share, arrived at the porter's lodge, and pulled the bell, he could hardly help fancying, as he listened to its deep sullen echoes, that there was a degree of profanation in thus dispelling the silence that had invested the sacred building.

The monks within had already betaken themselves to repose; the abbot, he was informed, as indeed he had been previously told by Friar Frank, was at the manor of Sharpham; but on stating that he came to him on urgent business, he was shown into a small neatly-appointed bed-chamber, of which there were many set apart for the use of occasional visitants, where the fatigue of his long walk and previous exertions soon enabled him to forget the agitation of his mind, in a profound and uninterrupted sleep.

CHAPTER VII.

What abbot could be found throughout
The realm, more learned, good, devout,
Better or brighter?

Blameless he ran his godly race,

Conferring sanctity and grace
E'en on the mitre.

ARISING early the following morning, Dudley employed his time, before the arrival of the abbot, in wandering about the building, of which, upon his previous visit, he had seen no portion but the great church, and that only in a hurried and imperfect manner. To this solemn and sublime scene he again bent his steps, walking amid the tombs, and over the grave-stones of the departed great, whose illustrious names seemed to hallow and ennoble the spot; or pacing along the dim and lofty aisles,

very

where the silence seemed to be holily praying, and his footfall, gentle as it was, to be an interruption of its devotions. Having more leisurely surveyed the unrivalled architectural beauties and rich decorations of the place, and spent some time in decyphering the Norman tiles of the floor, inscribed with scripture-sentences in Latin, and the names of various kings and benefactors, he visited in succession the chapels of St. Mary, St. Andrew, of our Lady of Loretto, of the Holy Sepulchre, and of St. Edgar, in the latter of which was the venerable tomb of the king who had given his name to the building. All the others were enriched with sumptuous monuments of brass or marble, erected to the memory of monarchs, queens, abbots, warriors, statesmen, and noble dames of the olden time, who little thought, when they ordered their remains to be deposited in this solid sanctuary, that the walls, which time would have spared for numerous ages, should be torn prematurely down by man; that the beasts of the field should make a kennel of their desecrated graves; and that the hands of sacrilegi

ous avarice, disturbing even their bones, should scatter them to the fowls of the air, as they rifled the coffins of their ornaments, or turned the earth beneath them in search of buried treasure.

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From this spot he strolled to the inhabited part of the establishment, leaving the King's Lodgings, as they were termed, with those of the abbot and friars, unvisited, and passed through the farmerer's office, the jubiler's office, the friary, and the almoner's apartments, until he came to a lofty arched door, secured with nails, bosses, and bars of iron, which, turning heavily on its hinges as he pushed it open, admitted him into a room, that he little expected to find, in so peaceful an establishment, being no other than a spacious armoury, abundantly provided with swords, spear, arquebusses, bullets, and other warlike apparatus. Most of these weapons, appearing by their fashion to be of great antiquity, had probably been provided during the wars of the Roses and previous periods of trouble, when the church-militant found the halbert and the battle-axe a better

security for its possessions than the episcopal crosier, or even than the papal bull, though wrapped in lead and sealed with the Fisherman's Seal. For many years the spider, affording an emblem of security and peace, which might well atone for the dusty negligence that it implied, had been suffered to weave festoons over the mouths of the guns, and hang like garlands upon points and blades that had once been reddened with human gore; and indeed the apartment itself, from the time of Perkyn Warbeck's insurrection, had been as a Temple of Janus during peace. But since Sir Lionel Fitzmaurice had taken possession of the Tor House, a man who avowed an implacable enmity to the abbot, who was known to be ready for any desperate enterprize, and whose numerous armed retainers were always kept prepared for its execution,-it had been deemed a measure of precaution to furbish up the rusty weapons, and re-establish the order of the armoury, that the abbot might be enabled to repel any sudden surprize or nocturnal assault from so formidable a neighbour.