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"Ay," answered the old woman, in the same style of bitter irony, "I know the wages of that service; a curse when the corslet is not sufficiently brightened, a blow when the girth is not tightly drawn, to be beaten because the hounds are at fault, to be reviled because the foray is unsuccessful, to stain his hands for the master's bidding in the blood alike of beast and of man, to be a butcher of harmless deer, a murderer and defacer of God's own image, not at his own pleasure, but at that of his lord, to live a brawling ruffian, and a common stabber exposed to heat, to cold, to want of food, to all the privations of an anchoret, not for the love of God, but for the service of Satan, to die by the gibbet, or in some obscure skirmish, to sleep out his brief life in carnal security, and to awake in the eternal fire, which is never quenched."
Therefore, I will part with my pride to the noble canons of the church my luxury, as thou callest it, to the monks of the rule and my bloodthirstiness to the Knights of the Temple." "O heart of steel, and hand of iron," said the anchoret, "upon whom example, as well as advice, is alike thrown away!
Such, his servant said, had been his lordship's diet for very many years, unless upon the high festivals of the Church, or when company of the first rank were entertained at Glenallan House, when he relaxed a little in the austerity of his diet, and permitted himself a glass or two of wine. But at Monkbarns, no anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.
Why, out on this folly, Godolphin! You turn away. Do you fancy that I did not penetrate your weakness the moment you mentioned her name? still less, do you fancy, my dear young friend, that I, who have lived through nearly half a century, and know our nature, and the whole thermometer of our blood, think one jot the worse of you for forming a caprice, or a passion, if you will for a woman who would set an anchoret, or, what is still colder, a worn out debauchee, on fire?
Why, out on this folly, Godolphin! You turn away. Do you fancy that I did not penetrate your weakness the moment you mentioned her name? still less, do you fancy, my dear young friend, that I, who have lived through nearly half a century, and know our nature, and the whole thermometer of our blood, think one jot the worse of you for forming a caprice, or a passion, if you will for a woman who would set an anchoret, or, what is still colder, a worn out debauchee, on fire?
Yet, for all this, could I but win to come to my desire, All, that I've suffered and endured, straightway I should forget. O thou, that harbour'st in thy cave, distracted from the world, Meseems thou'st tasted love and been its slave, O anchoret!
However, the anchoret yielded to his importunity so far as to let him learn the alphabet, traced on the door in charcoal, and identify the more sacred words in the book which, indeed, were all in gold, red and blue.
Straightway the same game is repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it said that any self-tormenting anchoret had courage enough altogether to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children, that it is next to impossible." "A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.
There was nobody like him, no one whom Hal so loved and venerated, and he could not help, as he stood by his mother, pouring out to her all his feeling for the hermit, and the wise patient words that now and then dropped from him, such as 'Patience is the armour and conquest of the godly; or, 'Shall a man complain for the punishment of his sins? 'Yet, said Hal, 'what sins could the anchoret have?
When his course of philosophy was completed, he was determined, by his love of botany, to the profession of physick, and, from that time, engaged in a course of life, which was never exceeded, either by the ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret; for he confined himself to bread and water, and, at most, allowed himself no indulgence beyond fruits.
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