No obedient
vassals came, man after man, to make their homage, and to offer the
tribute which should provide their spiritual Superior with palfrey and
trappings. No Bishop assisted at the solemnity, to receive into the
higher ranks of the Church nobility a dignitary, whose voice in the
legislature was as potential as his own. With hasty and maimed rites,
the few remaining brethren stepped forward alternately to give their
new Abbot the kiss of peace, in token of fraternal affection and
spiritual homage. Mass was then hastily performed, but in such
precipitation as if it had been hurried over rather to satisfy the
scruples of a few youths, who were impatient to set out on a hunting
party, than as if it made the most solemn part of a solemn ordination.
The officiating priest faltered as he spoke the service, and often
looked around, as if he expected to be interrupted in the midst of his
office; and the brethren listened to that which, short as it was, they
wished yet more abridged.[Footnote: In Catholic countries, in order to
reconcile the pleasures of the great with the observances of religion,
it was common, when a party was bent for the chase, to celebrate mass,
abridged and maimed of its rites, called a hunting-mass, the brevity
of which was designed to correspond with the impatience of the
audience.]
These symptoms of alarm increased as the ceremony proceeded, and, as
it seemed, were not caused by mere apprehension alone; for, amid the
pauses of the hymn, there were heard without sounds of a very
different sort, beginning faintly and at a distance, but at length
approaching close to the exterior of the church, and stunning with
dissonant clamour those engaged in the service.
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