“Give it me!” groaned the forester.

Bess held the infant towards him; but before he could place his hands upon it all power forsook him, and he fell back and expired.

“Lost! lost! for ever lost!” cried Bess, with a wild shriek.

At this moment a loud blast was blown from the gate-tower, and a trumpeter called out,

“The abbot and the two other prisoners are coming.”

“To thy feet, wench!” cried Demdike, imperiously, and seizing the bewildered woman by the arm; “to thy feet, and come with me to meet him!”

CHAPTER IV.—­THE MALEDICTION.

The captive ecclesiastics, together with the strong escort by which they were attended, under the command of John Braddyll, the high sheriff of the county, had passed the previous night at Whitewell, in Bowland Forest; and the abbot, before setting out on his final journey, was permitted to spend an hour in prayer in a little chapel on an adjoining hill, overlooking a most picturesque portion of the forest, the beauties of which were enhanced by the windings of the Hodder, one of the loveliest streams in Lancashire.  His devotions performed, Paslew, attended by a guard, slowly descended the hill, and gazed his last on scenes familiar to him almost from infancy.  Noble trees, which now looked like old friends, to whom he was bidding an eternal adieu, stood around him.  Beneath them, at the end of a glade, couched a herd of deer, which started off at sight of the intruders, and made him envy their freedom and fleetness as he followed them in thought to their solitudes.  At the foot of a steep rock ran the Hodder, making the pleasant music of other days as it dashed over its pebbly bed, and recalling times, when, free from all care, he had strayed by its wood-fringed banks, to listen to the pleasant sound of running waters, and watch the shining pebbles beneath them, and the swift trout and dainty umber glancing past.

A bitter pang was it to part with scenes so fair, and the abbot spoke no word, nor even looked up, until, passing Little Mitton, he came in sight of Whalley Abbey.  Then, collecting all his energies, he prepared for the shock he was about to endure.  But nerved as he was, his firmness was sorely tried when he beheld the stately pile, once his own, now gone from him and his for ever.  He gave one fond glance towards it, and then painfully averting his gaze, recited, in a low voice, this supplication:—­

“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.  Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.  Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea, et a peccato meo munda me.”

But other thoughts and other emotions crowded upon him, when he beheld the groups of his old retainers advancing to meet him:  men, women, and children pouring forth loud lamentations, prostrating themselves at his feet, and deploring his doom.  The abbot’s fortitude had a severe trial here, and the tears sprung to his eyes.  The devotion of these poor people touched him more sharply than the severity of his adversaries.