e middle ages:--the monastic path, going towards heaven
straight as a sunbeam; the secular, twining its way through a tortuous
difficult course--the 'broad way,' tending downward to the abyss. To his
terrified apprehension, he had abandoned the direct and narrow path for
the fatal road, and there might at any moment be captured, and whirled
away by the grisly phantom Death, who had just snatched the mightiest in
his inevitable clutch; and with something of the timidity of his nature,
he was in absolute terror, until he should be able to set himself back on
the shining road from which he had swerved, and be rid of the load of
transgression which seemed ready to sink him into the gulf.

Those few and perfunctory confessions to a courtly priest who knew
nothing about him, and was sure not to be hard on a king's cousin, now
seemed to add to his guilt: and, wandering down-stairs towards the
chapel, he met a train of ecclesiastics slowly leaving it, having just
been relieved by a bevy of monks from a neighbouring convent, who took up
the chants where they had left them.

Looking up at them, he recognized Dr. Bennet's bent head, and throwing
himself before him on his knee, he gasped, 'O father, father! hear me!
Take me back! Give me hope!'

'What means this, my young lord?' said Dr. Bennet, pausing, while his
brethren passed on. 'Are you sick?' he added, kindly, seeing the
whiteness of Malcolm's face, and his startled eye.

'Oh, no, no! only sick at heart at my own madness, and the doom on it! O
Sir, hear me! Take my vow again! give me absolution once more to a true
shrift. Oh, if you will hear me, it shall be honest this time! Only put
me in the way again.'

The chaplain was sorely sad and weary. He it was whose ministrations had
chiefly comforted the dying King. To him it had been the loss of a
deeply-loved son and pupil, as well as of almost unbounded hopes for the
welfare of the Church; and he had had likewise, in the freshness of his
sorrow, to take the lead in the ecclesiastical ceremonies that ensued, so
that both in body and mind he was well-nigh worn out, and longed for
peace in which to face his own private sorrow; but the wild words and
anguished looks of the young Scot showed him that his case was one for
immediate hearing, and he drew the lad into the confessional,
authoritatively calmed his agitation, and prepared to hear the outpouring
of the boy's self-reproach.

He heard it all--sifting facts fr