"Abbots! by the weakling fear'd,
By the credulous revered,
Who this mighty fabric rear'd!
I bid ye rise!
"And thou last and guilty one!
By thy lust of power undone,
Whom in death thy fellows shun!
I bid thee come!
"And thou fair one, who disdain'd
To keep the vows thy lips had feign'd;
And thy snowy garments stain'd!
I bid thee come!"
During this invocation, the glee of the assemblage ceased, and they
looked around in hushed expectation of the result. Slowly then did a
long procession of monkish forms, robed in white, glide along the
aisles, and gather round the altar. The brass-covered stones within the
presbytery were lifted up, as if they moved on hinges, and from the
yawning graves beneath them arose solemn shapes, sixteen in number, each
with mitre on head and crosier in hand, which likewise proceeded to the
altar. Then a loud cry was heard, and from a side chapel burst the
monkish form, in mouldering garments, which Dorothy had seen enter the
oratory, and which would have mingled with its brethren at the altar,
but they waved it off menacingly. Another piercing shriek followed, and
a female shape, habited like a nun, and of surpassing loveliness, issued
from the opposite chapel, and hovered near the fire. Content with this
proof of her power, Mother Chattox waved her hand, and the long shadowy
train glided off as they came. The ghostly abbots returned to their
tombs, and the stones closed over them. But the shades of Paslew and
Isole de Heton still lingered.
The storm had wellnigh ceased, the thunder rolled hollowly at intervals,
and a flash of lightning now and then licked the walls. The weird crew
had resumed their rites, when the door of the Lacy chapel flew open, and
a tall female figure came forward.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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