CHAPTER III.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 82, 21 November 1874, Page 14

CHAPTER 111.

JIS ClTHOir VOW.

The giant oaks and beeches in the woods of Furness were all aglow with the saffron and ruby tints of autumn on that disastrous evening when Oswald de Coniston fled in wrath and hate from his father's castle.

The December blast had rent the laßt leaf from the bough, and the fan-like fronds of the huge planes above contrasted with their dark verdure the naked black arms which the oak of a hundred years tossed in the wild winds, when, still feeble in frame and sorrowful in spirit, lie bade adieu to the monks who had tended him during his illness with to much of medical skill and Christian charity.

The body of the beloved Walter, the innocent victim to the wild passions of his brother, had never been recovered. This was a cruel aggravation of Oswald's sorrow. He could imagine to himself the pale face of his darling all bruised and disfigured by the sharp rocks. If the waves had washed the drowned corpse on sjhore, if he could once have folded the cold relics to his breast, and seen them laid with the rites of the Church in a hallowed grave, he would have had some miserable consolation. But dead or living, never to see his Walter more. " Never more ! never more !" Sad and solemn words, ever and anon bursting with a bitter cry from Oswald's lips. With dripping garments, bruised and senseless, Oswald had been borne to the monastery by Brother John and the poor fisherman on that disastrous night. All the pride and pomp of his father's vanity heralded his departure. The Earl Thurston seemed not only to have consigned to oblivion the offences of Oswald, but to have taken him into greater favor than ever. He had staid tha preparations for Bandolf's marriage, and insisted upon Oswald's return to the castle. To this the youth had at first seemed much averse. Ultimately, however, he seceded with alacrity to the proposition, and writing to the damsel of Egremont acknowledged that his pretentions had been presumptous with a humility strongly contrasting with his accustomed fierce pride, and which excited surprise in his father, and uneasy suspicions on the part of the Abbot and Prior who had watched his sullen broodings. Now, however, all was ready for his departure. A litter was wu waiting at the Abbey gates, for Oswald was too feeble still to sit a horse. The Earl himself, with twenty of his retainers, had deigned to come down to the Abbey gates to escort back to the castle his unhappy ion : even sullen Randolf, mollified by the apparent submission of Oswald, had condescended to accompany his father, and was waiting with him in the Abbot's parlor. And why were they waiting ? where was Oswald the invalid, the penitent ? Surely in a place that well befitted him in either character. Oswald de Cociston was kneeling before the high altar of the Abbey Church. Alas ! no pious purpose led him there. It was not to pray for the soul of his lost brother, to pray for mercy and consolation to his heart : though in agony of spirit he wrung his hands together till the nails pierced the flesh, though he wet the pavement with his tears. The winter winds honied with a voice like that of a lamenting spirit through the lofty aisles, and shook the consecrated banners, and the scutcheons' of Oswald's own lofty race, a few pale lamps shed a feeble lustre through the long arcades, and the dull grey of the sunless sky threw dark shadows on each painted pane. Oh, Blessed Mary, Mother of Mercy ; sweet Patroness of Furness, Bhall the lost angel invade your own sanctuary ? Shall his black wing shadow the brow of the suppliant at the altar ? Oh, patroness of the afflicted, refuge of the sinner, are his sins so black who lies prostrate on those hard stones that even thy prayers shall avail him not ? A heart rent even to the core, and a mind "distraught ! Surely nothing less could have provokedthe frenzy that could call on all holy things ob witnesses of an unholy vow. A vow for wicked, earthly vengeance, made at the altar, of heaven ; a vow at which the white angels shuddered and the fiends rejoiced.