his
quarter-staff, which fortunately was the
weapon he first laid hands on, he performed
such feats on the heads and bodies of the
reverend cavalcade as never since that time
has been achieved by a troop of French
tambours upon the regimental drums. It
was a shower of blows; a hailstorm of
cracks on the head; an avalanche of thumps
on the shoulders; a hurricane of kicks on all
parts of the body. A threshing of corn with
fifty flails was nothing to it; a beating of
carpets by a thousand hands on the outskirts
of a great town was nothing to it: it fell—
it squashed—it battered—it bruised—it
bounded, and fell again—till there was
limping, and howling, and holding up of
arms, and entreaties to cease, and apologies
for the intrusion, and finally retreat
—dispersion—disappearance; and nothing
was left but an old man out of breath,
with a broken quarter-staff in his hand,
surrounded by fragments of censers, and
relic-chests, and white surplices, and square
caps, and chasubles, and copes, and a sweet-
smelling savour exhaling frankincense and
myrrh.

Sir Reinhold saw the abbot that night.
He had a black patch on his nose, and his left
eye was bunged up entirely. His arm was
in a sling, and his left leg lay swathed in
cloths, and reclining on a cushion; the foot
and ankle were bare, red, and inflamed, like
a baby ill of the measles.

"From Sir Torquil of the Scawr? " said
the abbot, in answer to Sir Reinhold's
announcement of the object of his visit. "He
is given over to the evil one, body and soul,
and must expiate his blasphemy at the
stake."

"In the meantime his followers will take
forcible possession of the fat acres along the
banks of the Speith, and the corn and wine
and oil of the holy fathers will be much
diminished thereby."

"We have an enlightened and contented
tenantry, and feed fifty poor folks every day
at noon. They will fight in defence of their
abbot and St. Bridget.".

"We have two hundred men-at-arms
ready to trample on abbot and saint, and
to hold the lands in spite of devil and
pope."

"We! " said the abbot. " Is it possible
that our son Sir Reinhold has joined himself
to the army of Satan! Has not the
abbey for five years past put itself under your
powerful protection, paying you for the same
with much yellow gold and store of fat
cattle? And now you say ' We! ' For
shame, my son! Your friend Sir Torquil is
possessed by an infinite number of demons—
I should say five thousand, at least, from the
noise they made this morning, and the blows
they inflicted from a countless number of
sticks and quarter-staffs; and it would be