At dawn the chapel doors unclosed, and after a hasty mass from Friar John, a rich repast was served to knight and squire.

    “Lord Marmion’s bugles blew to horse: 
     Then came the stirrup-cup in course;
     Between the Baron and his host
     No point of courtesy was lost;
     Till, filing from the gate, had passed
     That noble train, their Lord the last. 
     Then loudly rang the trumpet call;
     Thundered the cannon from the wall,
       And shook the Scottish shore;
     Around the castle eddied slow,
     Volumes of smoke as white as snow,
       And hid its turrets hoar;
     Till they rolled forth upon the air,
    And met the river breezes there.”

[Illustration:  The library, Abbotsford.]

CHAPTER II.

The breeze which swept away the rolling smoke from Norham, curled not the Tweed alone.  Far upon Northumbrian waters, it blew fresh and strong, bearing on its wings a barque from the Abbey of Whitby on the coast of Yorkshire, sailing to St. Cuthbert’s at Lindisfarne, on Holy Isle.

    “The merry seamen laugh’d to see
     Their gallant ship so lustily
       Furrow the green sea-foam. 
     Much joy’d they in their honor’d freight;
     For, on the deck, in chair of state,
     The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed,
     With five fair nuns, the galley graced.

    “’T was sweet to see these holy maids,
     Like birds escaped to green-wood shades,
       Their first flight from the cage;
     How timid, and how curious, too,
     For all to them was strange and new,
     And all the common sights they view,
       Their wonderment engage.”

Light-hearted were they all, except the Abbess and the novice Clare.  Fair, kind, and noble, the Abbess had early taken the veil.  Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were bounded by the cloister walls; her highest ambition being to raise St. Hilda’s fame.  For this she gave her ample fortune—­to build its bowers, to adorn its chapels with rare and quaint carvings, and to deck the relic shrine with ivory and costly gems.  The poor and the pilgrim blessed her bounty and shelter.

Her pale cheek and spare form were made more striking by the black Benedictine garb.  Vigils and penitence had dimmed the luster of her eyes.  Though proud of her religious sway and its severity, she loved her maidens and was loved by them in return.

The purpose of the present voyage was most unhappy, and to the Abbess most painful.  She came to Lindisfarne upon the summons of St. Cuthbert’s Abbot, to hold with him and the Prioress of Tynemouth an inquisition on two apostates from the faith, if need were, to condemn them to death.