قراءة كتاب Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 706 July 7, 1877
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Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 706 July 7, 1877
entered the cottage, and turned into the little parlour, not a little relieved to find no one there.
The heat was almost stifling, the swallows flying low beneath the lowering sky, and there was the heavy stillness—the, so to speak, pause in the atmosphere which presages a coming storm. The windows and doors were flung wide open; and I could hear Mrs Tipper and Becky talking to each other in their confidential way, as they bustled in and out the back garden, fetching in the clothes, which the former always put out to 'sweeten,' as she termed it, after they were returned from the wash. Lilian was, I suppose, in her own room, as her habit was of late.
Throwing off my hat, I sat down, and with my hands tightly locked upon my lap, I tried to think—to understand my own sensations, asking myself over and over again what was wrong—what made me like this? half conscious all the while of a discussion over a hole in a tablecloth, that ought not to have been allowed to get to such a stage without being darned.
'A stitch in time saves nine, you know, Becky; never you leave a thin place, and you'll never have a hole to mend;' and so on.
Suddenly, as my eyes wandered aimlessly about the room, they fell upon some documents on the table referring to the sale of Hill Side, which Philip had brought down to shew us, and which I knew he had intended to take away. Reflecting that he was very desirous of completing the purchase, that the delay of a post might make a difference, and that I might yet overtake him if I were quick, I hurriedly caught up the papers in my hand and ran down the lane towards the stile. Have I mentioned that there was a sharp curve in the lane before it reached the stile, so that you came close upon the latter before it was in sight? I had just arrived at the curve when the sound of voices reached me; and recollecting that I had not waited to put my hat on, and not wishing to be recognised by any one, I paused a moment to draw the hood of my cloak over my head.
Robert Wentworth and Philip! I had time for a moment's surprise that the former should be there when we had not seen him at the cottage, before Philip's words reached me: 'And you have been waiting here to say this to me. But I am not so base as that, Wentworth! I have just begged her to be my wife at once, and she has consented. She suspects nothing.'
'Thank God for that!' ejaculated Robert Wentworth.
I could not have moved now had my life depended upon it—though my life did seem to depend upon it. 'Suspect what? What was there to suspect?' I asked myself in a bewildered kind of way.
'God grant that she may be always spared the knowledge!'
'She shall be, Wentworth, if it be in my power to spare her.'
'Great heavens! that it should be possible to love another woman after knowing her! Man, you never can have known her as she is, or it would be impossible for another woman to come between you. The other is no more to be compared'——
'Respect her, Wentworth; blame me as you will, but respect Lilian.'
'Lilian!' I muttered—'Lilian!'
'She is, I think—I trust, utterly unconscious of my—madness. But if she knew, and if she—cared for me, she would be loyal to the right. You ought to be sure of that, knowing what her love for Mary is, Wentworth.'
'Yes; she is true; she will try to be true. But it is quite time that'——
I knew that the voices sounded fainter and fainter, and that the sense of the words became lost to me, because they were walking on; I knew that they were great drops of rain and not tears pattering down upon me where I lay prone upon the ground; and I could recollect that the papers must not be lost; so I had kept my senses.
THE STORY OF THE QUIGRICH OR STAFF OF ST FILLAN.
The recent acquisition of that curious medieval work of art called the Quigrich or crosier of St Fillan by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and its final deposit in their National Museum at Edinburgh, is in itself an incident of more than ordinary interest. Apart from its historical associations, the 'Cogerach,' 'Coygerach,' or 'Quigrich,' as it is variously styled in writings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is unsurpassed in interest as a work of art of a class and period of which no other Scottish specimen is now known to exist. Briefly described, it is simply the massive silver head of a pastoral staff of the form peculiar to the Celtic Church in very early times. Its shape resembles that of the bent head of a walking-stick, with a slanting prolongation of the outer end. The lower part of the crook expands into a large bulbous socket, beautifully ornamented with interlaced knot-work. A ridge or crest, pierced with quatrefoils, rises from the socket, and is continued over the back of the crook, terminating in the bust of an ecclesiastic, probably meant for St Fillan. The slanting front of the staff-head is ornamented by a large oval setting of cairngorm, and the terminal plate has an engraved representation of the Crucifixion. The body of the crook is covered with lozenge-shaped plaques of filigree-work in floral scrolls.
What may be termed the private history of the crosier commences in the early part of the eighth century, when as the bacul or walking-staff of St Fillan, it accompanied him in his missionary journey to the wilds of Glendochart. The saint came of a royal race. His mother, Kentigerna, was a daughter of the king of Leinster; and both she and her brother St Comgan are enrolled among the saints of Celtic Alba. Placed often in the darkest and wildest districts of the country, solely with the view of reclaiming the people from paganism and diffusing the benefits of Christian civilisation, these monastic churches were truly centres of light and progress. Such was the famous church of Columcille at Hy. Such also was the monastery of St Mund at the Holy Loch, where St Fillan spent part of his days, and in which he succeeded the founder as abbot. Growing weary of its comparatively peaceful life, he sought a desert for himself in the wilds of Glendochart, where he might reclaim a new garden for the church, and close his days among an ecclesiastical family of his own uprearing. As founder and first abbot of Glendochart his memory would be fondly cherished by the community of clerics over whom he had presided. Their veneration would increase with time, as the traditions of his saintly life became fixed by constant repetition; and there was no object around which that veneration and these legends could more appropriately cluster than around the staff which was the symbol of his abbatial office, and the lasting memorial of his presence among them.
Not the least interesting of the many picturesque associations which gather round the crosier of St Fillan is that which connects it with Scotland's warrior-king, Robert Bruce, and assigns to it a prominent part in the great struggle for Scottish independence that culminated in the glorious victory of Bannockburn. There is no evidence on record by which we can positively prove the presence of the crosier on the eventful field; but it is the tradition of the Dewars, its hereditary keepers, that it was there; and there is evidence that certain other relics of St Fillan were brought to the battle-field by the abbot of Inchaffray, the ecclesiastical superior of the church of Strathfillan, who was the king's confessor; and that this was done, if not by the king's express desire, at least in the knowledge that it would be consonant with his personal feelings and belief in their efficacy. If the narrative that was written by Boece is to be accepted at all, it must be accepted to the extent of establishing that there was a relic of St Fillan at Bannockburn. He calls it the arm-bone of the saint, and tells in his picturesque way