"
"Ay, and to make such figures as these blessed Saints, and especially
these two Marys?" said the boy.
"With their blessing," said the Sub-Prior, "I can teach you that art
too, so far as I am myself capable of showing, and you of learning
it." "Then," said Edward, "will I paint Mary's picture--and remember
you are to bring back the black book; that you must promise me."
The Sub-Prior, anxious to get rid of the boy's pertinacity, and to set
forward on his return to the convent, without having any further
interview with Christie the galloper, answered by giving the promise
Edward required, mounted his mule, and set forth on his return
homeward.
The November day was well spent ere the Sub-Prior resumed his journey;
for the difficulty of the road, and the various delays which he had
met with at the tower, had detained him longer than he proposed. A
chill easterly wind was sighing among the withered leaves, and
stripping them from the hold they had yet retained on the parent
trees.
"Even so," said the monk, "our prospects in this vale of time grow
more disconsolate as the stream of years passes on. Little have I gained
by my journey, saving the certainty that heresy is busy among us with
more than his usual activity, and that the spirit of insulting religious
orders, and plundering the Church's property, so general in the eastern
districts of Scotland, has now come nearer home.
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