Edgar was affected, but chose rather to suffer the penalty of unqualified guilt, than to afford Lawrence the satisfaction of hearing his justification.

"Father," said he, addressing his aged superior, "let Lawrence tell the tale of his cowardice in his own words, let him blacken my guilt with his own embellishments, let his paltry soul descend to its habitual equivocation; I will not interrupt him till I detect a glaring falsehood. And let this monk," pointing to Brother Andrew, "who I conceive is yet ignorant of the facts, decide between us."

With the aid of his staff, the venerable Prior John re-ascended his judgment-seat, and after cautioning our hero against any indulgence of his usual freedom of speech towards his accuser, and offering a few observations on the justice of the proposition, allowed the affair to proceed.

Lawrence, overjoyed at such an opportunity of venting his spleen, began another declamatory oration, and proceeded for some time, with little deviation from the truth, entirely omitting, however, that part of the story which had a certain tendency to sink

him in his own estimation, as well as in the estimation of those around him, till he came to accuse Rosallin of assaulting his person, which he chose to embellish with a sounding affirmation that he was on the very point of plunging into the river, to rescue the Lady Helen, when the, frantic youth struck him down on the bank.

"Unsay that, thou incorrigible liar!" cried Edgar, in a voice that startled his prosecutor.

Aware, from the temper of the delinquent, that he would thus commit himself, Lawrence, at once ashamed and gratified, glanced an appealing look towards his Prior, for a new charge of guilt against the accused. But the manoeuvre failed either farther to criminate Rosallin, or to screen himself; for, to his unspeakable astonishment, the reverend father rose, and evidently much affected, thus addressed him :

"Brother, it behoveth that all should be weighed in the scales of the sanctuary. Thou hast lied before

Prior, will prove this

God; and I, thy before him thou

wouldst falsely accuse. When the child of Lumley sank for a third time, below the sur

face of the waters, I

thought the hand of God was upon her. Fain would I have rescued her, old and shaken as I am; my spirit felt what my aged limbs could not perform. I prayed for the energy of my youth; I tried to exert it, but, overpowered with years, a dizziness came over me, my legs tottered beneath me, and I fell on the bank. Powerless, but not senseless, I saw thee shrink from the subsiding waters; I saw the child Edgar hurl thee from the spot, precipitate himself from the rock, and rescue the victim of thy heartlessness. Brother, it is not for this I condemn thee-God has made thee with a timid heart. It is that thou hast dared to conclude I saw thee not; and because thou thoughtest thyself without a witness, thou hast looked on heaven, and lied! Twenty suns shall the cell be thy prisonhouse; there, with fasting, prayer, and penitential tears, thou mayst purge away thy guilt, and appear again regenerated among the brotherhood."

Having thus disposed of the deputy-procurator, the old man turned to Brother Andrew, who stood aghast at this unlooked for judgment, and said,

"As for the youth Edgar, reverend brother, he standeth in part acquitted in our eyes; and yet methinks his freedom of speech, and his morning breach of discipline, bespeak an unmanageable spirit."

Andrew nodding assent to this observation, the holy father turned to Edgar, and resumed :

"It is for thee, my child, to prune the passions of thy restless spirit, to meditate thy language, to reflect, often and seriously, on the future dignity to which the abilities thy God has given thee, may raise thee in his holy church; and, above all, to obey thy superiors. For thy breach of discipline, and thy untoward speech, I confine thee to the walls of the Priory for three moons; thy imprisonment to commence from the time when our brother Lawrence shall be restored to us, once more acceptable in the sight of God."

The reverend judge descended from his tribunal, leaned on the arm of Andrew, and motioned Lawrence and Rosallin to retire. Lawrence, hastily catching the sign, helped his ungainly figure out of the doorway as quickly as possible, and skulked along the passages,

in disgrace, to his confinement. Edgar, folding his arms, proceeded, with a firm step, along the ambulachra, to the northern ruin, climbed up its ivied side, and leaning against the mossy arch of an ancient window's mouldering framework, read to his melancholy soul a lesson from the page of nature. It wanted yet a lovely hour of sunset. The shadows lengthened on the breast of the river, and where the envious monastery walls left an unshaded part, there the freckled canopy of heaven reflected its golden and azure hues. An unnatural stillness pervaded the air, as if it preluded the birthpang of a storm.

Rosallin loved to gaze on the setting sun, and in order to do so more freely, left the ruin. Almost unconscious of what he was about, and reckless, even if reflection had come to his aid, of every consequence, he wandered from the Priory, along the bank of the river. Many a mossy, rough-hewn stone, once claiming fellowship with those which had better stood the unceasing brunt of time, and yet formed part of the convent walls, diverted him from the line of his path, through the thick grass that waved