Chapter V: The Thunder Strikes

I DO not propose to go very minutely into the details of my convent life. I remained at Dartford for several years, fairly content for the most part, though I now and then had a great desire after more freedom. I wearied of the trim grass plots, the orderly garden, and the orchard shut in from the rest of the world by high walls, and longed to find myself in the open fields, with no visible bound to my footsteps. I remembered my uncle's house in London, and wished myself back there, or with the family in their new home. For a time after their removal to Antwerp, I heard from the family. At least twice a year, a packet came with letters for me, and some valuable present for the house, of spice, or comfits, or wonderful lace, such as they know how to make in those parts. But after a time, these packets stopped coming, and for many a year, I had no news of these dear ones at all.

I had one visit from my Lady Peckham during this time. She came to London on some business about her husband's estate, which could not be easily settled, as there was no absolute proof that Randall was dead. The next heir was a distant relation of Sir Edward's, who lived near London. But this gentleman was an easy-going sort of person I fancy, or perhaps he did not care about burying himself in that wild part of Somersetshire. Any how, he agreed, in consideration of a certain share of the rents of the estate, to let Lady Peckham live in the house as long as she pleased. She had brought Sir Edward a good fortune, which was settled wholly on herself, so she was very well-to-do.

It seemed to me that she had altered very little. She had accepted the mantle and veil, and made the vow of perpetual widowhood, and so might be looked upon as, in some sort, a religious person as the phrase went in those times. She staid with us a month or more, and was, or professed to be, very much edified, though I think she was rather scandalized at the easiness of our rule, which was, indeed, very different from the discipline which used to be enforced at the house to which I had been first destined at Bridgewater. I do not mean to say that there was any disorder—far from it: but things went on in a comfortable, business-like fashion. There were so many services to be gone through, and they were gone through with all due gravity and decorum. We had beautiful singing, which people came from far and near to hear. We kept our fast days strictly enough as regards the eating of flesh meat, but our own stews gave us abundance of fish, and our orchard and garden supplied fruit and vegetables, so that we certainly did not suffer from our abstinence.

However, I suppose my lady must have been well pleased on the whole, for she tried very hard to make me consent to take the white or novice's veil. This, however, I would not do, pleading my solemn promise to Sir Edward and my uncle Gabriel. My lady declared that such promises made by a child amounted to nothing, and appealed to Father Austin. I don't know what he said to her, but it must have been something conclusive, since she said no more to me on the matter.

I ventured to ask about my old friend and playmate, Walter Corbet. She told me that he was still with Sir John Lambert, at Bridgewater, assisting in the care of the parish, but that he had some prospect of a new field of his own in Devon, not far from my old home.

"'Tis a wild and lonely place, and almost a savage people, so I am told," said my lady. "But Walter seems to think the prospect of burying himself among them a delightful one. Oh, if he would but have taken the vows at Glastonbury, he might come to be abbot in time, instead of living and dying in the gray walls of Ashcombe vicarage."

But those same gray walls are still whole and warm, while Glastonbury is but a stately ruin, wasted by all the airs that blow freely through its deserted halls. This, by the way.

My lady left us, as I have said, at the end of a month, to return to Peckham Hall, though at her first coming she had talked of spending the remainder of her days among us. But I think she was wise. Such a life as ours would not have suited her at all. She liked to rule wherever she was, and had been used many years to almost absolute authority, for Sir Edward rarely interfered in any matter which concerned the household; and she was too old and too set to learn new ways. From something I overheard, I don't think mother assistant favored the notion. I have heard her say myself that a nun ought to be professed before she is twenty. I never saw my lady again, though I heard from her now and then.

Mother assistant was now the real head and ruler of the house, for the prioress grew more and more indolent every day. She excused herself on the score of her health, though I cannot but think she would have been well enough if she had taken more exercise and eaten fewer sweetmeats. She could not have had a better deputy than the mother assistant, who was an excellent woman and well fitted to rule a household. I never saw a woman of a more even temper, and she had that precious faculty of making every one do her best in her own place.

Mother Joanna continued mistress of the novices, though her task was a light one, for we had very few accessions; our elections were regularly gone through with, but they were no more than a form, since the very same officers were elected over and over, save when some one died. Sister Sacristine, who was only a middle-aged woman when I came to Dartford, was growing old and feeble. Two new bursars had been elected. The trees had grown older, and the old Scotch gardener more opinionated. Sister Cicely's hands grew too stiff to manage the organ at times, and I often took her place, and acquitted myself to the satisfaction of my hearers; and these are about all the changes I remember, till the great change of all.

I have said our lives were very quiet, and so they were. But when a storm is raging, it is hard to keep all knowledge or sign of it out of the house. We heard, now and again, rumors of the changes that were going on outside. I remember well when Sister Emma, the stewardess, heard from Dame Hurst, who now and then brought oysters and other sea-fish for sale, that a great English Bible had been chained to a pillar in the parish church at Dartford; where any one who listed could go and hear it read, or read it for themselves, if they pleased. Sister Emma told us this wonderful piece of news when we were all assembled under the grape-arbor, shelling of peas for our fast day mess.

It was received with a degree of horror and amazement, which seems strange as I remember it, now that every householder who can afford it may have a Bible of his own.

"What an indignity!" exclaimed Sister Agnes. "To think that the Holy Scripture should be chained to a pillar, like a man in a pillory, to be thumbed over by every village clown or dirty fisherman who can make shift to spell out a few words."

"You would not compare a pillar in the house of our Lord to a pillory, would you, sister?" asked mother assistant, with that gentle smile of ridicule which I, for one, dreaded more than the rod, when I had been naughty.

"Why, no, reverend mother, not exactly," answered Sister Agnes, in some confusion.

"Any how, it is not the true Word of God, but only the heretics' translation," said Sister Margaret, sharply. "So it does not matter what is done with it."

"I don't know about that," remarked another sister, rather timidly. "I suppose it could not be put in the churches every where, without the consent of the bishops and the other clergy; and they would not allow an heretical and false translation in such a place, surely. Only it is a pity the poor people should be allowed to peril their souls' salvation by reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue."

Even then, I remember, it struck me as curious, that peoples' salvation should be endangered by reading the Word of God, but I said nothing.

"They will never put any such thing in my church—chained or unchained—that I know," said Sister Sacristine, with great emphasis, and in her earnestness emptying the peas in her lap among the cods in the basket. "I would tear up the book with my own hands, before such things should be allowed near to the shrine of the Holy Magdalene. Thank the saints, we are not subject either to bishop or archbishop, but to our own visitor, and I am very sure he would never order such a thing."

"In that case, it is hardly worth while to waste one's breath discussing the matter," said mother assistant. "Loveday, you had better pick up the peas that Sister Sacristine has scattered. It is a pity they should be wasted."

"There is no telling what will happen—no telling," said a very old sister, who was warming herself in the sun. "I have strange visions—I do. I saw last night the walls of the fold pulled down, and the sheep scattered far and wide. But I hope it won't come in my time. I have lived here in these very walls almost eighty years, and I don't want to live any where else."

"No, there is no telling, and therefore we may dismiss the subject," said mother assistant. "When they come to ask us to chain a Bible in our church, it will be time for us to refuse it. 'Each day's trouble is sufficient for the same selfe day.'"

The striking of the bell warned us of the end of recreation, and sent us about our several tasks; but the mother's words lingered in my ears, and I found myself wondering again and again where I had heard them before. At last I remembered; I had read them in my uncle's great book—Master Tyndale's book of the New Testament, as I afterward knew it to be—on the very first day that I came to London.

Well, the days went on, and though we heard rumors of this and that—of the disgrace of poor Queen Katherine (which I do maintain was an infamous shame), and the marriage of the King with Anne Boleyn, mother of our present good Queen—of the burning of heretics here and there, and the king's taking church matters more and more into his own hands—though, as I say, we heard rumors of all these things, they did not greatly disturb our peace. Our gray circling walls were like the magic circle of the enchanter, and though strange and malign shapes were seen in very active exercise outside its bounds, yet none had as yet broken through. But our time was to come.

It was on a pleasant day in the end of September, in the year of grace 1538, that the first blow fell upon us.

By the same token we had, on that very day, buried old Turk in the garden under a beautiful laylock tree. The poor old cat had been very decrepit for a long time, having lost most of his teeth, so that he had to be fed with hashed meat, and bread soaked in cream. Old Adam had said more than once that the poor thing would be better put out of his pain, but I don't believe you could have hired him to do the deed—no, not with a Dutch tulip-root.

Well, it was on that very day that, coming in from the orchard with a basket of early apples, I saw Father Austin walking up the paved path, which led from his house to the church, with such a perturbed face as I never saw him wear before. He passed through the church, and presently the whole family were called together in a great hall which joined the church, and was called—I don't know why—the chapter-room. It was the room in which our elections were held, and was seldom or never used on other occasions. There we were, old and young, all standing according to our degree, and some of us looking scared enough, for rumor flies fast, and we all had an idea that something dreadful was going to happen.

The prioress sat in her great chair, with her attendant sisters behind her, and looked about with a dazed, helpless expression. She had grown very stout and unwieldy, and some of us thought she was not quite right in her mind. The elders of the house were at her right hand, and near by stood Father Austin and another priest, with a thin, clever, crafty face, whom we knew to be Bishop Gardiner's chaplain, and a person of great consideration. I always had a dislike to this man; chiefly because the shape of his head—very flat behind, and with prominent angles at the jaw-bones—reminded me of a viper. I could not help thinking at that moment that he watched the prioress as a viper might watch a fat frog on which he had a design.

When we were all settled, Father Austin raised his hand, and spoke: "My mothers and sisters, your reverend prioress has called you together to hear a most important message which our visitor has sent us by his chaplain, Father Simon, who will now deliver the same."

With that he was silent, and Father Simon spoke. I cannot remember his words, but the gist of the matter was this: The king had wholly broken off with the pope, and, by consent of the parliament, had proclaimed himself supreme head of the English Church. All bishops, heads of religious houses, and certain other officers were required to take the oath of supremacy, as it was called, under severe penalties—even that of death—as was like to be the case with the Bishop of Rochester, who was now in prison and threatened with the loss of his head. (He really did come to the scaffold soon after.) It was probable that commissioners would shortly be sent to our house to administer this oath, and Bishop Gardiner—who, though not our bishop, was our regular visitor by some ecclesiastical arrangement which I never understood—had himself taken this oath, and advised us to submit to the same, as a necessity of the times.

I was watching the prioress's face during this harangue, which was delivered in a very gentle and insinuating manner. (My eyes should have been on the ground, but they have always had an unlucky trick of wandering.) I say, mine eyes should have been on the ground, but they were watching our mother's face instead, and I was surprised to see the change that came over it, as the words and meaning of the father's address penetrated her understanding. Usually her visage had about as much expression as a slack-baked pie, and was nearly the same color. By degrees, as she understood the matter, her dull eyes opened wide, and grew bright and clear, her loose under-lip was compressed, and a little color came into her cheeks. When the chaplain was silent, she spoke, and with such a clear voice and so much dignity of manner that the sisters glanced at each other in surprise.

"I am somewhat slow of comprehension, good father. I pray you bear with me, if my questions seem not to the purpose. What is it that the king hath declared himself?"

The chaplain once more explained that the king now called himself supreme head of the church.

"But the pope—our Holy Father at Rome—is supreme head of the church in all Christendom!" said the prioress. "How, then, can that title belong to His Grace, the King of England? There cannot be two supreme heads."

I saw the chaplain cast a keen glance of satirical amusement at Father Austin before he proceeded to explain once more that the king, having quarreled with the pope, in the matter of his wife's divorce and some other things, utterly denied him any authority or jurisdiction over the realm of England or its dependencies, and required all persons to submit to him, as formerly to the pope.

"But he is not the head, so what difference does it make what he calls himself?" persisted the prioress. "And how can the bishop, who is himself sworn to obey the pope in all things, obey the king when the king is opposed to him."

"I am not here to explain or justify the conduct of your venerable visitor, reverend mother!" said the chaplain, rather arrogantly. "But only to convey you his counsels and commands. The further continuance of this holy community—nay, your own life—may depend on your obedience. You would not like to be put in prison, like the Bishop of Rochester!"

Knowing the mother's love of ease, I suppose he thought this a knock-down argument, but he was mistaken. One may know a person very well, and yet not be able to foretell what that person will do in an emergency.

"I should not like it at all!" said the prioress. "It would be very uncomfortable to lie upon straw and have nothing but bread and water, and cold water always makes me ill. But I do not see how that makes any difference about the pope being head of the church, and if he is supreme head, then the king cannot be. That is all about it."

With that the chaplain took on a higher tone, and began to bluster a little. Would she, a mere woman, pretend to sit in judgment not only on a bishop and her visitor, but also on the king himself? Was it not her duty as a religious to have no mind of her own, but only to do as she was told?

"You did not think so, reverend father, when the question was of placing an English Bible in the church for the sisters to read when they pleased!" said the prioress. "That was the king's will, too, as I understand, and yet both our visitor and yourself said I was right in refusing, because ours was not a parish church. And the very Bible that was sent down lies locked up in the press in the sacristy. Does it not, mother assistant?"

"It was there at one time, but I have had it removed to a safer place!" answered the mother assistant, quietly. I saw the sisters exchange glances of amazement from under their down-dropped lids. This was the first time we had heard of any such book. But that is the way in a convent. A measure which affects your very life may be settled, and you be none the wiser.

"Very well, reverend mother, I shall say no more at this time!" said the chaplain, after a moment's pause. "I will report to your reverend visitor that you have decided to take matters into your own hands, and that being the case, he will doubtless leave this house and its inhabitants to their fate—that fate which has already overtaken so many religious communities. When the commissioners come down and you see your revenues confiscated and your daughters turned out, and the beautiful shrine of the Holy Magdalene stripped of all its ornaments and treasures, I hope you will be satisfied with your contumacy."

"I shall not be satisfied at all, and I don't want my daughters turned out!" said the prioress. "And I am not contumacious, either. I have always done just as our visitor directed about every thing, and you know I have, Father Simon; only I can't see how the king can be supreme head of the church, when the pope is the head! I would lay down my life for this house!" she added, raising herself from her chair and standing erect with a dignity that might have belonged to St. Katherine of Egypt, or any other sainted queen. "I would be torn by wild beasts before my dear, dutiful children should be turned out upon the world; but I can not deny the authority of our Holy Father the Pope, and put another in his place, without greater and better reason than I see now, and so with my humble duty and reverence, you may tell his reverence, Sir Chaplain."

We looked at each other without disguise now, so great was our amazement. If the figure of the Holy Virgin in the Lady Chapel had spoken, we should not have been more surprised. But we had not long to indulge our wonder. I saw the mother assistant move nearer to the prioress, and in another instant the poor lady had sunk down in her chair in a fit.

The room was all in confusion for a moment; but nuns, like soldiers, feel the power of habitual discipline, and in a minute or two, mother assistant had restored order. She and the sick-nurse were supporting the prioress, and she called me to help her, as I was one of the strongest of the family, bidding the others betake themselves to the work-rooms, where was their place at this hour.

We carried the lady to her own room, with the help of the two priests—we could hardly have done it without them, she was so heavy—and Father Austin, who was surgeon as well as priest, proceeded to bleed her. The blood would hardly flow at first, but at last it did, and the treatment was so far successful, that the mother opened her eyes, and swallowed the restorative which was put into her mouth, though she did not try to speak, and seemed to know no one. We undressed her, and got her into bed, and then mother assistant dismissed me, bidding me go and take the air a little for that I looked pale. Indeed I had had much ado to keep from fainting, as I had never seen any person bled before, but I summoned all my resolution, and held out.

I went to the workroom where all the sisters were assembled round the frames, on which the new hangings were being worked for the Lady Chapel. We were permitted so much converse as was actually needful, at such times, and not uncommonly the liberty was stretched a little, for, as I said before, the discipline of our house was not over strict; but I never heard such a gabble as was now going on. As I entered and went to the press to find my own particular bit of work (which was a piece of needle lace on a small frame), intending to take it out into the summer-house, I was assailed by a volley of questions.

"How is the reverend mother?" "Hath she spoken?" "Will she die?" "Will she live?" "Will she take the oath?" "Where is the mother assistant, and Mother Joanna?"

It vexed me to see them all so ready to take advantage of their elder's absence, and I answered, rather sharply, I fear.

"How many more? The mother is better, but she has not spoken, and no one knows whether she will live or die—much more whether she will take the oath. As to mother assistant, and Mother Joanna, it is very plain that wherever they are, they are not here. One could tell that half a mile off."

Some of the sisters looked ashamed, but Sister Perpetua answered me sharply:

"You are very pert, Sister Postulant." (That had been my rank for a good while now, for I had no other thought than to end my days at St. Magdalene's.) "It does not become you to reprove and check your elders."

"It does not become her elders to give cause of reproof!" said Sister Bridget, a quiet, retiring woman, the elder of the party: "The child is right, and we have been to blame. As the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to be quiet and attend to your work."

"You are not the oldest present," answered Sister Perpetua. "Sister Anne is older than you."

"No, indeed, I am not!" said Sister Anne, with some sharpness. "Sister Bridget is fully half a dozen years older than I am, are you not, sister?"

"More than that, I should say," replied Sister Bridget, tranquilly. (N. B. * She was very pretty and young looking, while Sister Anne was both plain and wrinkled.) "But you know as well as I, sister, that it is not age, but standing in the house, that settles such matters. Again, as the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to pursue your work in silence. Prayers and psalms and holy meditations are better fitted for people in our evil case, threatened not only with the death of our reverend mother, but with the loss of all things, than such laughing and gossip as has gone on for the last half hour. I take shame to myself, and thank the child for her reproof, though it might have been more gently spoken."

* N. B.—nota bene

"I beg your pardon, sister," said I.

She had spoken with a great deal of gravity, and feeling, and most of the sisters had the grace to look ashamed, only Sister Perpetua muttered under her breath, but so I heard her:

"Fine airs, to be sure. But you are not prioress just yet, and many things may happen."

I don't know what brought her to a religious house, I am sure, unless it was that her friends wished to get rid of her, which was the reason a great many nuns were professed in those days. I am very sure she never had any vocation for such a life, and she showed it after she got out.

By that time my faintness was gone, but I thought I would like to be alone, so I told Sister Bridget what mother assistant had said, and withdrew.

I had plenty to think about as I worked. Could it be possible that our house would be turned out of windows, as that of the Gray Nuns at Bridgewater had been—that venerable institution founded in the days of the Confessor—and if so, what would become of all? I had not heard from my uncle, nor from Lady Peckham in several years, and knew not whether they were alive or dead. However, I was not so greatly concerned about my own fate. I was young and strong, a good needle-woman and musician, and I thought I could easily find a place as waiting-woman, or to attend upon young gentlewomen.

But what would become of such as Sister Bridget and Sister Cicely, and Sister Sacristine and Mother Joanna—old women who had spent all their lives in those walls, and knew nothing of the world beyond their boundary. Then I began to think about that Bible and to wonder where it was, and what was in it. I remembered the text mother assistant had quoted, and wondered—not without blaming myself for the thought—if she had read it in that same Bible.

We had heard before, that though people were permitted to read the Word of God, they were forbidden to discuss or dispute about it, which was much as if one should open the floodgates a little and then forbid the water to run through.

I was so lost in my musings, that I started as if I had been shot when the bell rung for vespers. We heard at supper that the prioress had rallied a little, but neither Father Austin nor the doctor, who had been sent for, believed she could get well.

That was an anxious time. The prioress lingered for several days, sometimes quite herself for a few hours at a time, but mostly lying in a death-like stupor. The elders were of course much with her, and the discipline of the house was unusually relaxed.

It was a time that showed what people were made of. The really sincere and religious sisters went on with their duties just as usual, being perhaps a little more punctilious in their performance; others took advantage, broke rules, got together in knots and coteries and gossiped—not always in the most edifying way—of what was coming to pass, and what they would do when they got out. I was very angry with them then, but I can make more excuse for them in these days. Many of them, like Sister Perpetua, had no real calling to a religious life (it was called the religious life in those days, as if no one could be religious out a cloister). They were mostly younger daughters and orphan sisters, who were not likely to marry well and were sent to the convent as a safe and respectable place out of the way. Not that all were so, by any means, but we had enough of that element to rejoice in any relaxation of rules.

One day at sunset, however, the suspense was at an end so far as the prioress was concerned. We were all called into the ante-room of the apartment to assist at the last rites, and after they were over, we stood watching our poor mother who, supported in the arms of mother assistant, was painfully gasping her life away. Her face wore an anxious expression, and her eyes turned from one to another in a way that showed she was quite conscious. Now and then she said a word or two in a low tone—so low that we in the outer room could not hear. At last mother assistant beckoned me, and whispered me to give her a dry napkin from a pile that lay on the table.

As I did so, I heard the prioress say, in a distressed whisper:

"But Purgatory—that dreadful place—are you sure?"

Mother assistant bent down to her and whispered in her ear—I was close by and heard the words plainly:

"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."

The poor lady smiled, and just as the last ray of the sun shot into the window, she passed peacefully away.

She was a good woman in the main, and very much of a lady, but she had allowed indolence—coming from an illness in the first place—to grow upon her, till it became an overmastering passion—if one can call indolence a passion.

It came to that, that any call to exertion was looked upon as a positive misfortune. She had such able assistants, that this state of things did not produce so much trouble as might have been expected, but any one who knows what a houseful of ungoverned young people is like, may guess what our community would have become but for Father Austin and mother assistant.

As soon as it was decent, a new meeting was called, and no one was surprised at the choice of mother assistant to be prioress. Mother Joanna was made assistant and Sister Bridget put in her place—a very good choice.

At "obedience," when we were all assembled in her room, our now prioress made us an address, and very noble and touching it was. She reminded us of our precarious condition, likely at any time to be turned out. She said she had been pained to know that some—she would name no names at present—but would leave the matter to our own consciences—had taken advantage of the state of things to behave in a way which was unbecoming their profession, and to good order. Here two or three of our best sisters who had been guilty of some little acts of forgetfulness kneeled down and kissed the floor, while Sister Perpetua and Sister Regina, who had been the ring-leaders, stood up as bold as brass. (It is always those who deserve blame least who take it to themselves.)

She then pointed out the importance of good order and discipline, that our enemies might have nothing whereof justly to accuse us. She would not conceal the fact that we stood in great peril, but we were in higher hands than our own. She would have us neither anxious nor careless, but pursuing a recollected and cheerful frame of mind, giving ourselves to prayer and good works, and not being anxious about the morrow. She would pass over all that had happened for the last few days, unless there were those who wished to clear their consciences by confessing any breach of discipline: but hereafter, every thing would be kept up to the standards of the house. She concluded by asking our prayers for herself and her assistants, in a tone of true humility that brought tears to many eyes. We noticed that she said nothing about praying for the soul of our departed mother, whereby we argued that she believed that soul to be already in Paradise. She then dismissed us with her blessing, and all things seemed to fall into their usual train.

I have heard that people who live where there are volcanoes, get used to them so that they carry on their business just as if nothing was the matter. We were then living on the crust of a volcano which might blow us into the air at any time, but we had already become used to it, and as the autumn passed into winter, we almost forgot our danger. Sister Perpetua, indeed, tried titles once or twice, but she soon found that while the reverend mother had a house over her head, she meant to be mistress in it, and after doing penance three whole days in the vaulted room under the sacristy on a diet of bread and water, and not much of that, she was very meek and subdued for a while.

Somehow or other the storm was diverted for that time. I suppose that Bishop Gardiner, being so great with the king, contrived to keep the matter from his knowledge. However it was, the apples were gathered and garnered in peace, the usual stock of faggots laid in, and we settled down to our in-door occupations as if nothing was the matter.

The reverend mother had a great deal of work put in hand, and instead of our usual whispered conversations, we had loud reading in the Imitation of Christ, and other good books. Sometimes our mother would read us passages out of the Gospels, from a little written book which she held in her hand, copied I fancy from that same great Bible which was never put in the church. I had read many of them before in the great book of Master Tyndale's, which my uncle kept in his desk, and they set me thinking more than ever of mine old home. These readings were much liked by the serious part of our community, and as for the others, what ever they might feel, they knew enough to keep their own counsel.

It was about this time, I remember being struck with the fact that in the whole Imitation, from beginning to end, there is not one single word or hint of any worship offered to the Virgin. I ventured to say as much once to Father Austin, with whom I still did a Latin lesson now and then, and to ask him what he thought was the reason; whereat he smiled, and said when I saw Saint Thomas in Paradise I might ask him.

The orchards bore very plentifully that year, and we sold our crop at a good price. We were helping to pick up the last of them one fine October day, when old Adam remarked that he wondered who would have the ordering of those same trees another year.

"Why, you yourself—why not?" said I.

"Na, na, lassie, I'll no be here next year; at least I think not."

"You do not think you are going to die?" said I, anxiously, for he was a great friend of mine. "Do you feel ill?"

"No, I have my health well enough for one of my years. But we Islesmen have whiles a gliff of the second sight, and I have had strange visions concerning this house."

"Oh, you are thinking about the visit of the commissioners!" said I. "But you see that has blown over and nothing has come of it."

"I have whiles seen a storm blow over and then come back!" said the old man, seriously. "Na, na, lassie. Dinna be too confident. What's fristed * is no forgotten."

* Fristed is "covered up," or "skinned over."