The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan

le echoes brushed through the blackness of the chapel; the blood made flames in his eyes and roared in his ears. It should have been the dawn, or at least the false dawn, he thought, long

keep his vigil, knee

esan he had seen in Venice long ago, but her smile had turned to a skull's grinning beneath a wimple. He had known all these for demons. The hermit of Liddeside with his long beard and foul garments, such as they had seen him when they went raiding up Dunbar way, had swept into that place and had imperiously bidden him up from his knees to drive the Scots from Barnside, but he had known that the anchorite had been dead this three years and, seeing that the Warden of the Eastern Marches and the Bishop of Durham, with all his own father's forces and all theirs, lay in the castle and its sheilings, it was not likely that th

walls had seen the murdering of blessed saint Oddry by heathens and Scots whilst he sang mass, and even as pagans and sorcerers had in the old times contended for that ground, now, having done it in the body, in their s

ghty leaps above a coal fire, up through which, livid and in flaming shrouds, there had risen the poor souls of folk in purgatory. And with a charter from which there dangled a seal dripping blood to his

e infinitely more grievous to Our Lady than the temporary sojourn in purgatory of an infinite number. But at t

that his presence disturbed. When he began upon his Paters, a rat that had crept into his harness of proof overset his helmet and the prayer went out of his head. When he would have crossed himself, suddenly h

ckcrow and dawn, in the period when men die and life ebbs down

indifferent. And some of the poor would have them to be little people that dwelt in bogs and raths, and others held them for great and fair. He could not pray; he could not cross himself; his tongue clove to his jaws; hi

b-apple branches outside the wall, moving slowly across the floor. When he looked again it was gone and not gone. Without a doubt some ey

self and to no other man or priest that he had vowed to watch above his harness from midnight to dawning. That was a newish fashion and neither the Border Warden nor the Prince Bishop would ask him had h

uts hung from the mists. He perceived an old witch toiling up the dunes to come to him. She had a red cloak and a faggot over her shoulder. She waved her crutch to make him await her, and sudden

w," he said, "but I had not though

er bed when he had been in harness without bow or light gun or hounds to chase her with. At othe

yes and she laughed so that he repente

and the weary creak of bough on bough in a great gale when the woods are perilous because of fal

ap that hung at his belt. He reached to his left side for his sword, but i

was not well in him to let her corrupt the souls of his poor. He lifted from his girdle his tablets to write down that the witch must drown, but the tablets the pen and

gged your life of me...

uttered: "Margaret,"

r troth. But that sleeper shall be plighted to my lording's

o Hell!" the Yo

he witch

mmocks amongst grey fields. A high crag was to the left. It was all grey over Holy Island; smoke rose from its courtyard. Dunstanburgh was lost i

inted with h

laboriously at the foot of the crag; it

be your master,"

t had about it a swirling cloud of brown and a

witch said, in a little voice. "A

they had bought him in Marseilles to ride homewards through France; his father and he had been to Rome after his father did the great and nameless sin and expiated it in

he air through his nostrils that were as broad as your palm; he spran

less, the rider heard through the muffled sound of hoofs on the heavy sand the old witch who cried out, "Eya," to show that she had more to

get none of his lands nor gear. From

dam in a scarlet cloak. Only a russet hare ran beneath t

accolade of the Warden of the Eastern Marches and of the Prince Bishop, following a custom that was observed in cases of great eminence or merit in the parties. And not only was Young Lovell son to Lord Lovell of the Castle, but he had

d muttering over a squared stone that had half of it muddied from burial. At first Young Lovell too

ried

er Furred Cat, whe

de raised on high. But his tone changed to fawning and then to a co

and the snarl of a dog fox, though his thin knees knocked together for fear. "A man

"But what sort of living is this to be seeking

lawyer mumbled. "Wel

. "A mislikeable thing to me. I must have thee burnt. Wh

nothing of Mishego and Mishago. This is plain lawyer's work and if your honou

when Young Lovell took him strongly back, he had the square stone at another angle. Upon its mossed side he saw a large

Cat, are removing it." He had got the epithet of Furred Cat from

"This is Hal o' the Mill's land, and I have moved the stone a furlong into the feu of Timothy Wynvate. There shall arise from this a lawsuit that shall last the King's reign out. Aye, belike, one of the twain shall slay the other. His land your honour

s fist to the sky. The most v

hat removeth his neighbour's landmark! But if I do not die before night, and I think I s

s life of this hot but charitable youth. But Young Lovell had leap

rushy sand-hills. Hamewarts guided him. They went over one ridge and

nd him. The mists were rising like curtains from over Bamborough; since the tide was falling the pall of spray was not so white on Dunstanburgh. Upon his own castle, covering its promontory near at hand, they were hoisting a flag, so that from there the tower warden must have already p

ht, on the wet margins of the tide. The lawyer was climbing over the shoulder of a dune, a sack upon his back; a shepher

ere shot up a single, broadening beam. Young Lovell waved h

he sun, "you might have saved me from

and restless border of blue doves, and in this carpet the white horse stepped ankle-deep without crushing one little fowl. He perceived the great-petalled flowers, scarlet and white and all golden. On a green hill

knight of all this Northland and the world, for I have never met my match

her answeri

ad not called thee