Stand forth, courageous champion, and man the fatal
breach!--Rise, bold and experienced pilot, and seize the helm while
the tempest rages!--Turn back the battle, brave raiser of the fallen
standard!--Wield crook and slang, noble shepherd of a scattered
flock!"
"I pray you, hush, my sister!" said the porter, opening a door which
led into the great church, "the brethren will be presently here to
celebrate their election with a solemn mass--I must marshal them the
way to the high altar--all the offices of this venerable house have
now devolved on one poor decrepit old man."
He left the church, and Magdalen and Roland remained alone in that
great vaulted space, whose style of rich, yet chaste architecture,
referred its origin to the early part of the fourteenth century, the
best period of Gothic building. But the niches were stripped of their
images in the inside as well as the outside of the church; and in the
pell-mell havoc, the tombs of warriors and of princes had been
included in the demolition of the idolatrous shrines. Lances and
swords of antique size, which had hung over the tombs of mighty
warriors of former days, lay now strewed among relics, with which the
devotion of pilgrims had graced those of their peculiar saints; and
the fragments of the knights and dames, which had once lain recumbent,
or kneeled in an attitude of devotion, where their mortal relics were
reposed, were mingled with those of the saints and angels of the
Gothic chisel, which the hand of violence had sent headlong from their
stations.
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