"Why, there, Smith, thou hast a friar's hood and a woman's mantle
to shroud thee under. I would all my frailties were as well shrouded.
Farewell, honest fellow; I will thank thee hereafter."

Then, as if afraid of farther objection on the smith's part, he
hastened into the palace.

Henry Gow remained stupefied at what had passed, and at finding
himself involved in a charge at once inferring much danger and
an equal risk of scandal, both which, joined to a principal share
which he had taken, with his usual forwardness, in the fray,
might, he saw, do him no small injury in the suit he pursued most
anxiously. At the same time, to leave a defenceless creature to the
ill usage of the barbarous Galwegians and licentious followers of
the Douglas was a thought which his manly heart could not brook
for an instant.

He was roused from his reverie by the voice of the monk, who,
sliding out his words with the indifference which the holy fathers
entertained, or affected, towards all temporal matters, desired
them to follow him. The smith put himself in motion, with a sigh
much resembling a groan, and, without appearing exactly connected
with the monk's motions, he followed him into a cloister, and through
a postern door, which, after looking once behind him, the priest
left ajar. Behind them followed Louise, who had hastily assumed
her small bundle, and, calling her little four legged companion,
had eagerly followed in the path which opened an escape from what
had shortly before seemed a great and inevitable danger.